What does the title, Yesterwynde, mean?
“It’s a made-up word. There's this thing called The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows. It gave me the idea that if you don't have an English word to describe a certain emotion, you can just make your own. This particular dictionary is dedicated to that, like, the feeling of longing for a place that you have never been in. What is that feeling? And it was something weird, I can remember. And this album was born from a certain sensation that I felt really strongly, but I couldn't find a word in human language to describe it. So I started to talk with Troy [Donockley, multi-instrumentalist] and said, ‘Should we come up with a new word? Does that make any sense to you?’ And he's like, ‘Yeah, that's a brilliant idea. What did you have in mind?’ It was something like time, memories going black and white, sepia, and I said, ‘something yesterday’. Then he said, ‘How about Yesterwynde?’ That's perfect! But yeah, it's just a made up word to describe what the album is about."
A sense of longing?
"Not so much longing as realising what time is all about. Realising that there is such a thing as time and past and history. The internet and YouTube is full of these old black-and-white images, and even video clips, that you first see in black-and-white, and then they have been coloured. Have you seen those? That's the effect that I get at the moment. It's like it's coming from an other dimension, these are black-and-white images, then you colour it, and it's right there, as if it was filmed yesterday. Something happens in my mind when I see those. I thought, 'This has to be put into a song or into an album somehow.' Suddenly, you feel so connected to the past generations, and those people that you see in those images. They've all had their lives, their ups and downs, and they don't exist anymore, except as atoms scattered all over the universe. And we're going to be in that state pretty soon as well. So that should give you something to think about."
Are you just worried about getting older?
"Not at all – on the contrary (laughs). But they are the ultimate cliche of: seize the day. That's something that I think about more and more. We're all going to be dead soon. It's just a matter of what you're gonna do before that."
That's a very positive outlook. You can hear that in the record. There's an enthusiasm, rather than a sense of bleakness or defeat…
"Yes! Spot on! People often ask, 'Where do you get the inspiration?' Well, just look at this world, look at everything's that happening. Look at the sky, the scientific innovations. History is so full of stories that are just a bottomless pit of inspiration. And also, especially these days, there's a lot of fear mongering going on, like end-of-the-world scenarios, which I find, let's say 'distressing', but also a bit annoying, because humankind has ceased to see the good that we have accomplished as well. There is no denying that the world is going through a horrible stage at the moment. But it's always been like that. If you go back to the Middle Ages, things were much worse. Throughout the human history, it's always been like this. But now because of fear mongering, and the media, and the authorities, whether political or religious, telling us that it's all coming to an end, we have to repent. And a lot of people buy into it, and they live miserable lives. Because of that, they forget the beauty of existence. It's an unbelievable stroke of luck, and a privilege, that we are actually alive. So you might as well enjoy it."
There's a song called The Antikythera Mechanism, which is the name of an ancient Greek device used for astronomy. You don't get many bands writing about that…
"Yeah, it's considered today to be the first analogue computer made by mankind. So, imagine that 2,200 years ago, in ancient Greece, they were able to build a computer. It just blew my mind when I read about this machine in a science magazine, and I thought that the world needs to know about this. Well, now everybody knows because of the new Indiana Jones film, because that's also about this particular mechanism. But yeah, it had to be done into a song.
"I was just thinking that humankind was so advanced back in those days that were able to build a machine like this. What happened? What if religions hadn't happened, or the burning of The Library Of Alexandria hadn't happened, where would mankind be today? Maybe we would be living all across the solar system already. Who knows?"
Again, it feels like there's still a very positive outlook there in the music, rather than moaning that it's all gone wrong.
"I think it comes down to the word 'imagination', which is the biggest strength that we have as human species, compared to the other lower species. We like to imagine things, imagine things that might be better on the other side of the fence and things we will never have. But also imagination takes us to huge innovations. So it's a really good thing.
"The ancient Greeks did that with their computer. They started to imagine, 'Is there a way to predict those solar eclipses or star constellations moving? I bet there is, let's start building this machine.' So it all started from the imagining. It's similar with creating any art or music. Could there be a way to tell a story through music? I do that a lot. There's a song on the album called The Children Of 'Ata, which is a wonderful story of these kids on a deserted island and surviving there for 15 months. I heard the story and thought, 'There has to be a way to put this into music.'
"It's a crazy story, from not that long ago, 1965. I think some of the kids are still alive. It's important to tell these stories, because it really did happen. And maybe it can change the human perspective of the concept that if you take a bunch of people and put them into an isolated place for a certain period of time, they become savages. But this is proof that that's not the case. So they are a perfect example that humankind has hope."