Some time ago Ghost Cult scribe Chris Ward had a friendly chat with Sean Worrell (guitars/vocals) and Francesco D’Adamo from Italian experimental metal outfit Nero Di Marte. They discussed the band’s debut album, being signed to Prosthetic Records and Italian metal in general.
Hi guys. Congratulations on the album, I really enjoyed it. Could we start by having a little bit of a background on the band, as you’ve been around in one guise or another for a while now?
Sean: Thank you! The band has been around for a while (2007 to be exact) although under a different name, Murder Therapy. We released a couple EPs and an album in 2009 called Symmetry Of Delirium through Deity Down Records (NL). The music we were offering at the time was more death metal oriented, although it had some of the dissonant progressive elements we then further developed on our 2011 EP Molochian. After that we recorded Nero Di Marte and changed our name; the album then landed us a deal with Prosthetic Records.
You must be stoked to be signed to Prosthetic Records – how did that deal come about?
Sean: Absolutely! Prosthetic was one of the first labels we contacted and what they were offering was really ideal for us. We are really happy working with them, there is good communication and understanding between us which is great.
The songs on the album are all pretty huge and the performance very tight – can you tell me a bit about your songwriting process? How do you know when a song, like the twelve-minute title track for instance, is complete?
Sean: We tend to give ourselves a lot of time to write, record and listen to everything we do. The interesting thing about the songwriting is that it remains completely open to any possibility until we feel the song we’re writing finds its balance and place in the album, its cohesion. And that obviously takes time. It took more than a year to finish writing the title track, a year in which almost all the other songs for the album were written, so the title track’s particular atmosphere both influenced and was influenced by the rest of the album.
And how about the production? Keeping all of those complex time changes in check and still sounding as tight as you do must have been a challenge.
Sean: What we did in the studio was try to replicate the sounds and atmospheres we were getting in our rehearsal room, with no sound replacements or editing. Trying to translate that was neither too difficult nor too easy although we used the exact same equipment. Our main concern is not to overwhelm the listener with the several things that are happening in the song and the production and the dynamics really have an impact on how that sounds. We’re working on that, both by trying to be more focused in our songwriting and by experimenting what works best while recording.
Is there any material left over? Could we see an EP release in the future?
Francesco: More than a year has past since we recorded Nero Di Marte, and the album’s successor is almost finished. There is so much new material and we hope to record another album this year, depending on the band’s future live activity. But the core of what’s to come is already there, and it sounds very dark and much more experimental. The writing process never stops, but I’m guessing it will take some time to listen to any new stuff… on the other hand, Nero Di Marte was just released a week ago!
Can you tell me about your influences, as a band and with regards to the album? Did you listen to anything in particular whilst writing and recording or did you shut yourselves away and not listen to anything?
Sean: The album was absolutely spontaneous both during writing and recording. We avoid having references although people may pick up on certain influences in our music. And that’s ok, it’s natural to link something new to something you’ve already heard. It’s also obvious that elements of music I like are bound to consciously or unconsciously come through my playing, but we’ve never said to each other we wanted to sound likes this band or that band, we’re 4 different people with different playing styles and that’s what makes it interesting to us.
Can you tell me something about your lyrics and how you come up with ideas?
Sean: The lyrics in the album really reflect the mood each song gave us musically and it’s rather hard to explain how that mood then translates to words! I would describe our lyrics as introspective, evocative and in many ways existential, but every song explores something different. There is a sort of mysticism we personally attach to our music, at least metaphysically, so that probably creeps into the lyrics as well. Again, it’s hard for me to get into the details of what our lyrics are about so the best thing to do is probably to just read them yourself.
What are your touring plans? Anything happening outside of Italy that we should get excited about?
Sean: Nothing for the moment, but I promise we will tour at least Europe by the end of the year. We’re working on it!
Italy seems to have become something of a hotbed for quality metal recently. Is there something happening over there we ought to know about?
Francesco: Rather than a real change in Italian bands I think this is due to the higher quality of recording studios dealing with metal (for example Studio73, 16th Cellar), allowing bands to record their music with a higher standard in production. Also, thanks to a few bands, maybe there’s less prejudice towards what is happening here. Metal is anyway still very underground in Italy.
Finally, if you could commission any band to cover one of your songs, who and what would it be?
Francesco: I’d love to listen to the song “Nero di Marte” performed by a string quartet or by a full orchestra, that would be extremely exciting!
Chris Ward