Hortus
Animae
Hortus Animae truly astounded
me with their amazing sophomore album "The Blow Of The Furious Winds".
A sensational release that will carve the heart of every blackster and
will bind us to forever listen to it! So, Grom, the band's drummer was
kind enough to give some really interesting answers to our questions...
1. FIRST OF ALL GIVE US A SHORT BAND BIO BY
POINTING OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BAND UP TO NOW. WHAT’S
YOUR CURRENT LINE UP?
GROM: Hey ! Ok…well the band was born in 1997
with the direct intention of molding all the various musical genres that
were part of metal and rock into one style of music that expressed all
the various human emotions. In the beginning things were more extreme metal
and naturally less mature than they are now. I wasn’t part of the band
back then. My full involvement into Hortus Animae came in 2001. I was touring
with Ancient and Hortus Animae were one of our supporting bands. I really
enjoyed their music and their character and some time later they called
me and asked me if I could record their promo-album as a session. I accepted
and recorded ‘Waltzing Mephisto’, promo edition. That CD is extremely rare
and it was used by the band to find a record deal. I had a great time recording
that album and I really enjoyed the music having also cooperated in the
composition of the songs, so shortly after I joined the band as a full
official member and I started to work towards a record deal. In 2002 we
signed for Black Lotus and with the album budget we re-mixed and re-mastered
the album ‘Waltzing Mephisto’ which was released officially with a proper
artwork. The album received an amazing response form press and listeners
worldwide and we were really pleased at how fast the band made a name for
itself around Europe and U.S. Whenever I was on tour with other bands I
would always see my album with Hortus Animae on sale in all the distros
and stores and I always received a lot of compliments and great comments
on it. Unfortunately, it was also the start of the entire ‘piracy / downloading’
trend and the album sold less than it would have. It sold good but less
than its potential. This is very strange because I always see the album
everywhere and whoever I talk to on tour has ‘Waltzing Mephisto’ or they
have heard it. We spent a few years after that writing material for the
following album. We really wanted to create something special because we
knew the band had a great potential and we wanted to release an album that
would really leave a mark. We refused to play live so that we could dedicate
all our time in preparing the best masterpiece we could as a band and
‘The Blow Of Furious Winds’ took almost 3 years to complete. At a certain
point I thought the album was cursed because we kept having a lot of problems
and complications that kept delaying everything. We had problems with our
label Black Lotus who did a great job on the debut album but were delaying
the production of ‘The Blow…’ way too much. I am a very serious and dedicated
person in my work and I expect the same from whoever I work with, so in
that case, I had a problem. We decided to end the deal in a friendly way
and search for new offers. We actually received a lot of very good offers
from a few big labels as well but they were all pushing the release date
forward to 2007/8. This was ridiculous because we are not a pop-rock band
like Def Leppard who put out an album every 6 years. It is very important
for a metal band that wants to grow to give people a lot of material so
they can get to know the band and grow into it. This is why we chose to
sign for Sleaszy Rider who did a great job since the beginning and gave
us all the trust we wanted. They printed an amazing double digipack with
DVD for the album! Now, finally, ‘The Blow Of Furious Winds’ is out and
I am very pleased and proud of the amazing reviews it is receiving. Some
magazines even named it “album of the month”. We are having a few distribution
problems but we hope to solve those quickly. However, things look really
optimistic for now !
2. HOW DID ALL THESE INTERCHANGES WITHIN THE SONGS
COME UP? DO THESE PASSAGES FROM ONE MOOD AND STYLE TO THE OTHER EXPRESS
SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR FROM AN EMOTIONAL POINT OF VIEW?
GROM: Yes definitely. We are a very artistic
band and we know that our songs and our albums are not suitable for “charts”.
This album is an album you have to “listen to” and every time you listen
to it you find something new or different. We knew since the beginning
that we wanted to write a concept album that represented the band’s name.
Hortus Animae means “garden of the soul” in Latin and that is exactly what
we are. We express human emotions and feelings, all of them. Since the
very beginning the band’s aim was to knock down musical barriers and create
a genre of metal that had influences coming from all kinds of music. As
humans, we don’t always feel ‘hate’ or ‘anger’ and we are not always ‘happy’
and ‘joyful’. We have different moods and we feel different emotions throughout
our life. This is what Hortus Animae is about. We tell the story of human
life through our style and our music with a decadent and melancholic attitude.
The human ‘emotions’ are the “…Furious Winds” in the title. That is what
the winds represent. It is a concept on human feelings analyzed and studied
through the intellect and eyes of a secret society linked to masonry, with
a 1800’s “feel” and “look”. Musically it contains ALL our numerous influences
and tastes. We all listen to every kind of music possible. I listen to
everything, from metal to pop, rock to jazz and even ethnic music. I find
it non stimulating and boring to lock myself into on single kind of music
only. We have a lot of 70’s influences as well, coming from the Italian
prog-rock scene of the 1970’s and you can hear that on our new album, also
with the Queen cover. We put all our hearts and minds into this album and
I think it really turned out to be a great project because so far the response
has been outstanding.
