He speaks softly, coughs again and again, because he is suffering from a nasty cold. Which is not really good if you are on a tour for several months and have a lot of press dates. Robert Plant was about to cancel it. But because eclipsed travelled to his hotel in Birmingham especially for him, he turns good mines into evil games. At first he tries very hard, but seems more and more annoyed, the more the conversation shifts towards Led Zeppelin. However, the 66-year-old is not allowed to complain about this: After all, he continues to play the Seventies legend's pieces live, shoots at Page/Jones on stage and is the one who blocks the reunion tour in public perception. Time for clarifying words.

eclipsed: Robert, you've been working with new bands since the late nineties. At the moment it is the Sensational Space Shifters, most of whose members have been with Strange Sensation since 2002..

The workhorse Joe Bonamassa had surprisingly prescribed himself a good one-year studio break until a new solo album. In the sixteen months between "Driving Towards The Daylight" and the new album "Different Shades Of Blue", two products with Beth Hart (the second studio album "Seesaw" as well as the DVD/CD "Live In Amsterdam") were released; the New Yorker also released the live DVD/CDs "Beacon Theatre: Live From New York", "An Acoustic Evening At The Vienna Opera House" and "Tour De Force". This proves that the blues rocker is still tirelessly on the road in ever larger concert halls all over the world. His latest work is a very special one, because "Different Shades Of Blue" consists - unusual for Bluesers in general and Bonamassa in particular - only of original compositions. The singer/guitarist wrote these alone as well as in cooperation with other musicians.

eclipsed: Are you happy with the way you did the new songs in the studio?

A full five years lay between "Dead Reckoning" (2007) and "March Of Progress" (2012). Five years in which almost all members of Threshold were also busy with personal and private changes. The negative highlight in 2011 was the death of their former singer Andrew "Mac" McDermott, who left the band in 2007. Meanwhile the new line-up with guitarist Pete Morten and the returnee Damian Wilson has worked out very well. A more fan-friendly frontman than Wilson, who has an outstanding voice and a similar charisma, can hardly be wished for by a rock group: Before the beginning of a concert, he likes to mix with the audience, sounds and jokes with them. The man with the Rübezahl beard is also very open in the interview. The usual promotion snack for the new album quickly becomes a minor matter.

eclipsed: Usually guitarist Karl Groom and keyboarder Richard West do the interviews for you. You'd better back off. What's the matter with you?

Little Bray on the Irish Sea is a place modelled on classic British seaside resorts. Without a pier, but with a long beach promenade, nice cafés and busloads full of pensioners and families with small children who want to sniff sea air in the cloudy Irish summer. And they probably don't even know whose front door they are strolling along on Strand Road, the main road on the waterfront. Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor resides with her four children in a large, white, two-storey building whose angles are in the Rastafari colours (it couldn't be more striking). A single mother who receives in leather trousers, T-shirt, pink slippers and with a freshly shorn head and striking tattoos on her face (red hearts on both cheeks). Although she cooks coffee and inquires about flight and arrival, she is not really cordial. More suspicious and hesitant. The chaos in the kitchen and living room is visibly unpleasant for her. Which is why she's asking to her first floor retreat.

The past months have been hard, but the work has more than paid off", a satisfied Clemens Mitscher will say at the end of the day. In a seminar Mitscher wanted to teach his students the technology of analog and digital photography under the difficult conditions of a rock concert. "Nobody would have thought at the time that the project would take on such proportions," he was amazed. Didi Zill, renowned photographer of music celebrities from rock and pop, who had the Stones, Pink Floyd and Deep Purple in front of his lens in the 70s and 80s, for example, also travelled by train from Munich to Frankfurt to attend the opening of the exhibition. He is very impressed by the juxtaposition of rock photography classics and the courageous, spirited pictures of the up-and-coming photographers. "I had already given a lecture at the university and was pleasantly surprised at how interested the young people were - and that they showed understanding and interest for analogue photography

Lightness can mean really hard work. So Amplifier had to rehearse intensively for four months before they went into the studio with the material for their "summer album", as Sel Balamir likes to call his youngest baby. The founder and creative head of the band explains in an interview with eclipsed why the basic idea was to make a relatively straightforward noise and to convey a "Back to the roots" feeling.

eclipsed: It is said that "The Octopus" and "Mystoria" - two completely different albums - were made at the same time. How did this happen?

Steve Morse, guitarist at Deep Purple since 1994, has been a musically highly motivated lover with the name Flying Colors for about three years.

"It's an extraordinary stroke of luck that we met in this formation and can now pass the balls to each other like this. There's no no go in this band, anything's possible." The fact that this musician from Florida, who has often been honored as the best "overall guitarist", particularly likes this is noticeable in the fact that there is hardly an interview with him - no matter whether the occasion is Deep Purple or his Steve Morse band - in which the language does not come from the Flying Colors. The most prominent member of the dream team is former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, about whom Morse says: "The guy loves to organize, and that's also necessary for our other activities, because I'm glad that we can do a few concerts with the band at all in autumn"

FLYING COLORS - One Love Forever (7:16)
Album: Second Nature (2014)
Label/Distribution: Music Theories/Mascot/Rough Trade
www.flyingcolorsmusic.com

Flying Colors' "Second Nature" is again a treasure trove for ingenious melody arcs, embedded in a prog-oriented sound. Even more than in their other band projects the namesakes Steve and Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Dave LaRue and Casey McPherson can spread musically here.