1. Hello, pleasure to have you on Rotten Pages ´zine. How are you doing today? Let us set the scene first. Where do we find you right now? Please describe your surroundings.
C: Hi, thanks for the support and for hosting us on your webzine. I currently live in Trieste, on the outskirts. I try to lead a peaceful life and manage my mental problems. It's not easy for me to exist in this world. I'm deeply bored.
D:I feel wonderful.
2. IEROFANIA was emerged from the nostalgic, windy and decayed Trieste. How is it like living on these port city at the north-east of Italy?
C: The city is beautiful and I am deeply fond of it. I try to go to the city center as little as possible because I don't like being surrounded by people and their negative energy. We have some very beautiful woods where you can find some peace and inspiration. Unfortunately it is completely dead from a musical point of view and it is difficult to find serious people to collaborate with.
D: Is a merchant city with many cultures and everyone doing his own business and has heavy historical past. Nice place. Between sea and hills.
3. Could you tell us about the personal musical background of each member and how you came to work with each other?
C: I have always been immersed in music since I was little. My dad was a percussionist and music enthusiast and I had access to his entire vinyl collection, mainly Rock. At 17 I started playing bass and I put an advert in a local newspaper looking for other people who were passionate about Black Metal to play together and that's how I met D.
D: I started singing black metal and playing guitars when I was 14. I played industrial and power electronics. And now since many years I’m devoted to eastern classical music tradition.
4. On your bio, you´ve mentioned this material is published at the end of a twenty year long cycle. It sounds like you guys had a lot of work making this album – what was the writing process like for this one?
C: When we started the Ierofania project in 2003 we wrote and recorded a lot of music. After about a year D. moved to another city for study reasons and started experimenting with the voice. Then for many years the project remained buried until I decided to complete it by adding the drums. Even if D. is no longer interested in Black Metal he was always involved during all the last stages of the album's making.
D: For me black metal was a serious thing and not something to find appreciation for. Then it was part of a research to Truth. After finished the album I had other urgent artistic needs.
5. One of the distinguishing qualities of the album is the pitch-black atmosphere of pure hatred and hopelessness, I really find this kind of particularity quite rare from what other bands offer today. Did you have some kind of a vision to nail a specific sound when you got to write and record the music?
C: Your analysis of the album is very interesting. I'd be curious to know what you think is missing from the other bands that you've heard in the Ierofania project. Anyway, when I compose I already have in mind the atmosphere I want to achieve and therefore everything grows and evolves in a natural way. The atmosphere is a catharsis, I don't wish anyone a life of hate. I think that if you need to express your emotions through Black Metal you have to be a serious and professional person without being an exhibitionist.
D: Well the situation changed a lot in 20 years. Social media fucked up the scene…
Black metal is underground, has to go to an elite of persons. Today everything is TV!
Mass medias makes people “posers” and “poser” attitude destroy everithing.
There is a clear vision and research regarding the sound of guitars, riffs, chords that is the Ierofania mark. I was visualzing it like two huge columns of doom rithmic guitars and trumpet like guitars seen through them. The vision for the vocals changed each song. I was fond with vocal research and expression of different negative emotions.
6. Do you cope with your own emotions through your music and if so: how? Through the writing or performance?
C: When I release an album then I have reached the end of an important emotional journey and by my nature I start to hate what I have done. In the past I didn't face the evil inside me. I have been a self-harmer and sought relief in alcohol. Now I put everything into music and meditation trying to face my demons with courage.
D: The guitars are like wings of majesty that transform into flight the negative emotions of wrath, depression, pain. Black metal is not a fully negative genere because guitars and drums are not, actually the style of black metal opens certain spiritual doors that death metal or thrash does not. Is also more bounded with ancient traditions. They have some subtile therapeutic properties. Wile vocals are a different thing. Singing is more linked to the emotions, you don’t have the filter of an instrument. Certain vocal styles are more detached and technical. But is important to be truthful otherwise becomes fake and weak. So is a performative art that requires a state, a deep preparation and an inner research which in black metal is quite dark. Without the saving properties of guitar it would have been a destructive process to perform them. Sone people think that I have pushed myself to some extreme limits. And this is true. But black metal is a safe territory, it can transform the emotions, unlike other black holes such as power electronics and certain industrial, which I used to play, where the darkness can have no limits and bring you to death.
7. With seven distinctive tracks on the album, how do you ensure that each song stands out individually while also contributing to the overall flow and cohesiveness of the record?
C: Honestly, I don't think this way. I let things happen naturally by following my inner light. I never plan the songs beforehand.
