Ghost Cult recently sat down with Gerolamo Lucisano (guitarist) of thought provoking and infatuating Italian five piece Varego. Just a fifth of the beautiful minds that make up this sludgy post metal act, Gerolamo was eager to fill us in on the details of debut album Tvmvltvm and reveal what the future has in store for the band.
What’s the history behind Varego?
The band formed in 2009, built up by a bunch of friends who had already played in some different projects in the underground for fifteen years (or more). We just decided to give a proper form to our identity and to our music, focusing on the stuff we like to hear and play and so run out some interesting ideas with a more defined attitude; first, to satisfy our own tastes but then also to be offered to the listeners.
Why such an unusual album name? What is its meaning?
It’s an unusual thing indeed from a certain standpoint. Tvmvltvm is an Italian word we used to mean “primordial chaos”, though we want to give a more enigmatic meaning to this word, so we didn’t write it in capital letters (as tradition dictates, with ‘v’ instead of ‘u’) giving life to what could be intended as an acronym – a false acronym. Many people are asking about it, so it seems we reached what we were looking for, hehe.
Creating a masterpiece of original and personal ideas is considered a challenge to most. In Tvmvltvm you were able to create ten desirable tracks that do not give way to boredom. How challenging was it to stay motivated?
It’s satisfying to hear that our attitude and what we wanted to create has been captured. It is just because we took a decision from the beginning not to create for the ten thousandth time what we hear around us, it would have made no sense to us. It has been a challenge that has increased our motivation day by day.
Society likes to put labels on everything, in your heart and mind how would you describe your music to people?
It was not easy when, just after releasing our album, we had to describe it from a professional point of view, or, I mean, for the requests of the marketplace. We believe we have many influences condensed into an original sound, but I must say that when we try to label it, we are at ease to be considered as a post metal band at first, then we can talk about all the other styles you can find in our sound. To make it a bit longer, as a description, we think of our music as being something obsessive and obscure on one side and psychedelic on the other.
There are elements of psychedelic stoner rock and references to sludge in your music. Which of these genres influence you the most?
These are the main genres we like to listen to and it was not a surprise when many people told us they hear a bit of stoner and a bit of sludge in our sound. And when you speak of “psychedelic” and “sludge” we think those are the main aspects of our music. We try to offer the best mixture of both attitudes.
When writing lyrics, are you inspired by your own personal feelings or thoughts? Are there influences that contribute? Is there a point you’re hoping to get across to your listeners?
Writing the lyrics I’m most of all inspired by what’s around me from an artistic point of view; movies, books, paintings, architecture and so on. It’s not my wish to fill our lyrics with personal thoughts or feelings, at least directly, as I just write in the same way as writing a book. Our work is a sort of novel in which there are many contributions from my studies on gothic literature and the sci-fi genre and authors such as Walpole, Shelley, Doyle, and more recently Matheson, Dick, Bradbury, to name a few.
When you write songs, do you start with a concept? Do you conceptualize the song in lyrics first or write music and fit lyrics in after?
I could say we work both ways. After deciding on a general concept to speak about, we then start to compose the music, or at least the main lines of each song. We fit the lyrics and model all the shades on the basis of what we will talk about.
Is ‘Tvmvltvm’ the first part of a concept that you are composing? Could you shed a bit of light on your ideas?
Vàrego can be thought of as a concept band. We speak about mystical events that, as a final result, join Earth with the Cosmos. ‘Tvmvltvm’, the first chapter; it is the story of a necromancer starting a process of mutation and renaissance of the human race. Many characters are involved; awakened ‘sleeping’ creatures, entities from a third dimension and the four natural elements in relationship with the resonance of the Universe. The next chapters of the band will explore in detail all the various events and each one will be a new beginning for our next works and songs.
You were given the chance to work with legendary Billy Anderson, known for his reputation within the sludge and doom genres. He produced big names including Eyehategod, High on Fire and Neurosis. How did this collaboration come to be? And how was it working with him?
You could say it was ‘a dream come true’. We had in our hands a bunch of songs, demo versions, and after discussing our next step we took the decision: why not send them to the person whose albums we respect the most? I’m speaking here of Melvins, Eyehategod, Neurosis and Swans. So we did. Billy Anderson answered immediately saying he would be interested in working with us for our full-length album. There has been, since the beginning, chemistry between us, and an alchemic partnership. He was great at capturing the direction of our sound, generating something very original, huge and epic. Billy was, at the end, the sixth member of the band and we are extremely satisfied on how he worked, especially because working together has been pretty easy and very friendly.
From a personal standpoint, with so many genres and sub genres of music, what made you decide to start Varego?
It was mainly a personal necessity. As old friends we’d like finally to build up together something that could satisfy our own senses, and if our proposal is interesting for third parties, then it is all the better, you know.
What do you see or hope to see for Varego in the near future? Any plans for a tour?
Our main point is: no rest! We just finished our first official video clip for the song “Soul to Devour”, it’s a great work of Claymation and other weirdness, very close to our band concept. Actually we are again in the studio recording four new songs, which will feature in an ep scheduled for release in 2013. This work will be again molested and disturbed by Billy Anderson and it will feature a very special guest who we will announce soon. This ep will focus on the events we treat in the song “The Threatening Horizon”. It will be slightly different as a type of sound but not as a type of music – it will be 100% Varego.
These days a lot of bands want to stick to their roots but are persuaded by their label or others to fit into a mold. Did you find it hard not to slip into making something more mainstream?
Actually this is not a problem for us, as we are totally ‘do it yourself’, haha. Seriously, I can see how sometimes it’d be hard to stick to your roots, year by year, and not be tempted by other opportunities. You ask about “being more mainstream”, well it just depends if you will continue to be happy with the music you play. If the answer is yes, we don’t see anything wrong with this attitude.
Violet Reagen