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Necrodeath has
returned back to life after spending a decade in the beyond with the new
line-up featuring two entire new persons involved in the re-formed
Necrodeath, first of all it might be keen on finding out who are involved in
the current line-up playing what and what kind of background do these two
new guys have behind before Necrodeath ?!?
Claudio : Ok,
new line up consists of two old members that are me, Claudio, on guitars and
Peso on drums ... The new guys are Flegias on vocals and John on bass ...
Flegias is an old fan of us, he's following us since from the beginning in
1985 .. John is a young guy playing with Peso in other musical projects
before we decided to come back with Necrodeath again.
After
"Fragments Of Insanity" had been unleashed back in 1989 Necrodeath
completely vanished without that bigger fuss and didn't leave any traces
behind until newer bands started to name Necrodeath as one of the most
important influences on their musical development in several interviews, but
back to the time when the outfit was put on hold, what circumstances exactly
led the outfit to this bitter split up a decade ago ??!
Claudio :
Well, after "Fragments" we had a complete lack of interest in the band .. I
mean, it was very difficult in that period to play such an extreme music in
Italy for us, there were no support from producers, no agencies, no
producers, nothing at all.... So, everything seemed to be so difficult, we
had great response from the underground all over the world, but no
possibility of becoming bigger living here, so at the end we gave up ..
How come you
decided to give a second attempt by putting the legendary group together,
were you under the mandatory situation that now Necrodeath must be reformed
cos every other thrash/death/black of the 80's has returned back like…well
as you know the list is massive, but let's say for example Destruction, now
seems like Celtic Frost is coming back, Whiplash, Venom… ?!?
Claudio :
Well, I can ensure you there is nothing like that ... I have been completely
out of music scene for all these years .. I didn't know anything about new
bands, new trends, I didn't know that Necrodeath had been so important in
the past !!! I met Peso last year, after I had been living for 6 years in a
different town for job reasons, and he told me something about new bands
talking about us in interviews and things like this ... It seemed
unbelievable to me !! Anyway, we are playing again together just because we
have fun in doing this ... Something changed in my private life .. I came
back in my town, and still wanted to play, I called Peso and asked him to
try again, he thought about for some days and then said "OK let's try ...",
so here we are .. It has been very easy to find a deal because label's
interest in our come back was big .. that's good!!!
The Scarlet
rec recently re-issued "Into the macabre" originally released back in 1987,
how did this come about after all and will Scarlet unleash the second and
last Necrodeath album "Fragments of insanity" before the called its quits in
89 ?!?
Claudio :
Well, in the past was impossible for everybody to reprint ITM because the
original master was in the hands of the old producer, then me and Peso we
bought it and gave a license to Scarlet for reprinting ... I think it's good
just because younger fans can understand who we are and what we did in the
past.... About Fragments I know anything ... Avantgarde Music from Italy
told me they had the master and wanted to reprint it but I have no news.
Finding both
the Necrodeath albums over ten years ago usually turned out to be rather a
difficult and complex task cos it is obvious the distribution wasn't that
well handled and organised like nowadays, presumably the Scarlet rec has
much better distribution channels and connections to other labels located in
several countries, right? I guess Central and South European countries like
Germany, Italy were more important for you back then ?!?
Claudio : Yes,
I know it was really difficult to get those records ...There was nearly no
distribution at all outside Italy ... So they were all over the world only
because of tape trading .. Now it's completely different, Scarlet has
distribution deals in different countries in Europe and USA ..SPV works for
Central Europe, Metal Blade is going with promotion in Germany .. well, I
hope you could find our new cd “Mater of all evil” in the shops, when it
will be out on
24th January 2000.
Although your
albums weren't available everywhere, but the underground tape trading
maniacs used to spread the Necrodeath material all around the world, for
example I for one managed to get a hold of Necrodeath via tape trading, I
guess this tape trading has helped to get the Necrodeath stuff spread quite
well and created such a cult following, do you share that point of view ?!?
Claudio : Yes,
I completely agree with you .. If we are a sort of a cult band all over the
world it's just thanx to these guys... They spread the message... I remember
we received letters from every country in the past, from Japan to New
Zealand, USA, East Europe .. It was unbelievable !!
Speaking a
little bit of those albums, before starting to make up and write questions
down I went throughout my tape collection to check out the Necrodeath
releases what they actually included, I was kinda astonished since only one
demo track "Mater Tenebrarum" can be found on the first Necrodeath album
whereas the rest of the demo tracks are not on any of both the albums, how
come you didn't re-record and release "Morbid Mayhem" and "Iconoclast" on
either the debut or the last album at all ?!?