3. WHICH ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT INFLUENCES THAT
ALLOWED YOU TO SHAPE AND MOLD YOUR ALBUM AND MAKE IT SOUND AS IT IS?
GROM: Everything. Really. From 1970’s rock
to modern extreme metal, pop, gothic, dark and jazz. I could sit here and
write pages of examples of each little piece of every song on the album,
describing where the influences come from and what the attitude is. In
the track ‘In adoration of the weeping skies’ for example, there are clear
jazz/fusion influences in the middle part…but I don’t want to say too much.
I prefer that people get the album and listen to it carefully, almost meditating,
so they can discover all the details and emotions themselves and make up
their own mind.
4. SOME TIME HAS PASSED SINCE THE ALBUM WAS FINISHED.
SO HOW DO YOU VIEW THINGS NOW BEING SLIGHTLY MORE OBJECTIVE AND JUDGING
THE ALBUM FROM A DISTANCE? ARE YOU CONTENT WITH THE FINAL RESULT?
GROM: Well, artistically I am totally satisfied
and have nothing to complain about. What I am not 100% happy with is some
production choices and some performances. In a few songs, after having
listened to the album a lot up to now, I would have preferred playing things
a bit differently in some parts. Also in the actual production there are
a few things here and there that I would change, but I am never 100% satisfied!
It’s a curse!
5. IS THERE A CERTAIN TECHNIQUE OR ELEMENTS YOU’D
LIKE TO FURTHER EVOLVE OR EXPERIMENT WITH DURING THE SONGWRITING AND RECORDING
PROCESSES? IF YES, PLEASE TALK ABOUT THEM…
GROM: Not particularly. We are a very spontaneous
band. Many parts come naturally in the studio and some details are totally
improvised. The violin solo in ‘Bible Black’ was something we thought of
exactly while we were recording the violin parts…the idea just hit us and
we decided to do it. I think generally, I would like to experiment with
percussions more for the next album.
6. ARE YOU SATISFIED BY YOUR LABEL SO FAR? WHAT
DO YOU EXPECT FROM THEM?
GROM: So far yes. Tolis of Sleaszy Rider is
a great guy and he really believes in the potential of the band. He has
done a good job so far. Unfortunately we are having some difficulties with
the distribution of the album because there is not a very effective network
of distribution and many times stores ignore albums that are released by
smaller labels. This creates some problems. I hope it gets solved soon.
However, if you cannot find the album you can order it directly through
our website, www.hortusanimae.com,
or from Sleaszy Rider Records.
7. WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED THIS
FAR, BOTH FROM THE PRESS AND THE FANS? WHAT WAS THE MOST FLATTERING AND
WHAT THE WORST COMMENT YOU RECEIVED?
GROM: Well, great! I have never received such
great comments and reviews for an album I have done so far. We are all
very satisfied and it makes us even angrier that the distribution is having
problems. I work for a TV channel as a VJ as well and there I get tons
of messages of people who want the album because they heard the comments
or the samples off our website. It was ‘album of the month’ in a few magazines
and even the ‘harder’ mags that rarely give high grades are giving us extremely
great marks. The faithful fans are totally happy with the album. We just
hope we can reach more people and get more feedback. I think the most flattering
comments are the ones, for me, that speak good about my drumming. For a
drummer that is great because usually drummers are the most ignored musicians!
8. HOW DO YOU WORK AND COMMUNICATE AS BAND? DO
YOU WORK ON YOUR OWN OR AS A WHOLE? IS HORTUS ANIMAE A DEMOCRATIC BAND
OR IS THERE A LEADER?
GROM: We are a group. A gang…we work totally
together and share the same passions. We have dinners together and drink
wine and we totally live our Italian culture. I remember, after the photo
shoot for the album which we did in a very cool ‘old’ wine cantina, we
opened up a few bottles and had a blast. It is really a ‘friendship’ band
and that totally motivates us to do our best. I think as of now, the other
guys are amongst the best friends I have.
9. PLEASE COMPARE YOUR ALBUM WITH YOUR PREVIOUS
RELEASES. WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES? WHAT DO YOU OBSERVE
AND HOW DO YOU EVALUATE YOUR EFFORTS?
GROM: It is mainly more complete, more mature.
The previous albums are great works but this one is top. The similarities
are evident. You can hear the Hortus Animae style of mixing atmospheres
and emotions but for this album we went towards a more artistic and a deeper
emotional direction. There are also evident differences in production and
technical performance from each member.
