Enchant - "The New Progressive Rock Gods?!" Page 2
by Martin Popoff

"That comes from a lyric on the album that Ted (ed. Leonard, vocals) wrote," begins Ott. "At the time we were doing the record, he was feeling really, really stressed. He's got a brand new baby girl, he's got a job, a wife, a house payment, friends, the band, a cover band, and he's also doing some work with somebody else's studio, so he's really busy. He was going, 'God, I just feel so stretched out!' And I said, 'well write about it!' And I gave him a song, which turned out to be 'Juggling Knives'. He brought back the lyrics and we started to track it, and the one line in the song said, 'now my choice is juggling nine or dropping ten' and I thought 'damn, that's exactly how I feel because of everything I'm doing with this record right now.' Because with this album I've done more than ever. I did my normal producing thing and did all the recording and the engineering but I also wrote lyrics, wrote the music, played guitar, bass, keyboards, sang on the album, was very involved in the mix and mastering, the artwork, the concept, the pictures and the photography. So I just had so much going on that I just felt, this really sums up what's going on on this record (laughs). So I said, this is the title of the album, and Ted said, 'you're right, that's perfect.'"

What stands Enchant apart from so much else on the prog to metal continuum right now is the band's sweet, sweet choruses. It ain't prog metal and it ain't power metal (both crowded fields), but something closer to progressive pop. Weird, refreshing and everlasting. I asked Doug to run down the trip from Blueprint to Juggling.

"Well, that's a hard one. Early on our influences were Yes, Genesis, Marillion, then later stuff like Dream Theater and Queensryche, Saga. But I've always been the biggest fan of pop, especially stuff like Todd Rundgren. But I haven't allowed too much of it to come into Enchant until now."

Enchant - "The New Progressive Rock Gods?!" Page 3