Interviewee: Claudio, Thierry and one question from Andrea!
Year: 2008
Website: www.5stargrave.com
MySpace: myspace.com/5stargrave
Label: None
Featured on: Loucifer Speaks Exclusive... So far!
I found out about 5 Star Grave through one of my favourite Internet tools - MySpace. I immediately developed a liking for the track "Ain't That Saint" which was then featured on one of the Loucifer Speaks Podcasts. Shortly after the track was featured, some of the guys in the band answered some of my questions... and here's the result. They covered a good range of topics - from zombies, to covering songs by Pink, to red wine to their own music (obviously!). Enjoy!
Lou: Hi guys, thanks for agreeing to this interview. Before we go any further please can you introduce yourselves to the readers of Loucifer Speaks?
CLAUDIO: Hi there, we're 5 Star Grave, we have a brand new record out entitled "Corpse Breed Syndrome" and if you're tired of nowadays shitty metalcore trendy albums or extreme emo metal bullshit you should really check us out, you could even like us and have a good time listening to our crap.
THIERRY: Hi everyone, we're 5 Star Grave, we come from Italy and we love rock, horror, women and beer.
Lou: How are you today?
CLAUDIO: Different day, same shit. But I'm ok, thanx for asking anyway.
THIERRY: Fine thanx, a little tired.
Lou: Where does the name 5 Star Grave come from?
CLAUDIO: Well, we released our previous EP under the name Ground Zero, but grew quickly fed-up by that name... there are so many bands out there called that way! We even discovered a crappy Italian boyband called Ground Zero, it was simply too much and we decided to change with something more original and personal. 5 Star Grave represents us quite well, is death-related but at the same time ironic and reflects our attitude and the spirit of the lyrics perfectly.
THIERRY: We started with the name Uziel in 1996 and quit playing together in 2001-02; then after 4 years we reformed in 2006 under the name Ground Zero. This name had nothing to do with politics, it simply reflected the will to start from zero with a different style and approach towards music. We've always known that GZ was just a sort of transitory name, that's the reason why the first myspace address was called GZMorgue for example... Now the GZ are dead and back as 5 Star Grave, if you read the bio on the website everything will be clear (or maybe not...)
Lou: How did the band form and how long have you been together?
CLAUDIO: We've been playin' with each other for far too long... Ahah!! Well, it's like 10 years I joined this band, but it was basically a spare-time band, you know like goin' out, havin' a couple of beers and doin' some shows here and there just for fun... It was just before the release of our last EP that we decided to do things in a more professional way.
THIERRY: We started to play together many years ago and under many points of view things ain't changed at all: before everything else we still consider ourselves as a group of 6 friends that love to spend time together creating something that can consider their own. This is how it started and this is how it will end. We still rehearse beneath my parents' house like 15 years ago...
Lou: How would you describe your music?
CLAUDIO: A melting pot of different influences. It's not that easy to describe, our songs basically have an almost classic heavy metal structure, sometimes even rock'n'roll, but then we add these modern/catchy keyboards that make the whole stuff sound even pop and ruin everything in the end with a death'n'roll vocal approach. Put some 80's metal bands in a coffin, let them rot there for a couple of years, then pull them out, feed them with Viagra and probably they will sound and act like us.
THIERRY: A mix of every kind of music we love : rock, punk, metal and sometimes blues, played in an extreme way, always melodic but acid and corrosive. Most parts of the guitar riffs are basically "rock" oriented, the keys are quite 80’s electro pop, great vocal work combining two different styles together and straight drums.
Lou: Who would you say were your biggest influences?
CLAUDIO: Well, we have all grown up listening to 80's metal gods like Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, Megadeth, Slayer and so on, so obviously our main influences are and always will be rooted in that particular sound, but on the other hand there are also more modern bands that we like and somewhat influenced us as well like Rammstein, Carcass or Pain. I basically listen to all kind of music, it doesn't matter if it's black metal or pop. For example lately I'm listening a lot to The Bloodhound Gang, Anaal Nathrakh, The Birthday Massacre and Wednesday 13... We're also deeply influenced by 80's horror movies, red wine and x-rated movies by the way.
THIERRY: Too many... From Elvis to Slayer
Lou: What has been the most "rock 'n' roll' moment of your career so far?
CLAUDIO: More than "rock 'n' roll" I could describe them as punk'n'trash ahah... Anyway, too many to mention, we're a bunch of punks and when we're drunk there's always something funny happening, especially after the shows... Sometimes even before actually.
