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RS: So why did you decide to cover Love Bites, what was the inspiration behind that song?
Valentin: It?s an interesting story. We had been working with Hosh Gureli from J Records and he was helping to guide what QED was doing. He said we should do a cover, just make sure it?s the right cover. I let it gel in my head for a little while and it came to me out of the blue. I was going through the idea on a long drive upstate New York, just driving by myself cruising along.


I was just going through songs that I felt melodically were really strong and from a musical standpoint had that drama and angst that with the proper arrangement could really come out. I was thinking of big power ballads, because I think that they have the right pace and about the right feel that with the right treatment they can really come across really well. I hit on Love Bites and called up Marc Benjamin, my partner, immediately, and I said that?s it, we?ve got to do this song. I just knew, you know. It wasn?t long after that, I started playing around with the ideas and then the concept of throwing the voice back and forth between Kristine and myself, and it was boom, there you go. It was a total inspiration and that tends to be how I work.

I?ve been doing work for other clients now and that?s a very different vibe, but when it comes to almost anything that I do musically, I really like to work entirely from inspiration. If it gets me excited honestly and really gets in my gut, then I have a feeling that other people will like it.

It was the same thing with the Deborah Cox mix, their label called up, said do you want to give this track a shot? I sat down at the keyboard and started playing things, it was like boom. The whole concept of what I was going to do with it was there in seconds flat, the rest of it was just fleshing out the production and arranging. But how it started was just complete inspiration.

RS: So you sing as well as you produce, is it hard to work with your own vocals as opposed to working with a stranger?s vocals?
Valentin: No, not really. Even when I talk to people I?ve always amused myself, and hopefully a few other people, by doing voice characterizations and impressions of people that I know or famous people and I tend to be a bit of a ham anyway. So in vocal performances I?ve always tried to be a little bit of a chameleon and get a kick out of committing that to a record and being able to listen to it and sculpt it. Most of it is understanding what I need to do to translate an emotion across. I started doing vocals and guitar, when I was in college playing coffee houses with an acoustic guitar. So I?m very familiar with the concept of emoting through my voice and this is an opportunity to take it to the next level, polish the performance and make it something that hopefully people will want to listen to over and over again. In the course of working back and forth with Kristine in the studio, because she?s able to do so many different things with her voice, we get on a roll and pass the idea back and forth. Hopefully we end up with something recorded that people can really relate to and enjoy and, God willing, listen to over and over again.

RS: What does QED actually stand for?
Valentin: Ah, the important question. Actually QED is Latin, it?s quod erat demonstrandum. What it means, roughly translated, is "that which was to be shown." There?s a whole bunch of reasons of why QED and why Mobius, which is the name of our album, why it all just kind of made sense. But QED is basically, it?s something that goes at the end of a mathematical proof, because I?ll place it in some context and end up like a big geek. I?m into technology and learning and I like to delve into things at avery analytical level. Outside of the more artistic and creative side of me, there?s definitely the more technical side. I did stuff with QED because QED was conceived from the ground up to be a multimedia artist. There?s a lot more to it than just dance music, there?s a lot more to it than just the music itself. There?s also the visual component which we integrate into our live performances.