[What is the ultimate idea behind the concept of Ester Drang?]


//I think the idea behind it is very simple. We all have a common given dream within us. It's just that we wanted to make music that we enjoy and that has meaning within it. Hopefully it speaks to others that hear it, and also I hope it points to things that are bigger than us. The songs are about spiritual things.

[What or who influences you musically?]

//There are too many musicians to list, but I think life is the big influence for me along with feelings and belief.

[What is the growth process of a song like?]

//The songwriting is frustrating. It starts when I record something on a four track. Then I present the song to the band and they add things, or they might change it around a bit.

[I sense an otherworldly, fantastic, maybe even heavenward looking sense to the songs...do any of these ideas play into the songs?]

//As far as otherworldly goes, I don't think we are even close. I've often wondered what music in heaven sounds like. It's the longing of the heart that makes music what it is. I wish I could play and sing as they do in heaven. If there is anything otherworldly in our songs it is not because of us. It is because it was given or we were inspired by something else.

[If the songs are partly focused towards another place, what grounds them in the here and now?]

//It is because we are still here for the time being. Eternity is forever and this life is just a blink. These songs will be gone as well, but there will be new songs to be sung. These songs only have their time and reason here, even if they were partly derived from elsewhere. I'm sorry but I think I sound crazy...I'm just an average guy that puts things I think about or just stuff that happens in life in songs. And it does point to something else - to the God I am inspired by to live and breathe, and to walk in this life beside other people, and to love as best I can with his help.

[What sort of books do you read?]

//Spiritual, fictional, and books for children like the C.S. Lewis stuff or books like Salman Rushdie's 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'.

[Do you have a favorite word? Why?]

//Hope - because it keeps me going and because of who created it.
 

 

-this interview was the pleasure of Melissa Marie.