00:00Some fans were coming to the merch booth and they were like,
00:02I really love your music but I can't get the record because there is a song that
00:06is called Heavens Alive and we were like, oh.
00:15We put the song in the list because it was one of the songs that got us the attention of
00:23different labels when we were looking for a deal. We were still a young band that was
00:30strongly hoping to get some attention from the rest of the world. Think about an Italian band
00:36in a country that has not such a big story of rock and metal. Trying to make something in music
00:47and we produced this promo tape with two songs in Milano. We recorded it in Milano and it was
00:54already a peculiar story because we had the chance to record it in a real studio because back then it
01:01was not really possible to record it with your computer at home at night. I remember it was like
01:09three days maybe, two, three days in Milano. Three days, everything included the mastering and
01:13everything because we were recording at night because there was a special offer from the studio
01:20together with the city that they had this deal for younger musician. If you go recording at night,
01:25so they use also the nighttime of the studio and you save half the price basically. So it costs nothing
01:32for having a super professional studio with a real sound engineer. And so we spent the night,
01:38three nights, two nights to record and then one day probably to finish the mix and mastering.
01:42We recorded two songs for our demo and it was fun. We were starting at midnight and finished at six
01:49in
01:49the morning and then some of us were going to work or do something else. And it's been a very
01:54nice
01:54experience and it gave us the chance to produce something with a decent quality to offer to the
01:59labels. And we physically shipped this demo tape on cassette to the labels we were interested in,
02:07hoping that they would notice us. And that's why we chose that song, because someone got it at its
02:15table and just had the chance to listen to some of our music and get interested in the band. And
02:22they gave us a chance. As far as I can remember, when we wrote it, we didn't imagine that it
02:30could
02:30have such a big success. To us, it was sounding good. It was perfect, you know, with the rest of
02:35the
02:36songs and the record. But probably looking back, when we wrote it, we didn't think that, you know,
02:44Heavens Alive could be so strong and so impactful as lyrics. It was sounding good to us. Of course,
02:53we were referring to not the religious heaven, but mostly the conviction that other people could
03:04have, you know, just like you have to have your own idea. You don't have to accept what other people
03:08tells you to believe in. It was more about that. But especially when we went to the States, we did
03:14Ausfest. We got a lot of attention out of the song and also the other songs. We were one of
03:21the most
03:23popular bands at Ausfest 2004. And that's probably why, you know, the record, Comalize, became popular
03:31two years after its release. We got a lot of attention from the States, from Europe because of
03:36Heavens Alive. We started to be played by a lot of radio stations in the States. More than a hundred
03:44radios were playing the song and all of a sudden we were, you know, leveling up without even noticing.
03:51But we never expected to become a radio song in America, you know, because radio was like bands like
03:56stained, seven dust, corn. So it wasn't exactly the same style, you know, and maybe that's why it
04:03became actually so successful. And also the title was pretty strong for the American audience in
04:08certain radios and especially in college radios where very often they're owned by the religious
04:14groups or Christian groups. They weren't announcing the song as Heavens Alive, but just as a lie
04:21It was kind of censored. Because they couldn't say, because the DJ, they want to play the song and
04:26they don't care so much about the problem, you know, but they had to hide it somehow to don't have
04:34censor from the owners, you know. And so a lot of people came in and said, I love your song
04:38a lot.
04:38I said, what song is it? You know, we don't know. We don't have a song called like that.
04:43Even when we went on tour... Not everywhere, not everywhere, but we had some episodes in which maybe
04:50some fans were coming to the merch booth and they were like, I really love your music, but I can't
04:55get the record because there is a song that is called Heavens Alive. We were like...
05:01We are a band that can't repeat the same record over and over. Obviously, we do have certain
05:06characteristics that you will always find in our music, but for the nature of who we are, we're not
05:12able to just do Komalize part two, which was maybe a smart thing to do back then because obviously it's
05:18been so successful, but it was just not the way we grow up listening to a lot of different kind
05:24of
05:24bands and getting inspiration on newer things. Even nowadays, we still listen to new bands and enjoy
05:31what they do because they have this different, fresher approach that we can't have, you know. So it's very
05:36important to get inspiration from classic, but also from what is current, what is the approach of the
05:43new generation to music because it's the kind of energy that we had when we started and the only
05:48way to get it back is to get it from the younger generation. So there was a bit of pressure,
05:52but we
05:53just can't control it because we just... So at a certain point, okay, we wrote the lyrics thinking also
05:58about pushing out all the pressure that were mostly on getting this management, this label, this, you know,
06:04more outside of the creative space. But we tried to push it out and our truth also symbolized
06:10the fact that we wanted to raise our voice, to raise what we are and where we want to go.
