Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Agatha Interview

1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording and release of the new album?
“Gravis Atque Gravior” was recorded in may 2014 in Rome at Hombre Lobo studio. It’s the studio in Italy we love most, where our good friend  Valerio works, and where we recorded also our previous album Goatness. It’s always a crazy experience recording with him, first of all because the studio is in a squat, and then because it’s always very punk. Just to know: the first day we arrived at 18, we set everything, and then he said: ok, now play a little and we do the sounds. It was midnight. Well that night we recorded all the drum parts till the morning.
Why it took so long from the recording to the release? This time we wanted to find some really cool labels to release our record, labels we really enjoyed and that’s way it took so long. And when we finally found all of them, and they were eight, it was a big work making everything go together. But at the end we’re really satisfied, of the record, the labels, the artwork and everything. Ah, yes, and of course in the meantime we played live a lot, as usual
The record was released in May 31 2014 and then we toured a lot during the summer, played some cool festivals, we opened for the Fluff Fest in Chezch Republic, we’re soon playing in a Festival in Sweden and another one in France.
So, we don’t get bored, that’s sure.

2.In May you had released a new album, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
With agatha we exist since 2003: we started as a three piece band, guitar, bass and drums. We played like this until 2010 when we decided we wanted to continue in two, also because we wanted to change from what we were doing. Our musical references were evolving and we wanted to play heavier stuff. We released at that moment “Goatness” and it was really different from what we had been doing before: slow riffs, heavy atmosphere and growly voices. Now we’re still in this mood, and our new album it’s a sort of evolution in this way: we found our sound and our direction and I personally think that this album is more complete than the prevoious one.

3.This was the first album to be released in 3 years, can you tell us a little bit more about what has been going on during that time span?
Ahahah this is a really funny question because in the middle of these three years we… had a baby!hehehe. “Goatness” was released in 2010. Then we did a big tour that summer, we went to Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Danemark and other places, then we came back and in october Claudia discovered that she was pregnant. She played till her six month of pregnancy, then she had to stop. Leo was born in July, and of course we waited a while. She was back playing when he was 6 months old, and then we started composing the songs for the new album, in summer we did another big european tour (this time with the baby! The youngest punk touring ever), in December we did another winter tour with a really cool band from Belgium called Severe (this time without the baby because it was too cold for touring with him) and then 2013 arrived and in May we recorded “Gravis atque gravior”



4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
I think that the lyrics of “Gravis atque gravior” make a change from our previous albums. Before i really liked to write ironical lyrics, some tongue-to-cheek lyrics, also because the mood of our previous releases was like that. “Goatness” was a sort of transition a think. Heavy sound but still ironical lyrics. With this records i felt I wanted to write more serious and personal stuff. As the atmosphere were heavier, I thought that the lyrics too had to reflect this kind of mood. There’s a song about punk and diy, there’s one about death and the end of life we will all have to face, there are also some more militant songs, about feminism, feminicide and freedom from age/gender/sexual orientation stereotypes…

5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Agatha'?
When we chose the name we liked it for different reasons, but mostly for the way it sounded

6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
As you might have noticed reading my other answers, we do love playing live. We adore touring, it’s part of our essence as a band. We’re a punk diy band and we exist for playing diy shows, for travelling with our music, for getting in touch with different people and different countries. We truly believe that punk music is more than music and this is because it’s made of connections between people. We met the radest people from all over the world in these ten years and I think we will continue doing this as long as we can. Of course now we can’t tour as we would like, we both have regular jobs and there’s Claudia’s baby, but we still do a lot of shows. I’m still part of a collective organizing shows in squat of Milano, so our normal life is also connected to all this. So I personally can’t name one. Of course opening the Fluff Fest this year was rad, but also doing our release party in a tiny squat with all our friends moshing with tropical flowers and a sun umbrella, or playing in Bologna at the Antimtvday Festival, which was one of the biggest italian diy Festivals, or playing at the Puntala in Finland in 2009, or opening for some band we really like as Kylesa and Dark Castle in 2010.
I would describe our performance in one word: loud!

7.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?
As always we do have touring plans, the problem is that life is shitty and we can’t tour all the time because of our jobs. But we already have so really cool shows already booked till summer 2015: we’re playing again in a festival in Sweden, then in a festival in the South of France and then some other cool stuff in Italy.
Our big big plan for this summer is to come to the States and Canada tat the end of August. We’re focusing on it, and we really would like to.

8.The last album was released on Chaos Rural Records, can you tell us a little bit more about this label?
Meeting Chaos rural was one of those incredible meeting diy permits you. When we were looking for labels Mathieu contacted us saying that he really enjoyed “Goatness” and he regretted that he didn’t helped us at that time and that he wanted abolutely release our new record. So everything started. And it was really cool working together on this project from one side to the other of the ocean. And it was really funny after month of mails in english to discover that we were both more comfortable with french!  I really hope to meet them soon in the real life after all these month of virtual conversations.

9.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of sludge, doom metal and punk?
Well the record is having good feedback and we’re really happy. We hope also that in the future i will have more!

10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
We’re actually not thinking a lot about the future. We’re enjoying playing this record live so we’re not composing new stuff. So I have no idea now what we will have in our crazy heads when we will have to start thinking at the new album!! Surprise!

11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
We both, Claudia and me, have really wide listening's and because of this we both have two another bands where we do totally different stuff. Claudia plays drums in Peublo People, an indie-new folk band and I play bass and sing in The Smudjas, an emo-punk rock. This is because, as I was saying before, we listen really to a lot of stuff. We both have listened to a lot of nineties noise (Unsane. Shellac, Uzeda)l, then to a lot of metal (Slayer, Iron Maiden, Metallica), then Claudia likes a lot of new wave-dark-grunge stuff (Nirvana, Siouxie and the banshee, Alice in Chains) and I am more from the hardcore-punk scene. I think that the bands that influence and have influenced more Agatha are Kylesa, Eye Hate God, Tragedy, His Hero is Gone, Sleep, Om, Catharsis.

12.What are some of your non musical interests?
Our life is mostly into music, and when we’re no into music unfortunately we have to work (I’m a teacher and Claudia is a web designer) so we don’t have a lot of time left. As I told before I’m part of a feminist collective organizing shows and other stuff (vegan dinners, art projects, workshops) and Claudia is a full time

13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

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