STIGMA
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Some time ago the Italian band Stigma released their second album "Concerto for the undead". Horror, humor and technique were the three key words that stayed in mind after multiple listeningsessions. We sent out some questions to the band and vocalist Vlad was the one who provided us with the answers!
We had an interview with you two years ago. What happened, besides the new record? And did the first album change your lives?
Hey there, well, after releasing our debut album "When midnight strikes!" we toured in support of it, first in our country, then expanding our touring activity to the UK and most of Europe. We met lots of new people and shared the stage with some very good bands, then started writing our second record, "Concerto for the undead", which came out a couple of months ago. Our first record gave us the chance to tour out of our country and expand our fan base, so we feel like it achieved his purpose, now we're working hard on promoting this new one and hopefully things will go even further and better than our debut.
How would you compare the second album with the first? The sound grew, I would say.
Yes definitely, we actually wrote this album trying to avoid what we thought were the weak points of our debut album, so we wanted a more live oriented record, easier to understand for the audience and easier to listen to in general, we wanted it to be more technical but catchier as well, so we made it more guitars driven and with more melody in general, and we wanted to fit better into the concept, so we actually wrote the songs after choosing the stories we wanted to base lyrics on. We're proud of this record and consider it a big step forward compared to our debut!
When I listen to the cd, I can imagine you guys like to laugh and to make fun. It is well reflected in the music.
That's great!! One of the aspects we wanted to make it clearer with this record, is indeed, that we love horror and death metal, but first of all, at least for us, metal is being able to not take things too seriously, I mean, I sing about ladies trying to escape from zombies, and most of the times zombies are quicker than those ladies, but that's just fun, we want to have people in the crowd having at least the same fun we have playing this music!
And horror will still be and stay the second inspiration? Can you tell us some of your alltime fave horror movies?
I'm the old school guy, so I'm really into the very old movies, like the first "Dracula", "White zombie", most of the movies featuring Boris Karloff, but I'm also into Argento's masterpieces "Profondo rosso" and "Suspiria". Our new album is inspired by the US legendary comic "Tales from the crypt", so that's another great passion for me and the rest of the band, I think the TV series was fun, but the real comics are just awesome!
Although your music is brutal, we can find groovy elements in your songs, which makes it only more fun to listen to your music! Agreed?
Yes, that's one aspect we got better comparing our debut to "Concerto for the undead", but we still have room for working on this topic, new songs we're writing are even groovier, can't wait to have them recorded!!
The artwork of the cd is awesome. Congratulations. Is it as important for you guys as the music or...?
Both our albums are concepts, so yes, we wanted to have everything connected: music of course, but also the artwork, band image and the video we'll be shooting soon! For this record we've been lucky enough to get the chance to work with the outstanding italian artist Corefolio, who created that great packaging which is perfectly fitting the "Tales From The Crypt" concept! I think it's really fantastic!
You already established a cool merch line :), finally another band who realizes that this is also very important!
Especially in these last few years bands are experiencing the fact CDs aren't selling anymore, so merch is now becoming the only thing that really pays bands and musicians in general. There are two different types of fans, the old school ones who keep on buying the record and then if they like the band they'll get some merch, the other type, which is way more common, usually downloads the record and buy merch if they think you're cool, so we need to have something for everyone ahah!
Do you guys have certain goals set out? Or things you would like to see happen?
We just want to tour as much as possible, we're now trying to sort out a UK tour for the fall and hopefully a trip to Australia where our record came out on STOMP Entertainment at the beginning of May. We'd love to get in a cool support tour and have new stuff released soon as well, so yeah we got many goals we're trying to make real!
Dunno but writing some music for a horrormovie wouldn't that be a dream come true for you guys?
Yeah, writing a song for some badass horror movie would be epic! Who knows, maybe in the future we'll get this privilege, I'd scream my lungs out on some zombies armageddon scene ahah!
And how about touring? Ready to conquer Europe and the rest of the world?
Sure! So far we played some cool festivals through Europe and the response was great, in August we'll tour northern Europe with Trigger The Bloodshed and then we'll sort out a real tour through Europe for the rest of the year! Keep yourselves posted on www.stigmahc.com
Are you gonna come back to Belgium? What do you think of our little country? What do you remember or like the most?
I always say Belgium is our second home, we love your country and have great memories of the shows we played there, from small youth clubs to Ieperfest last year! People is awesome, promoters are good and the shows are fun, we'll definitely be coming back before the end of the year!
Do you already have plans for another new cd? Or is it too soon?
We're writing new stuff already and have plans to releasing something new pretty soon!We got a new second guitar player in the band and we can't wait to show the bands improvement!
Anything left to add?
