1. How’s it going, Matteo? Was black/death metal always your primry musical choice, or have you meddled with other genres of music as well?
Hey man, everything Is fine here :). For this question i would like to answer yes and no, because before i even thought about doing this project i was and i still am in this band called "thar glan" (forgotten Memories at the time) which Is a progressive Symphonic band, though i was starting to develope a very strong passion for death metal so i decided to stay in the band and create the project at the same time
2. So you play all the instruments and sing? were you self-taught? Or did you get any kind of academic teaching?
For Guitar and bass i've taken lessons especially for guitar since It was my very first instrument, while for the vocals i didn't exactly learn how to false chord growl because it came Natural to me, then of course i whatched some YouTube tutorials for a Better understanding of the tecnique and i can get Better over time, so yes, what you Heard on the record are literally my first growls.
Drums are MIDI so I Guess they don't count hahaha
3. I assume your demo “Annihilate These Lambs” was recorded and mixed at your home studio. How did it work? How was the process of composing and recording these 5 tracks?
For the recordings i used my PC, my audio interface, reaper and all the plugins that you hear in the record. While the Songwriting process was helped by the pc, because you have a literal rappresentation of the song so It gets way easier to write songs if you can see the Song, so this helped me with the structure of all the songs, matter of fact, the idea for my song "patchwork" came up to me because of this method, i take a riff and i elaborate the best solution that i can come up with for developing the Song so It becomes something good (hopefully hahaha)
4. On the last single you expanded your sound a bit, while still retaining the brutality. How would you like to describe this development?
Well there Is a bit of developement for the vocals but for the sound itself i would consider this a change rather than a developement, i wanted Patchwork to sound different than Annihilate These Lambs to give those demos their own identity and even that can influence the Songwriting
5. Does it become easier with time to write songs or is it a much more difficult process in that you don´t want to repeat what you´ve already done?
It depends by the Song, because i can't do something too straightfoward so I'm kinda used to write something trying to not use the structure of another song, but It's not Always Easy and you can get stuck at a certain point though It can stimulate you to create something different so yeah, It depends by the song you are doing
6. What inspires you music and lyric-wise? What are the pros and the cons of the maturity and the experience of a musician when it comes to adequacy, originality and spontaneity?
I get the inspiration by things that happen in real Life, for example dogman talks about a real thing happened in Italy where this man claimed to open this guy's head to wash his brain with dog shampoo and other stuff because this guy was tormenting him for getting cocaine, even whore planter talks about a thing happened in Italy, in Vicenza (my city) to be precise, i think that this can be more effective than talking about zombies, monsters and stuff like that (i'm not saying Is bad, I'm Just saying i would not do that) also I'm not justifing the actions committed by those people of course, i'm portraying them.
For the Other question i would Say that i don't have that much experience since i play for only 5 years, but i can say that when you get more experience with your instrument naturally you have new possibilities that you Discover, like tecniques, arpeggios ecc... But the bad thing Is that all the solutions that you used before seems obsolete to you so you are kinda scared to used them to avoid sounding banal, even being spontaneous can be problematic for someone that has a certain experience, but When you find the right thing for the song every insecurity gets out of the way!
7. Do you get inspired to write such brutal music due to where you live, or the environment you grew up in?
Well i don't think that Is for any enviromental reasons, i just Discovered the music and i was Stoked about it
8. When you write songs, do you start with a visual concept, or a riff, or something else?
Even there It depends by the song, for example in annihilate these lambs i came up with the tematic first, while With segregated i came up with the instrumental and then the lyrics so It depends
9. How much time and effort do you spend on the band to get everything to look and sound the right way?
A lot hahaha, It keeps me occupied a big slice of my time and effort but It's Always worth It and It makes me feel amazing When things have the right momentum
10. This is a question that I often ask simply because I’ve never ever been in that position. What is it like to release an record? What kind of emotions runs through you?
