Rocknotes' Steph Perry has issued an interview with former FATES WARNING vocalist John Arch (ARCH/MATHEOS). An excerpt follows:

Q: What does it mean to you to hear all the positive comments about the Arch/Matheos album?

A: "I try not to swim in the praise, but the only way I can put it is: it’s a big relief to me. Sticking my neck out after all these years of silence and then to come back. And with the expectations of the fans and being older and a lot of variables, it was kind of a scary thing to even get involved with this. Having said that, when it’s all said and done, I am really just thrilled that it’s a good positive response. I don’t do well with criticism (laughs) and I wanted to do well on this. I’m really pleased."

Q: When you guys did the recording for the album, did you do it together in the studio or were parts recorded separately?

A: "Basically it started with just Jim and myself. Jim had some material written and wanted to know if I was interested in hearing it and giving it some thought. So I went up to his studio in New Hampshire, just him and I, and at first it was just sitting around and talking and listening to a couple of things he had. So after hearing some of the material, it sounded like it was up my alley as far as the type of music I thought might be inspiring to me to do some writing. So many trips from my home in Connecticut to his studio in New Hampshire, basically every weekend I would drive up there and we would go through the demo process, I would listen to what he had and would take it home and put the headphones on and listen to it over and over and over again. And just one step at a time it started coming together, and before you know it we were immersed in it and there was no turning back at that point. We were on our way to getting something accomplished. In the early stages it was just Jim and myself, and then at some point I think even before I started writing the lyrics and melody lines to Jim’s compositions, Bobby Jarzombek had been involved with some of it because it had originally been slated for Fates Warning. For some reason Ray wasn’t available at the time, and Jim just doesn’t like sitting around and he wanted to do something with this music.

So, to get back to the question, Bobby had already been working on some of this material, not in-depth but he had an idea of probably half the album. So at that point where I stepped in, you could tell there was a direction. Joey and Frank came in after the demos were done, and it was time to wipe clean the demo drums that are done electronically by Jim. Bobby started sending back what he put down on the music and it was of course totally different and so original. As far as Joey is concerned we were never in the same room at the same time for this album, it was all sent electronically to Joey and he put the bass lines down. And then Frank was the last one to come in to put leads down, and he did go up to the studio with Jim and they worked together and bounced ideas off of each other. So really the first time that I saw Bobby was when we went into the studio to put his drum tracks down. Joey, unfortunately until this video we did was the only time that I saw him. So that’s how it actually worked. It’s amazing I was kind of blown away, having done it in this fashion which I know a lot of bands do, when you listen to the album it doesn’t sound that way to me, it sounds like a cohesive group and it sounds like there’s chemistry between all of us. It sounds like we were in the same room writing and recording together."

Read the full interview at this location.

Arch/Matheos' new album, Sympathetic Resonance, debuted at #13 on the Billboard New Artist Chart and at #36 on the Billboard Hard Music Chart and has also hit the international charts at #27 in Germany, #67 in Austria, and #78 in Switzerland.

Arch/Matheos, which features vocalist John Arch along with current Fates Warning members Jim Matheos on guitar, Joey Vera on bass, Bobby Jarzombek on drums, and Frank Aresti on additional lead guitar, have been confirmed for the 15th edition of Germany's Keep It True festival, set to take place April 27th - 28th, 2012 at Tauberfrankenhalle in Lauda-Königshofen. The group's setlist will include early Fates Warning material performed live for the first time in Europe with Arch on vocals.

Check out BraveWords.com's interview with John Arch at this location.