D: There is a Ierofania sound as I said. Decided that cohesiveness of the atmosphere is guaranteed and you can focus in individual songs.
8. How do you record your music? A pro tools set up? Garage band? Are you selftaught or do you have a friend that helps out with the mixes etc?
C: I don't really like talking about the technical aspect of my job in interviews but I use Cubase and in my home studio I take care of pre-production. I collaborate with the Palo Alto Studio in Trieste for editing, mixing and mastering. I also take care of the visual part myself.
D: We composed and recorded everything by ourself because we believe that sound is part of the art. Once the project is done you can go to a studio to polish and make the mastering. You can’t have an atmosphere if the timbre of sounds are decided by someone else.
9. Can you briefly inform us about the overall lyrical theme of the album? How does the natural environment and surroundings influence your music, both in terms of inspiration and atmosphere?
D: The guitars are quite inspired by the strong wind that blows in our region. The first lyrics are linked to the nature around us that was battlefield of the first world war. Than the subject slowly moves to more subjective concept. Ineptitude, depression, and wrath and death. Pure darkness.
10. What is your favorite part of writing and performing music? What are some of the challenges you face as a musician?
C: I don't consider myself a musician, I like writing and working with music, everything that comes after is a burden I have to face to turn my vision into reality.
D: Is a necessity to produce art for me. And I don’t care so much about sharing it. I need to take out my emotions through music. Like some people need to make some sports. I need to do it every day. And I love when emotions transform into good majestic sounds.
11. Regarding composition, How do you guys go about writing your music, who is responsible for what?
C: We wrote and recorded all the guitar parts together, then D. took care of the lyrics and the vocals and I took care of the drums.
12. What is your creative routine? Is there some piece of gear you wouldn’t be able to work without?
C: Usually I start playing the guitar and if it's fate I can compose but it's been a long time since I wrote new music, in recent years I've only been involved in producing the two albums released for my label Il Grido - Incisioni Sonore.
D: There are some pieces of gears that we used for this album, but I can’t say are absolutely necessary. The important is the art of using them.
Normal approach, riff, song, vocals…
13. What is your opinion about the Italian black metal scene in general? Do you think the scene is more active than it was before?
C: I don't particularly follow the Italian scene so I can't give a serious opinion. In general I think there are many more bands than in the past, but this is not a good thing at all. I don't even know if there are people who listen to Black Metal in our city.
D: I think it was always weak, with some exceptions, and this album is probably one of the best one that came out from Italy. Scene seems quite dead now. Very difficult for black metal to survive in the time of social medias.
14. If we think at your native place, the history and the heritage of the country, what is the thing that you like most about this land, its people and their habits?
C: The problem with Italy is that it is full of Italians. I don't consider Italy as my motherland, just a place in the world where I was born. Borders are an illusion, we are all children of the same light and we live where our heart lives.
D: Well, we come from a city that was Austria for 800 years, we don’t feel italian so much.
15. As a black metal band, what are your opinions about the stereotype that the “original black metal” (formed in the 90’s by the early Norwegian bands) is fading away from its true origins?
C: I agree that Black Metal is no longer what it was in its origins. Time passes and music changes. But I don't care about these things, the important thing is to stay true to yourself. Personally I don't follow the latest releases too much, I'm a nostalgic person and listen more to old albums.
D: Black metal seems an easy genere to play and that’s why there where thousands of bands copying like parrots what you are calling “orginal black metal”. Is that original? No is not. So is normal that is fading. Is actually not a fading, but a diluition.
Progress is to understand the core and bring something new, within certain borders of the genere. Also put together different things to make something new is not working well. When the album was finshed there was a band that I thought succeed perfectly in this job: Sunn o))
Notice that they are american. It came back to the real origins which are not norvegian. Electric guitars, drums, are american instruments.
16. How do you define “underground” and where do you see yourself and your band in it?
C: I don't know if with the advent of liquid music and streaming we can talk about underground anymore. We are dispersed in an ocean of productions.
D: Underground was comprehending many realities that for different reasons they could not pass to the masses. Some because simply they couldn’t others because where made for a few particular persons. Black metal belongs to this last category. It would be poison for the masses. For some is medicine.
17. We have reached the end of our conversation, is there something that you want to say still?
C: I want to thank you for the interview and wish everyone a peaceful life. Listen to our album with an open mind and immerse yourself in its depths.
D: Future of music is in the Past. In the Tradition. Future of music starts where electricity is shut off. Future of music is close to the human heart. And this is going to be the underground that we need.
Commentaires