THIERRY: ...huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh I can just say that every single 5Sg moment is extremely R'n'R
Lou: Your album, "Corpse Breed Syndrome", will be out in November. What can we expect from it?
CLAUDIO: I prefer to let your readers find out by themselves, I just want to point out that I'm really happy about how this record came out, it's very spontaneous and energetic, it goes straight to the point and it's a middle finger straight in the face of any kind of trend or label-created pseudo-metal band fronted by the usual skinny dude with a fringe... Yes, I must admit that I'm quite proud of it, 'coz it feeds upon the rebel spirit that most nowadays bands completely lack.
THIERRY: Sincere music, powerful, melodic, sometimes dramatic. There's rage, passion, suffering... The cool thing about this record is that it doesn't bore you when you listen to it and makes you wanna listen to it again when it's over (or well, I hope so! Ahahah)
Lou: How long did the album take to write and record?
CLAUDIO: Talking about my parts not that much, I'm quite quick when it comes to write down new stuff... If I spend too much time on it probably it's gonna sound like shit, so the best thing to do is to throw away everything and write something new from the beginning... That's how it works for me. We're already writing some new stuff by the way, it would be cool to have another album comin' out at the end of the year 2009 or at the beginnin' of 2010...
THIERRY: About 1 year of writing & arranging, and the weekends from April to June for the recording sessions, mix etc... You don't know how hard it has been, a lot of nerve collapses and headaches, but we're very satisfied of the work, we love the fact that it has a very clear and sharp production with a very "live" feel on it and doesn't sound fake like most of nowadays records do. You can listen to every single instrument and feel that it's played for real and not programmed. Modern but vintage-oriented at the same time.
Lou: Have you had a lot of feedback regarding the tracks that are currently available on MySpace? Has it all been positive? What has been the best comment you've received about them?
CLAUDIO: All positive so far, it's quite impressive, people really seem to like us and of course we're all proud of this unexpected feedback. I like MySpace a lot, you can get directly in touch with the audience without a third party between you and the fans and it's a great way of spreading your music worldwide, especially in the countries you're not able to tour yet.
THIERRY: Everything is workin' out good, very good.
Lou: What is your favourite track from "Corpse Breed Syndrome" and why?
CLAUDIO: Ain't That Saint, Cut You Out and In Bed With The Dead... I love the style of these tracks, they're quite different from each other but at the same time sound damn good and lyrically speakin' mean quite a lot to me.
THIERRY: A good father loves each one of his sons.
Lou: What does the title "Corpse Breed Syndrome" mean?
CLAUDIO: Basically "Zombie Infection", but "Corpse Breed Syndrome" sounds far better, don't you think? (Note from Lou: Yes, I love it!)
THIERRY: It's the sickness infecting our days, most of the people out there seem to act like dead beings infecting and ruining everything surrounding them like in a big modern death parade.
Lou: Where will we be able to buy it from once it's released?
ANDREA: You will be able to buy physical copies of the cd from our official webstore: www.5stargrave.com/merch or from cdBaby. For digital copies, iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon and so on... Actually you can also download for 0.99 euros some songs from indiestore (http://indiestore.7digital.com/5stargrave).
CLAUDIO: Exactly. Despite being our first record we decided to do all the promotion by ourselves (a thing that usually bands do after bein' screwed by the usual rip-off label after a couple of records) without any kind of label ruining everything just to make money out of our music and that's another important point about the band that I want to clear. We received different proposals from labels that wanted to release our record, but in the end decided to do it on our own. I really have a huge problem with the big money making machine called music industry: most of the labels suck, their only interest is to squeeze artists & fans just to make money out of them without really caring about the music and that's why I'm very happy that the music business is slowly collapsing. Let's face it, records are too expensive and record companies only promote shitty bands without a reason to exist that seem to play the same meaningless song over and over again... Where the fuck the original rock 'n' roll / heavy metal spirit has gone? There are so many good bands out there that will never make it only because label are focusing on trendy shit and try to change original sounding bands into copycats, so fuck the music business, better be on your own than promoted by such people.
Lou: What sort of subjects have you written about on the album?
CLAUDIO: There's a lot of black humour goin' on in our lyrics, we basically talk about murders, sex, violence, war, religion and so on, but under a quite light hearted and sometimes even cynic point of view... The many faces of death are quite a funny subject to yell about and the approach we use in our lyrics fits perfectly with our music and the spirit of the band itself. We could be the soundtrack of 80’s horror movies like "Fright Night" or "The Lost Boys" as well... Just have fun out of death before death does the same with you.
Lou: Will you be touring to promote the album? If so, where are you going to be playing?
