Mick Pointer & Clive Nolan on 30 years of Arena

Back in 1993 Mick Pointer and Clive Nolan met and the seeds were planted for a collaboration. That was to be just one album. But when they were working on this album, that would become Songs from the Lion’s Cage, it was already decided that there would be at least one more album, which would become Pride. 30 years later Arena are still here, have grown to be one of the best progressive rockbands, released 10 studio albums and several live albums and dvd’s.

Personally, Arena means a lot to me. Although I did pick up on the band back in 1995, it would take about 5 years, before I would really get into them and become a huge fan. Over the years I have seen Arena many, many times, probably the band I have seen live on stage most in my life.

Additionally, I have had the pleasure to work with Clive Nolan on his She musical, both for the website as well as videographer. I once organized a fundraiser for Clive’s upcoming musical Alchemy and for that reason he and several other musicians, stayed at my house. Very memorable was that we got to hear the upcoming new Arena album The Secenth Degree of Seperation then!

I really wish there was more time, because 30 minutes to cover 30 years is not nearly enough, so in this interview we could only touch on a few topics, but it was nice to finally have Mick Pointer along with Clive. It was a real pleasure to talk with them.