With 30 years in the music business under his belt, and 15 of those years spent building his Ayreon empire, Dutch songwriter / guitarist / singer Arjen Lucassen has tasted more success than failure. Ironically, one of his biggest victories was a step outside the Ayreon universe in 2002 with the science fiction movie-inspired project, Star One. The debut album, Space Metal, showcased Lucassen’s '70s-flavoured heavier side rather than his trademark prog-epic approach, having trimmed his arsenal down to only four vocalists instead of using a double-digit rogues gallery of singers. A bold move, and a nice change after five Ayreon records. During an interview in September 2009 for yet another side-project – the melancholic yet epic Guilt Machine – Lucassen let it slip that he was working on new material with tentative plans to record a follow-up to Space Metal, which came as a pleasant surprise to many fans. He’d never said never, but Lucassen had also been open in the press about his reservations in revisiting the project. With the completion of Guilt Machine those doubts vanished and Victims Of The Modern Age was born; an album more than heavy and metal enough to suggest it's a reaction to the Pink Floydian atmosphere of its predecessor

“Yeah, it is a reaction, but it’s always like that,” says Lucassen. “Guilt Machine was quite a different album, with the long intros and then getting heavy, then getting softer, with these difficult and deep lyrics. To be honest I got a bit sick of all the comments about how people needed to get used to the album, how they had to play it numerous times before they liked it. It was like, ‘Dammit! Hate it or like it, but don’t say that you have to get used to it!’ I was wondering if that was a polite way of saying they think Guilt Machine sucked (laughs). Definitely, this Star One album is a reaction to that. It’s in your face, there are no long build-ups, the songs are shorter and catchier.”
“When I did the first album a lot of people asked if there would be a second one,” he continues. “I kept saying that there’s always a Part 2 and it’s never as good as the original, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again. But I was mostly thinking about the touring aspect of it because when we did that tour it was very special. I brought a group of people together that didn’t know each other, so it was a very spontaneous thing. I knew that I wanted to do a metal album after Guilt Machine, and that automatically brought me to Star One because that’s my metal project. So I was thinking that maybe I should do it, but with different singers than the first album. The more I thought about it, though, I realized there was no way I could replace Damien (Wilson / Threshold), Russell (Allen / Symphony X), Dan (Swanö / Edge Of Sanity) or Floor (Jansen / ReVamp, ex-After Forever) with other people and call it a Star One album because they’re all so unique.”

The European tour for the Space Metal record cemented the Star One line-up for Lucassen’s fans. Particularly since he went to the trouble of putting out a quality DVD in 2003 (Live On Earth) to commemorate it, and with limited resources at his disposal. Using other singers for the new album would have been a crime.

“Definitely,” Lucassen agrees. “I’ve got Ayreon for all the vocalist experiments and working with different musicians. Star One has to have the same line-up. It was difficult, though, especially with getting Russell because he was busy working on the new Symphony X album, but the reason why I started the whole Star One thing and the reason I worked with these people in the first place is because they’re fans of my music and they’re friends. It was easy to get them on board the first time around, so I knew they’d be on board for this album whether they had time or not. Russell took a couple days off from Symphony X and flew to Holland to record for Star One.”

Par for the course when working with Lucassen, who frowns on keeping things simple by emailing music back and forth. He prefers the as-it-happens approach to music that comes with working side-by-side.

“No, that’s never an option because great things happen when you’re together in the studio,” says Lucassen, the voice of experience. “You’re working on something together but it’s not coming together, so you try things a different way. A good example is the end of the track 'Victim Of The Modern Age'. I wanted Russell to do an ad-lib there and just repeat words from the verses. But then he came up with the idea to sing 'Singing In The Rain' like the main character in the rape scene in the movie A Clockwork Orange, which the song is based on. We were laughing about that and wondering if we could get away with it. Of course we could (laughs). That sort of thing doesn’t happen when you’re recording in a home studio and sending files back and forth via email. It was important to have those guys in my studio for a couple days to record their parts. It always is no matter what project I’m doing.”

Once in the studio, however, the vocalists weren’t subjected to Lucassen’s every creative whim. On the contrary, he was all about nurturing the band atmosphere of Star One.

“They get my guide vocals but I always encourage them to change the melodies, or even the lyrics, to their own particular style,” he admits. “I had to learn to do that. In the beginning of Ayreon I wanted them to stick to my melodies, but then after working with amazing singers like Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Jorn Lande (Masterplan, Avantasia) and Russell Allen I found that I get a much better result when I just let them do their thing.”

Asked if he ever had to put on his director’s hat and more or less demand something better out of his Star One singers…

“Oh no, I wouldn't dare! I might say ‘Wow, can you do that even better?’ or ‘Excellent! Can I have another take, a bit different?’ but I never ordered anyone around.”

With regards to the album concept – because Lucassen rarely works without one – Victims Of The Modern Age is a little more down-to-earth than Space Metal. Literally.

“On the first album Space Metal all the songs were based on movies that were set in space, hence the title Space Metal. This time, because the music is darker and more down-to-earth, the songs are based on dystopian and post-apocalyptic movies that are set here on Earth.”

The majority of Lucassen’s projects feature his refreshing ‘70s gatefold approach with regards to presentation, and Victims Of The Modern Age ranks on that list. The music is his top priority, but in Lucassen’s mind there’s no reason why an equal amount of care shouldn’t go into the artwork and packaging, even when a large number of fans exhibit a lack of appreciation for his efforts by downloading the album illegally.

“I just don't think about it,” says Lucassen, “and I only start worrying about that after I invested time and money in the artwork and it's too late. As a kid, cool artwork was always very important to me. I even bought LPs because of the beautiful front cover, gatefold sleeve and lyric sheet, so I will always keep doing that. I believe in spoiling the fans and giving them worth for their money, and at some point I'm happy to say that I gained their trust by never disappointing them, so now they order my albums even without listening to them first. I also think that I have a very loyal fanbase who still want to have the original tangible article in their possession.”

Sadly, there are the others that don’t think twice about claiming "I'm your biggest fan!” even as they scoff the music for free....

“Hmm... I suddenly get visions of Kathy Bates in Stephen King's Misery (laughs).”