Well It feels good of course, but personally the best feeling Is when you ultimated the Song and you can't wait to release it, and when you do It you feel like you closed a chapter of a book and you are ready to go into the next chapter
11. It seems that over the years, I am seeing more brutal bands coming out of Italy-what is this attributed to?
Good question! Well personally i didn't notice that but i could Say that Italy Is a country where the most Easy listening pop Is the predominant thing so metal Is still seen as a weird music for psychos, like if you listen to metallica you are a satanist or some shit for these people, so i think we like to scare the shit out of them hahahaha.
Also i think that the social state can have a Key Role into this. Firstable because people get offended by everything very easily nowdays, secondable because of the apathy that a musician like me can feel in this period and that can cause the reaction of needing something aggressive to contrast the sensibility of these people and the apathy.
Another thing maybe Is that old people are the majority of the population here, so even these people don't understand the genre and get scandalised over It so they marginalize It, and this also makes the perfect condition to write music like that, because people get scandalised about It if that make sense.
12. What’s your opinion about underground, these days? In which aspects the scene got better and in which aspects did it get worse?
The underground It's surely an interesting Place, that has pros and cons. The pros are that like i said It's more interesting to Discover bands like there are rough diamonds and when you talk to the members of these bands It's Amazing to share opinions about music ecc... Kinda like you are Building a group of people that support each other, like a family ( read the last sentence using the worst Dominick Torretto impression possible hahaha)
The bad thing for me personally Is that there are a lot of these bands that you know that are there but you fisically can't listen to them all, so you are left with too much bands that you want to listen but you can't
13. As a metalhead, I guess you enjoy to collect cool metal items. What are your jewels, and are there some demos, lps, eps, cds you are actually looking for?
I like to collect cds and stuff but i have nothing rare actually exept for some underground cds from my friends in music, the only thing that i am searching like the One piece, even digital, Is "the bleeding Dreams" by Infliction, an unfindable demo recorded in 1997 that have a very dark and Sad story behind It for the Murder of the singer (R.I.P. Fabio Tollis) that pulled out Amazing growls at the Age of 16, and After listening to "heretical" you can understand what the guy was capable of, so i would like to listen to it because i liked the First demo.
14. What do you do other than the band, for fun/work and do you like being in Italy?
I have a normal job as a worker in a factory, i do Electric motors and It's a nice normal job, i have another band called thar glan like I said before, we do modern metal (i think this Is the best definition because we cover up a lot of genres hahaha) and It's very contrasting with what I do with Famine hahahaha.
About living in Italy i can Say this, it's not so bad considering the cultural aspects, the places that you can visit ecc...but there are a lot of things that can be Better, for example burocracy here Is slow and tricky and It gives you the idea of something that it's not working properly, and then there are a lot of things that not only are bad, but are simply stupid and you feel like you live in the laughing stock of Europe, though i can't really complain because i have hasperger syndrome and ADHD so i have a lot of advantages from the state, but It can still get better in my opinion
15. Are there some parts of the world that really impress you due to the quality of the bands coming from the same area? Do you know something about Southamerican Scene?
Mmmmmm i would not pick a specific country but i like to discover bands from places that you would never tell, for example i Discovered 2 death metal bands from Curaçao and One of these bands,Theos, Is a really great One man band if I'm correct! I also discovered Nekhrah and Vomitile from Cyprus which are 2 great bands as well! From south america i don't know almost anything exept for the mainstream bands, i know evilrise though which Is an underground band from brazil, undercroft from chile and some Other bands, but i Will listen to some other bands from there because i think I'm losing a goldmine of death metal hahahahaha
16. Many thanks for your time. The last word is yours.
Thank you so much for the opportunity, i would have never thought that i would do an interview so early in my career, i take the occasion to thank the guys from thar glan, Jacopo from Adversor, Francesco from Fence on the forehead, aji krisandi that drew all of my artworks, my girlfriend and all of my friends that supported me and my project.
Also... There is an interesting idea that i want to at least try for my full lenght that started this whole project and there Is an hint of this idea in One of the songs...
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