Albums of Purgatory interview Theatres des Vampires

Firstly, whats the band up to right now?
We are working on the new release of “Vampirisme, Necrofilie, Necrosadisme, Necrofagie”.
This is actually our fist album of 1996, today we decided to re-arrange it, and re-play it completely, as an homage to all the fans around the world that ask for our first release that today is completely unavailable.
We decided to give to this release a fresh sound, and put inside new ideas.
Also Gian Pyras ex guitar player of Cradle of Filth will be as a special guest in this release.
This release will have a new shorter name and will be:”Vampirisme…”

How would you describe the Theatres des Vampires sound?
I think that our sound is a mix of Gothic Metal and Black Metal, but to be honest with you I don’t like to classify my kind of music, I just play what I like, nothing else… and what I like is Theatres des Vampires sound.
Our music tries to be a perfect soundtrack for the Vampiric style of life… I mean the one that everybody dream…
Be a Vampire means stay out of the normal rules, escape from the fate of the mankind that is forced to die and forget all the memories of the life…
Our music describe this kind of feelings and atmosphere…

How did you get involved with the band?
I’m one of the main composers of the band, and naturally I’m the keyboard player.

Can you remember your first gig (how did it go)?
Yes I remember very well, was in 1996… was very exciting for me at that time… and I remember that people was shocked seen so much blood on stage, coffin and everything played with a great theatrical force…
Nowadays our shows are bit different, there is more music and more pyro effect, are more heavy Metal show, instead a real theatrical representation as was in the beginning of our band…

Are you involved in any other projects and if so how do they compare to Theatres des Vampires?
Well I’m involved in other side project, but nothing professional, so no, I can’t compare my other project with Theatres des Vampires… in the future for sure I’ll try to release with Lord Vampyrs a solo project more Electronic oriented… but is just and idea for the moment

What are your favourite Theatres des Vampires tracks?
Drakole Waide from Iubilaeum Anno Dracula, Tenebra Dentro from Suicide Vampire…

What are your favourite all time songs?
Headless cross of Black Sabbath, Marian of Sister of Mercy and Gottes Tod of Das Ich…

What the first record you ever bought?
Queen, A kind of magic in 1996…

Which album was it that got you into metal and can you explain why?
Well, I started from the Rock of Queen… and was a natural grow up…from Kiss, to Black Sabbath arriving to King Diamond and Merciful Fate… then I started to listen Gothic Music… and today I like both of them…
But I think that there is not a reason… I like the good music that gives me emotions, and I don’t listen just metal… I listen Aphex Twin, Rammstein, and Classical Music…

What would be your dream band line-up?
Mmmh… difficult to say…
Marlin Manson at voice, The drum Player of The Kovenant at Drum set, the bass guitar Player of Sister of Mercy at bass, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath at Guitar, and naturally me on Keyboard!!!

If you could do a cover for a tribute album to any band, which song of which band would you pick and why?
No… no tribute.. I like to cover song that are not linked with Metal... we played and recorded “Can’t you get out of my Grave” (Original title was “Can’t get you our of my head”) of Kylie Minogue… unfortunately Emi forced us to don’t release this cover…
Anyway I think that you can find this song in a bootleg of our band available at some distributors like
http://www.masterpiecedistribution.com the name of the bootleg is “The (un)official History 1993-2003”… is a very rare album… I don’t know how many copies they have on the market of this bootleg…
Some months ago we recorded the cover of Lacrima Christi of Christian Death, and Valor play as backing vocals in our version, just because we like that song and we want listen a Metal Version of that song…
But not tribute… I’m what I’m thanks to nobody, just to myself..

What do you think of the position of metal and music in general today?
I think that is some countries the Metal is going to die, also thanks to the Nu Metal act.. that mixed to much the metal with other styles and at the end change Heavy Metal in something too much commercial…
Today the young guys prefer other style of music… the 80’s and the 90’s will never turn back…
Probably heavy metal in the future will change in something completely different…
The MP3 is a good way to share music in the world, so probably in a near future the discographic label will have big problems, and maybe just the underground bands that play just for passion will survive at this kind of situation…
I see too much bands that play just to make money, just to sell a t-shirt more, just to stay in the front of a magazine… this corrupt the art inside the music…
So I don’t see too much difference from Pop music and some kind of Heavy Metal…
We live in a capitalistic world, and this world is destroying everything just to generate more money…
Is our fate, our doom…

Which other bands stand out for you at the moment?
Well, there are a lots of very good acts that I appreciate a lot!
But I already said you the band that I love and I listen…
About new act I love In Extremo (that is not so new actually), Notredame (again not so new)…
If you are talking about act of the last one or two year, I really don’t know, but from 1999 there are a lots of good album released from very good bands…

Do you have any funny stories about the band you can share with us?
In our band there are always funny stories because we live as a family, and when we tour together a lots different things happen…
We try to enjoy as we can in our “job”, we love to meet new people or sign autograph of fans that we meet on tour, talk with them share address to get in touch later…
Actually is an hard life, the music business is not easy at all, and a tour can completely destroy you from the point of view of health…
Organize new show, interview, video clip, and new song etc. etc. take all our time, so we stay always together especially with the singer and me, to plan everything in the right way…
But there is always time to have fun and this is what we love from our band…
Recently when Gian Pyras of Cradle came in my house in Rome to record the guitar of Vampyrisme, we had very nice days together, visiting ancient places in Rome, and having very good dinner together, drinking wine and talking about ancient stories…
Gian is a nice person that can give you lots of fun… is a shame that is not playing anymore with Cradle of Filth, I think that with him they have lost a very good song writer…

and finally, what do you see in the future for Theatres des Vampires?
A lots of other albums, side projects and tours… The music is my life… till the end…
We want release the re-edition of Vampyrisme as soon as possible and then start on working on new material to have a new release for middle of 2004…
Then we want to tour again Europe…