06:15It was the beginning of the download era, you know, we were switching from just the physical.
06:21Physical was still very important, but that it was the beginning of the Napster,
06:25all that kind of download era. So we, together with EMI, which was a distributor at the time,
06:31we put out a file of white noise called, lacuna called R-Truth, on the net before the release.
06:39So to see, as a test, to see how many people would download it.
06:43And we had, I don't remember if three or four million downloads in a week, in a week.
06:49So that was the sign of changes. You know, we knew that there was attention around the band, obviously,
06:54but to see how many people download the song, it gives you an idea of where you're going to go.
06:58You know, and also in a larger scale, you can give you an idea of how the music business was
07:04going.
07:04The idea of covering Enjoy the Silence started for me because I love Depeche Mode.
07:10And we were considering some covers, we wanted to try to cover some songs.
07:16And I remember that Maki, our bass player who writes the majority of the music,
07:21wasn't really agreeing because it was just like, I don't know, you know, if it's a good idea or not.
07:26But then it turned it in a way that it became almost one of our songs because the style was
07:33really lacuna coil.
07:34So we all started, you know, to like the whole project.
07:38And it turned out so good that the actual band liked it.
07:45They gave us the permission to do an official video for it because you can cover any song you like.
07:50But in order to do an official video, you need the permission of the band who actually created the song.
07:56And we worked with Ronald Prent, the producer, who knew them.
08:01So we found out that they were liking the song a lot.
08:04On Enjoy the Silence, on the original Enjoy the Silence as well.
08:07And they said like, yes, they can do it because we like it.
08:11And we're so proud. It's one of our most popular songs.
08:15It's the song that I think brought us outside of the metal scene.
08:19You know, we were known at that point from the metal scene with Evan Zelai, with Swamp, with R-Truth.
08:25But Enjoy the Silence is the song that everybody knows, even if they're not particularly into metal,
08:30or they just listen to rock music, it's the one hit that went beyond the metal scene.
08:36You know, and then when it was on every TV channel, MTV played it heavily, not only in the Headbangers
08:42Ball
08:42or the metal program, but also on the generic playlist and also a lot of radios.
08:47Even in Italy, we had radios like they don't normally just play pop music.
08:51They would play the song.
08:52So it's the one song that brought us in the map in a larger scale than metal.
08:57So it feels great, but we haven't met him yet, you know, and so we would love to meet him
09:02one day
09:03just to thank him for the inspiration.
09:05And we're glad.
09:06We love you guys. We can't wait to meet you.
09:09We picked up Vlottier's Dossa because it's a song that can kind of symbolize the change
09:16that was happening back then in the band, you know, new members, new inputs and a new
09:23way of creating not only music, but also visuals, you know, with a different appearance.
09:31We shot the video in Italy with a great director, Cosimo Alema.
09:38I remember that everyone liked that.
09:41It's like a film style with a big production kind of video.
09:45But I think the most important thing is that it's a song where we kind of became more aware
09:50that we can just follow our guts, you know, like Marco, when he wrote the music,
09:56he was going towards a heavier direction, maybe because we also had different band members
10:01that play in a different style than the previous ones.
10:03But also he felt that freedom to just go and it's too heavy without thinking it's too heavy.
10:09Or there's grove vocals, there's double bass, you know, he felt that freedom and we took a risk
10:14and tried to shake things up a little bit. But because that's what we were listening to at the
10:19time, what we liked to do was to go that direction. So we tried and actually people, as always,
10:25they recognize when you do something that you mean, that you're real about.
10:39You want to go to, you know, one of the things that we were listening to at the moment in
10:39the past,
10:39and it was really, really interesting.
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