When "Out Of Myself" spills over to Germany via the American label Laserʼs Edge in 2004 and from then on circulates as a real insider tip in the prog scene, the album is already more than a year old ... Together with singer/bassist Mariusz Duda we look back at the early days of Riverside, but first direct the focus on the present and the near future.
eclipsed: Mariusz, how are you dealing with the rigors of the Corona pandemic?
Mariusz Duda: After we had to cancel our tour in the middle of March 2020, we initially prescribed Riverside a longer break. For me personally, it was relatively easy mentally, because I could immediately deal with Lunatic Soul's next album, which then came out in November. In addition, I released "Lockdown Spaces" on bandcamp under my own name, which is a minimalist electronic album that was basically made in the same time. But also our guitarist Maciej Meller, who is now a full band member, and keyboardist Michał Łapaj have been working on solo albums [both also available via bandcamp; author's note].
eclipsed: When are you planning to reactivate Riverside?
Duda: Mitloff [drummer Piotr Kozieradzki's nickname; ed.] has been remodeling our rehearsal space for the past few months. Then in January we decided that we wanted to tackle a new album in the near future.
eclipsed: With the re-release of "LostʼnʼFound - Live In Tilburg" and now "Out Of Myself", your focus was more on the past.
Duda: I had even considered whether a re-release of the "Voices In My Head" EP would also make sense, but that might have been a bit too much of a good thing
eclipsed: Looking at your musical past at the time, it was actually rather unlikely that you would come together as Riverside ...
Duda: Each of us had already gained many years of experience in other bands. Piotr Kozieradzki was previously active in various death metal bands, and also Piotr Grudziński [guitarist, deceased in 2016; note] actually came rather from the metal corner. Nevertheless, the two of them were also into progressive sounds on the side, a commonality they discovered during a car ride while listening to a Marillion tape ["Clutching At Straws"; note]. They went on to form the band later. I'm the only one who has always played progressive rock and joined on the recommendation of our first keyboardist Jacek Melnicki, who rented rehearsal rooms to our then current bands at the same time.