Thanks a lot for giving me the chance to talk about our music! We can't wait to be back in your country! Keep safe!!
http://www.myspace.com/stigmahc
Bart & Nico
Hey there, well, after releasing our debut album "When midnight strikes!" we toured in support of it, first in our country, then expanding our touring activity to the UK and most of Europe. We met lots of new people and shared the stage with some very good bands, then started writing our second record, "Concerto for the undead", which came out a couple of months ago. Our first record gave us the chance to tour out of our country and expand our fan base, so we feel like it achieved his purpose, now we're working hard on promoting this new one and hopefully things will go even further and better than our debut.
How would you compare the second album with the first? The sound grew, I would say.
Yes definitely, we actually wrote this album trying to avoid what we thought were the weak points of our debut album, so we wanted a more live oriented record, easier to understand for the audience and easier to listen to in general, we wanted it to be more technical but catchier as well, so we made it more guitars driven and with more melody in general, and we wanted to fit better into the concept, so we actually wrote the songs after choosing the stories we wanted to base lyrics on. We're proud of this record and consider it a big step forward compared to our debut!
When I listen to the cd, I can imagine you guys like to laugh and to make fun. It is well reflected in the music.
That's great!! One of the aspects we wanted to make it clearer with this record, is indeed, that we love horror and death metal, but first of all, at least for us, metal is being able to not take things too seriously, I mean, I sing about ladies trying to escape from zombies, and most of the times zombies are quicker than those ladies, but that's just fun, we want to have people in the crowd having at least the same fun we have playing this music!
And horror will still be and stay the second inspiration? Can you tell us some of your alltime fave horror movies?
I'm the old school guy, so I'm really into the very old movies, like the first "Dracula", "White zombie", most of the movies featuring Boris Karloff, but I'm also into Argento's masterpieces "Profondo rosso" and "Suspiria". Our new album is inspired by the US legendary comic "Tales from the crypt", so that's another great passion for me and the rest of the band, I think the TV series was fun, but the real comics are just awesome!
Although your music is brutal, we can find groovy elements in your songs, which makes it only more fun to listen to your music! Agreed?
Yes, that's one aspect we got better comparing our debut to "Concerto for the undead", but we still have room for working on this topic, new songs we're writing are even groovier, can't wait to have them recorded!!
The artwork of the cd is awesome. Congratulations. Is it as important for you guys as the music or...?
Both our albums are concepts, so yes, we wanted to have everything connected: music of course, but also the artwork, band image and the video we'll be shooting soon! For this record we've been lucky enough to get the chance to work with the outstanding italian artist Corefolio, who created that great packaging which is perfectly fitting the "Tales From The Crypt" concept! I think it's really fantastic!
You already established a cool merch line :), finally another band who realizes that this is also very important!
Especially in these last few years bands are experiencing the fact CDs aren't selling anymore, so merch is now becoming the only thing that really pays bands and musicians in general. There are two different types of fans, the old school ones who keep on buying the record and then if they like the band they'll get some merch, the other type, which is way more common, usually downloads the record and buy merch if they think you're cool, so we need to have something for everyone ahah!
Do you guys have certain goals set out? Or things you would like to see happen?
We just want to tour as much as possible, we're now trying to sort out a UK tour for the fall and hopefully a trip to Australia where our record came out on STOMP Entertainment at the beginning of May. We'd love to get in a cool support tour and have new stuff released soon as well, so yeah we got many goals we're trying to make real!
Dunno but writing some music for a horrormovie wouldn't that be a dream come true for you guys?
Yeah, writing a song for some badass horror movie would be epic! Who knows, maybe in the future we'll get this privilege, I'd scream my lungs out on some zombies armageddon scene ahah!
And how about touring? Ready to conquer Europe and the rest of the world?
Sure! So far we played some cool festivals through Europe and the response was great, in August we'll tour northern Europe with Trigger The Bloodshed and then we'll sort out a real tour through Europe for the rest of the year! Keep yourselves posted on www.stigmahc.com
Are you gonna come back to Belgium? What do you think of our little country? What do you remember or like the most?
I always say Belgium is our second home, we love your country and have great memories of the shows we played there, from small youth clubs to Ieperfest last year! People is awesome, promoters are good and the shows are fun, we'll definitely be coming back before the end of the year!
Do you already have plans for another new cd? Or is it too soon?
We're writing new stuff already and have plans to releasing something new pretty soon!We got a new second guitar player in the band and we can't wait to show the bands improvement!
Anything left to add?
Thanks a lot for giving me the chance to talk about our music! We can't wait to be back in your country! Keep safe!!
http://www.myspace.com/stigmahc
Bart & Nico
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