THRESHOLD keyboard player Richard West recently spoke to Rock Realms, covering topics such as musical influences, the song-writing process and a forthcoming Threshold release. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Rock Realms: "Along with Karl (Groom - guitar), you tend to write all the Threshold music. Is the process ongoing, or do you specifically sit down and write an album as a standalone entity?

West: "We specifically sit down to write the album at the time. Obviously there are some ideas that come up between albums and they get noted down and are sometimes included, but generally the writing comes at a specific point in time. I think that way we get a more coherent album because it reflects our mindset at the time of writing, both for the music and the lyrics. Between albums we normally get involved in other recording projects outside of Threshold, and that helps expand our horizons musically so when we come back to Threshold we’ve got new ways of approaching the writing process. It’s the same lyrically, you learn from life and then you have something new to talk about, so an album’s lyrics become a snapshot of who you are and what you’re going through at the time."

Rock Realms: Are there any plans in the pipeline for a new album?

West: "We don’t have a date for starting a new studio album yet, but we’re just putting the finishing touches on a collection of Threshold rarities to release direct to our fans. It includes one or two unreleased songs nobody outside the band knew existed. Over the years there’s been stuff that never got past the demo stage for one reason or another, so we’ve gone back to the studio to complete some of those works. It’s a bit like having new bonus tracks for old albums. So we’ve had Damian back in the studio and also our old vocalist Glynn Morgan who I hadn’t seen for years. It was really good to work with them both again. We should be releasing it later on this year."

Read the entire interview here.