CLAUDIO: There's not an extensive tour planned yet, but we're gonna play everywhere we can to promote the record, gigs are very important for us and every song has been written and recorded keeping in mind that it has to be performed live. Sometimes you listen to overproduced records where the musicians sound like fucking war machines on their instruments, but when u see them live they simply suck... I cannot understand the reason of such an approach towards music and that's why also in the studio we tried to obtain a sound as "live" as possible, playing the songs the best way we could but without programming or editing anything.
THIERRY: Right now we're trying to promote some dates in Italy, but it's quite difficult to play in our country, basically because most of the clubs pretty suck and the organization is not that great either.
Lou: Which bands would you most like to tour with?
CLAUDIO: Alice Cooper, WASP, Iron Maiden, Danzig, Lordi, Rammstein, Wednesday 13 and so on... Basically the bands I love to listen to.
THIERRY: Too many to mention....
Lou: What is your favourite song to play live and why?
CLAUDIO: Slightly Slutty Behaviour 'coz I don't have that much to sing and I can shake my head a lot ahahah
THIERRY: It's pretty hard to answer to this one, so I'll skip straight to the next one...
Lou: We started a discussion on the Loucifer Speaks forum, where we're talking about "Fictional Cover Versions". Basically we think of the funniest coupling of a band and song possible (eg Slayer covering "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears). What's the weirdest fictional cover version you can imagine 5 Star Grave playing?
CLAUDIO: What about DEICIDE playin' "One of Us" by Joan Osbourne? That would be cool as well ahahah... Hummmm, let me think... Well I must admit that I do like some pop songs and I'd really love to cover "U+Ur Hand" by Pink or "What is Love?" by Haddaway but other band members don't seem to appreciate my suggestions that much so I guess we'll never do them. Oh and I'd love to do also "I was made for loving you" by KISS by the way.
THIERRY: "I Kissed a Girl" or a song by Pink... I'd really like to do a cover of a dance hall song as well, but I have to say that covers and cover bands in general should be considered as the cancer of music under many points of view...
Lou: Do you have any other music available?
CLAUDIO: Some copies of our last EP entitled "The Zero Hour" are still available, but I guess they are rotting into somebody's cellar and not worth that much attention anyway...
Lou: Do you have any other merchandise available, such as t-shirts?
CLAUDIO: We're about to print the new merchandise as well, there's so much to take care about when you do things on your own goddamit! As soon as it is available we'll open a dedicated section on our website for sure.
THIERRY: We're actually working on it, now we're spending all of our energy to promote the album, we've got a couple of ideas for graphics, pins, stickers and so on...
Lou: Are any of you involved with any other bands? Or have any of you been involved with other bands in the past?
CLAUDIO: I sing in a band called Disarmonia Mundi, we're about to release our forth album the first months of the year 2009 and another one called Deadman's Ballroom.
Lou: Other than "Corpse Breed Syndrome", what's the best album you've heard this year?
CLAUDIO: Humm, the new records by Sixx AM, Moonspell, Chrome Division, Wednesday13, Children of Bodom, Pain, Slipknot and Cradle of Filth are all pretty cool...
THIERRY: Motorhead and Backyard Babies.
Lou: And, on the other side of the coin, what was the worst album you've heard this year?
CLAUDIO: The band's name starts with an M and ends with an A and their last record is just beyond boring, they should quit, there's nothing more pathetic than old guys pretending to be still young and inspired.
THIERRY: Too many... Can I say Metallica???
Lou: If there was a zombie outbreak and you were trapped in room with 6 people, 6 CDs, 6 variations of food and drink, what would you choose?
CLAUDIO: Ahah cool one... well, let's see, Monica Bellucci, a bottle of red wine and "SBloody Kisses" by Type O Negative... And of course all the other band members playin' with each other ahahah
THIERRY: I'd love to be the zombie of course!
Lou: While I'm on the subject of zombies (it's a topic I enjoy...), what would be your preferred method of disposing of the flesh-hungry critters?
CLAUDIO: Shotgun & chainsaw is the way to go with those bastards
THIERRY: Ahahah, to make their head explode in the mosh or to stage dive upon them, obviously ninja style, or by a huge amount of sound pressure during our live performance.
Lou: I'm on a spooky theme now - roll with it! What were your plans for Halloween?
CLAUDIO: Oh well, I got drunk and can't remember what happened next really...
Lou: Thank you for answering my questions!
CLAUDIO: Thanx for the interview, it's been a pleasure, be strong!
THIERRY: Take care!