10. WHICH ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE? WHAT
WILL YOU DO IN ORDER TO SUPPORT YOUR ALBUM? HAVE YOU GOT ANY PLANS FOR
LIVE SHOWS?
GROM: For now, we just want to promote the
album as much as possible and get it in all the stores so that people can
check it out and give us their opinion. We are preparing the material for
the next album already! I think as far as touring goes, we want to wait.
Hortus Animae don’t play a genre of music that you can simply plug in a
guitar and play…our music requires a lot of thought and preparation to
be played live. We need to practice with a violin player and get all the
sequencers ready, so it really takes a lot of time and money to do that.
We prefer to wait for when the time is right before doing shows. I feel
that if people show us their support and buy a ticket, they should get
the best show possible and I feel that the band is not ready to deliver
the best show we can. It is much better to wait until the album has sold
a bit and many people know it before we start touring. Most of the time,
if you are a support band you don’t have the money or the chance to prepare
a really good stage show, image and set list because you only have 20-30
minutes to play and the stage is set up by the headlining band. At the
moment Hortus Animae is not known enough to do headlining shows so I prefer
to wait until we are so that people can really get a kick ass show and
have a great time at our gigs. They deserve our best and until we are not
capable of giving our best I prefer to not play live, instead of doing
lame shows.
11. HOW WAS THIS COOPERATION WITH LIV KRISTINE
ESPENAES-KRULL ACHIEVED? AND WITH WHAT CRITERIA HAVE YOU SELECTED WHICH
SONG YOU’D COVER?
GROM: Well, when we were under Black Lotus
records they offered us to do a cover of Dead Can Dance for the tribute
album they wanted to release. We immediately accepted because we all love
Dead Can Dance and we were thinking even before to do a cover of one of
their best songs in my opinion, ‘Summoning Of The Muse’. We turned it,
as is Hortus Animae tradition, into a medley, like all the cover songs
we did, mixing it with ‘Windfall’ and turning into a more metal track.
We knew that to pay tribute to Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, we needed
the best female vocalist we could get. Liv Kristine is a splendid person.
I have never met such a serene and joyful woman. She is really like sunshine!
Her voice is amazing and her technical capabilities are fantastic. She
immediately accepted the offer because she was supposed to do a cover for
the same tribute album with Theatre Of Tragedy but then they parted ways
before actually recording the track. This way she was able to participate
in the tribute album anyway and she was totally excited about it. It was
great. The track turned out amazing and many magazines still give us great
comments about that song. We decided to include it as a bonus track on
our new album so that the fans can get the song directly from us.
12. WHAT KIND OF TOPICS DO THE LYRICS DEAL WITH?
TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT THEM. WHICH ARE YOUR SOURCES OF INSPIRATION?
GROM: The lyrics are basically about human
experiences, emotions and feelings. It is a concept album where every song
deals with one human emotion. It is like a scientific study, made by a
secret free masonry society of the 1800’s, on human feelings. Some of the
inspirations are from personal experiences and others are from books or
movies on the topic.
13. WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE ITALIAN SCENE? WHAT
DO YOU THINK OF IT? ARE THERE ANY CHANCES GIVEN TO YOU AND GENERALLY TO
NEWCOMING BANDS
GROM: Not much. Unfortunately the Italian
scene is full of amazing talents and great bands but it is very hard to
get any good chance. Lacuna Coil are basically the only band that has “made
it” from Italy. For them it is thanks to the American market and the fact
that they started out since the very beginning with a big label which made
it much easier. Most bands in Italy don’t get that luck and it is difficult.
I think it is because we are very artistic people but we have the big defect
of always seeing things from other countries as being better than our own.
There is little support for the local scene in Italy and even bands that
are much worse than ours but come from other countries, are always more
supported by the press and fans instead of the national bands. It is sad
really because this makes it worst for everyone, the labels, the distributions,
the bands, the magazines…everyone. Things are slowly getting better thanks
to many bands that are trying hard and we hope that Hortus Animae will
be one of those bands that will help to bring up the Italian scene internationally.
We have a big interest from the U.S.A so that may be a great thing if it
develops.
14. WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE?
GROM: “The Garden of the soul”
15. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD
IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
GROM: Our music is ‘emotions’ and it would
never be one single emotion, it’s impossible. As for a painting, I think
it would be Leonardo Da Vinci’s works. They are deep, complex, full of
emotions and significance, mysterious and Italian.
16. THANK YOU! IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LIKE
TO MENTION? LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE TO THE READERS…
GROM: I would like to thank you for the great
review and the interview. I am happy you enjoyed the album. I invite everyone
who reads this to visit my website at www.gromdrums.com
and Hortus Animae at www.hortusanimae.com.
Check out the album, you will not be disappointed! Take care!
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