Albums of Purgatory interview Salvatore Vecchio

Albums of Purgatory: Firstly, what are you up to right now?

Salvotore Vecchio: Waiting for the release of Ivory’s CD “Prophecy of a dream”, me and keyboards player Simone Damiani are currently working on our instrumental debut CD as Attitude. It is a mix of progressive metal and rock fusion sounds very shredding oriented and we are helped for this project by great musicians on bass, drums and percussions. I also obtained an endorsement with Seymour Duncan my favourite guitar pick up, very proud of it.

AoP: How would you describe the Ivory sound?

SV: Ivory are a power progressive band, our sound is very much oriented on the guitars and keys, but the most important thing is the great voice of Rob Bruccoleri, which is also the singer of the power band Projecto, with two albums already released by our same record label. I believe we are quite different from the many other power prog bands totally based on screaming vocals and double kick drums. Of course we use also these elements, but we are very much interested in the harmonic side of the songs, using many arrangements and working on the sound.

AoP: How did Ivory begin as Anthem?

SV: We started as Anthem also because of the Rush song, that was one of the favourite songs of our first singer. As Anthem we recorded two demo tapes and an Italian CD compilation.

AoP: What caused the name change?

SV: ground Symphony/Self they told us that there was already a band called Anthem, so Ivory it’s been a good choice, I think is easy to understand what kind of music we play reading at the name.

AoP: Can you remember your first gig (how did it go)?

SV: Yes of course! My first real concert I was about 16 years old, we where doing some covers of Van Halen, Mr Big, Black Sabbath, and some original songs composed by us, it was before Ivory. We played at a local disco pub in Torino, really full of persons and we were so excited  that I remember we played two times the same song, Paranoid (Black Sabbath)! Great experience, I remember there where many friends of us and also two of my old high school teachers between the public!

AoP: What are your favourite Ivory tracks?

SV: My favourite ones at the moment are Golden Knight, power metal song with a neoclassical break solo of guitar and keys, Arabian Dream, for the melodies, the progressive stile of the song and hard bass parts by bassist Luca Bernazzi and The Blind Clairvoyant for the mysterious climax it has, but also the instrumental The Flying Carpet.

AoP: What are your favourite solo tracks?

SV:  For our solo project Attitude, where I’m co-leader with keyboards player Simone Damiani, also keys player with Ivory, as I told you before, we are recording the debut instrumental CD, so right now every songs of this CD are my best playing as solo artist. We are really working hard, but I’m completely happy of it.

AoP: What are your favourite all time songs or albums?

SV:  There are too many, really, and I change idea every moment! But there are some albums that totally blow me away and I decided to start playing guitar, albums like Passion and Warfare by Steve Vai, Odyssey of Malmsteen, Introspection of Greg Howe…etc…

AoP: What was the first record you bought?

SV: I can’t remember what was the first one, but I thing something of Malmsteen, maybe Odyssey.

AoP: What would be your dream band line-up?

SV : Oh, difficult question! There are so many… the guys I play with are really great musicians, dreaming…well, Mike Portnoy on drums, Wictor Wooten on bass, Kevin Moore on keys and the great Geoff Tate as singer, of course me on guitar eh eh! Oh, I also want the bagpipes player of Grave Digger!

AoP: What do you think of the position of metal and music in general today?

SV: I don’t think it really changes that much. It’s always the same circle, the lucky bands have to choose the good moment to come out, if they can of course…. The music biz is far away from metal, and I think is better so, MTV rules for most of the business, who loves real music is not a trends follower, people without brain eats everything TV wants!

AoP: Which other guitarists really stand out for you at the moment?

SV: Many, I think that guitar music is slowly coming out again, so I hope that would be a good moment for releasing the album with Attitude. Latest CD of Joey Tafolla, Andy Timmons, Brett Garsed and Italian guitarist William Stravato are absolutely great albums.

AoP: Do you have any funny stories about the band you can share with us?

SV: We had great funny moments recording the album or live on stage. During the pre-production of the CD for example, while our old singer was out for lunch, we took the refrain of a song he recorded in the morning, made a reverse of it with reverse reverbs and we put it on the song. When he came back in the studio, listening to the mix, he couldn’t understand what the hell he was singing and what language he was speaking during that chorus, you’d had to see his face!

AoP: and finally, what do you see in the future for Salvatore Vecchio?

SV: I hope that Ivory album will be soon released, also I hope that Attitude CD, that is my priority at the moment, could give me some great moments satisfaction! 

You can check out every kind of infos about me and my music on my official site www.salvatorevecchio.too.it  and on my bands site www.ivoryattitude.supereva.it  That’s it!