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Black Book meets The Avalanche Diaries today!
Hello everyone !
I'm Alessandro, singer. -Gabriele guitar -Gabriele guitar and vocals
Two guitar players, two Gabriels -Filippo, drums.
Jacopo, bass.
I'll look like a geek after this question but...
What if I say Assassin's Creed?
Assassin's Creed, well we named the album after it...
There was this sequence in Brotherhood...
"Hic Sunt Leones" and while I was playing I was like:
"Woow, so awesome!"
It also reflects our message:
"There Be Lions", and that's us.
I think we managed...
To express that. - What does this album mean?
We didn't use to have this sort of maturity we do have now when it comes to writing lyrics.
So now our lyrics are more about our personal experiences...
In some songs, like "Gehenna", we talk about...
Life after death and hell.
These subjects can be easily linked to our style, which is quite strong and powerful.
Also, a few lyrics talk about love, as far as we can take it in this genre.
We don't have a recurring subject.
Or theme recurrence ...
We try to match the structure of the song with the lyrics.
As most bands do.
Right now, with the new stuff...
We're much more mature and we're trying to write less trivial things...
How long have you been playing for in the Roman and Italian scene? -Since 2011 with this line-up
We've changed...
The old drummer-singer (at the very beginning)
Jacopo and Ale got in, and we immediately felt good because we're friends.
I think that's the foundation of a band
If you don't have it how can you have a band?
Going back to Hic Sunt Leones, I noticed that...
The cover looks like a picture taken from the "Hannibal" movie
When he cooks and serves a brain... Were you inspired by that?
Not really...
We just wanted to have a strong impact.
Well, you have!
We decided not to put either our name nor the title of the album on the cover.
Actually they're both on the side
Of the CD.
To let it leave an impression.
You write the lyrics, but how about the songs?
Is there somebody who writes them down or you guys decide everything together?
Normally, Filippo gives us something already prepared and we build the song around it
trying to modify it as much as possible. -Democratic!
Very democratic, indeed.
We always try to add up something of our own...But we always have somebody that comes up with the starting idea.Then we arrange it together.
About the band's name...
"The Avalanche Diaries":what does it mean!? Was it chosen based on some experience or totally randomly?
It's not totally random...
I was in love with movies about natural catastrophes, so it came to my mind to use the word "Avalanche".
Happy thoughts...
well for example, at the time I had just seen the movie "Frozen" -(the Smurfs) -Haha
...and I was wondering about how somebody who got caught in a catastrophe might feel, if he was to keep a diary not to go crazy.
The English language also allows you to create cool names with words that would sound bad in Italian.Like "Valanga"
While "avalanche" is much more...
Musical...
The initial "The"
was added because it felt more...
Official? -Exactly
So "The" Avalanche diaries
Are your working on new material? Single, video, album?
Right now we're recording new songs.
Tonight we're going to be playing for the last time this year.
I'm leaving to study abroad, and I'm going to be back the next year
So we're going to release a few things while I'll be gone.
We're going to try to work anyway.
He'll study Sound Engineering. He'll be sending us material.
So we're not going to stop.
No way.
3 songs are ready and next week we'll start recording.
We're also working on a video...
So we have enough new material until he comes back
And if something big comes up we'll make him come back.
If they want you back... -They'll come to me...
That's for sure...
it's kind of a long distance relationship. -But this one works.
What if I ask you to tell me...
A genre, artist or something that really influenced you...
In your entire artistic careers, who would you name?
Our musical culture is...
Broad.
From one guy to the next.
Anyway, lately we've been listening to the same things. We all started from different points, which can range from heavy metal...
Progressive, Like Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold...
We all liked them even the singer's girlfriend. -He doesn't! -But also metal core, bullet for my valentine, Atreyu..Oh god, those names... -2006 and so on, but it's ok...
... Well but right now we're listening to technical stuff
Structures, Northlane...
It's not like we're trying to copy them.
But our musical maturity now allow us to do similar things.
Since they pay a lot of attention to structure... Disregarding the Classic "Breakdown"...
We're trying to write down our songs in a more mature way, in order to have a different audience...
Maybe a musician and not someone who likes the way we look.
We want to go deeper with the new material. We hope it works out, if not we'll see then... Our last 3 songs are really a step forward and we're really proud of them.
Before the structure might have been 4/4...
The way we compose now is pure madness.
But we still manage to keep track of things.
Have you guys ever studied music? Is it an old hobby or have you just started?
No, we're not really "newbies" because we're not that young...
We're from 88-89.
His from 92. - You're decomposing here right in front of me!
Each one of us has been studying its own instrument for a while now.Me and Gabriele, we've known each other for a long time.We decided to set up a band together, then I met Filippo and we joined forces
If we had to chose based on what we released so far.It'd be metalcore. We're not bothered to be labeled as such.
We grew up with metalcore... -Have you toured in Italy, abroad? Are you planning to do so?
Playing here in Italy is really hard...
Especially outside your city. Here, in Rome, we built up our audience and we're really proud of that.
We want to thank our public, they come to see us at every concert, wherever we play. Outside your city, it's much more difficult...
Because...
People won't pay your expenses and so on... But we managed to play somehow, we even had a gig in London once.
It was kind of a vacation.
But we also played live, we had so much fun. We also thank our British fans.
I guess the scene was really different from this one...
So much!
In London, music it's intrinsic to the culture.
You see alternative people all day long.
With cool bands on their t-shirts.
But there's all kinds of people, well dressed...
You see alternative people from different ages, teenagers, kids, more mature people...
Granpa with a metalcore t shirt...
sadly, we didn't see him yet! But maybe he's out there...
When we played we saw well dressed people, with their after office beer in hand.
Where can we find your music?
We're on Facebook, and our music mainly is on Bandcamp.
where you can listen to our album and download it.
We thank those who bought our album on iTunes and Bandcamp, and also the cd itself. It helped us to pay for upcoming recordings. Thank you so much!
Such a sentimental band... Really, you're like the first band that thank their fans so much and it's so nice to hear it.
I had no idea.
But people actually...
Buy stuff on the internet.
I thought they only downloaded illegally. Even if you do so, go ahead, dowload our CD !
But we actually had some results and we're really happy with that.
So the money you earned from the online sales are going to be used for the recording of your next album?Video, merchandise, everything.
Great. Thank you so much for being here with us tonight and see you soon! -Thank you!