Claudio :
Well, I'm happy about this question .. I do think Iconoclast was a great
song so, you will find a new killer version of it in the new album !!! It's
only 4 minutes against 9 of the original one but believe it sounds great !!!
It was written in 1985!!! Anyway, in the past we just wanted to play always
different things ... There was not a particular reason for not putting demo
songs on the records but, simply we had new songs and we wanted to play them
...
What kind of
stuff can be expected to hear on the third album anyway, does the material
on the third album follow the same paved way as on the previous albums
having a lot of nasty aggressive black thrash elements in the vein of the
80's or have you tried to somehow refresh the Necrodeath sound to match with
the stuff of death black metal groups of the 90's ?!?
Claudio : We
haven't tried anything particular, we just play in the only way we're able
to play, so at the end everything sounds macabre, evil, violent and bastard
like in the past .. We always have the same kind of atmosphere .. Flegias
voice sounds a little black metal ...But it fits completely with the
evilness of our style ..Anyway, obviously there are no keyboards or stuff
like that ..
In the
beginning you used to draw possible influences from bands like Kreator,
Bathory, Hellhammer etc…But do you view that you can still adopt influential
factors from these bands nowadays ?!?
Claudio : For
sure Kreator were one of my favourite bands in the past ... But my
absolutely favorite band ever are Slayer, they're so far the best in
everything they do, so, I think you can find a Slayer influence in our
music, that's sure, but, when we play we just think about what we like or
not and nothing more.
Even though
you got influenced by those bands stated in the previous question, the whole
thing has come around during these years as several groups of the 90's have
mentioned and labelled Necrodeath as one of the most important and
distinctive outfits as well as influences on their musical development
approach and career, presumably that must feel extremely good for you,
probably you definitely take all the feedbacks regarding Necrodeath as nice
compliments ?!?
Claudio : I'm
very pleased about these compliments, it's amazing if you think that we just
were 4 young guys coming from Italy ... Well, I just hope that people would
like Necrodeath even now, believe me our new album it's absolutely our best
album ever, so far better than the two old ones.
But have you
basically utterly been surprised at getting labelled as one of the most
important and distinctive names all of a sudden and everyone is willing to
get a hold of some Necrodeath album ?!?
You said it
right, the reprint has been made for letting the youngest fans know who we
are and where we come from.... Now that they know this... Well, they have to
listen to our new album and get ready for destruction !!!!!
Speaking a few
words of the Italian death/black metal scene having its, in my opinion,
glorious years back in the '80s and was extremely well known all around the
world for its bestial, unique and aggressive groups because of their image
and of course music definitely represented something new and totally wild
and especially bands like Necrodeath, Bulldozer, AngelDeath, Astaroth, Death
SS were adorned everywhere, in my eyes the Italian underground death metal
scene used
to live and well over ten years ago ?!?
Claudio : Yes,
there were some good bands in the past .. I know a very few of the actual
scene, as I told you I have been out of the scene for a long time ... well,
at least you have your Necrodeath back now !!!!!! isn't enough for you then
???!!!
Well did
Necrodeath have a lot of side things on the stage ?!?
Claudio : No,
at all, we just have Flegais, our new singer !!!!
By the way
what sort of respond have you got from the audience on gigs nowadays and
what is the biggest difference between the audience back in the 80's than
nowadays in my point of view ?!?
Claudio : At
the moment, we just played one gig opening for Immortal during they're last
date here in Italy, because we didn't want to play new songs before the
album was out, so, I can't tell you a lot about audience .. we're gonna play
in the next months on some different gigs .. I think today there are a lot
of live concerts so maybe it more difficult to have a lot of people coming
to see concerts ... anyway, I hope they could be interested in our come back
... I'll let you know.
I guess it
might be about time to conclude this interview, but before writing the last
questions I can't help inquiring your fave bands at the moment, so could you
name a few ones ?!?
Claudio : Yes,
obviously you know I could say Slayer and nothing else, but, talking about
new ones, I like Carnal Forges, Darkane and The Haunted ...
So time to
finish the whole interview now, but you may have something on your mind, so
let it go and I for one thank you for your time with this interview… Gracias…
Claudio :
Thank You Arto, I'm pleased to see that you know a lot about us, I truly
hope you like our new album, so let me know your impression when you'll get
it, so we could have another interview to talk about it!!!!!
http://www.necrodeath.net
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