Interviewee: Corrado
Year: 2008
Website: www.lahmia.com
MySpace: myspace.com/lahmia
Label: Unknown
Featured on: Loucifer Speaks Exclusive... So far!
After reviewing Lahmia's masterpiece, "Forget Every Sunrise", I had the urge to ask them a few questions... thankfully Corrado, the band's bass player, was on hand to give me some answers...
Lou: Hi Corrado, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it.
So, how are you today?
Corrado: Thank you for your time, Lou!!
I am ok today and it couldn't be different, our last work, "Forget every Sunrise", is collecting a very good response from both listeners and critics and I'm here replying to your interesting questions!!!
Lou: I have to admit that I'm not familiar with the word "Lahmia" at all. Would you mind telling us where the name comes from and why it was chosen to be the band's name?
Corrado: In the Greek mythology Lamia (the "h" was added later) was the beautiful queen of Libya who made Zeus fall in love with her. For this reason Era got jealous thus killed for vengeance all the sons born from their union. At this point Lamia went mad and started to kill the children of the other mothers by sucking their blood and this behaviour turned her beautiful aspect in the horrible appearance of a monster. Later she got the ability to change her look to seduce men with the aim to kill him with the same method.
For this reason Lamia can be account as an ante-litteram vampire.
We believe that this figure, also after several years from this choice, represent quite well our music that can be violent and elegant and is able to alternate soft atmospheres and heavy riffs and is often characterized by a melancholic feel.
Lou: I've read on your MySpace site that the band has been around since 2001. Has there been many line-up changes in this time, and has your sound changed at all?
Corrado: Luckily we had not so many problems in the line-up, we have a strong friendship and we passed through a lot of difficulties together. We changed only the lead-guitarist three years ago when Flavio Gianello joined the band. It was surely a critical choice in the definition of our sound that was found only with the new line-up.
Lou: As you know, I really liked the "Forget Every Sunrise" EP, and "Glass Eyed Child" is my favourite track from it. Which is your favourite track from the EP and why?
Corrado: Yes I see that you like very much our EP and I am very happy for this, probably you are our first fan in England and you must be very proud of this primacy (eheheheh)! It's very hard to say what of our tracks I prefer, but probably it is "Grinding Dreams" for its dark atmosphere and because it has my favourite bass line!!
Lou: Which track has proved to be the most popular among your fans and critics?
Corrado: I am very happy each time someone says his favourite track, because each one has got his own and it is very difficult to make a statistic of this. Anyway it depends a lot from the kind of listener and from the country he/she lives! Maybe "Glass eyed child" received an higher number of favourable comments between fans and critics in Italy and Europe, but in Germany "Game Of Sacrifice" got excellent criticism.
Lou: What kind of feedback have you received regarding the EP so far? Has it all been positive?
Corrado: YES!! We are very excited for the feedback we received. When we recorded the EP we knew that it was a very good mini-CD (but actually I don't remember about any band who thought they was recording terrible songs!!! Ehehehheh) but we didn't expect a so good reaction from critics (first of all from international webzine, like yours or The Metal Observer) and guys all around the world (we sold our CDs and t-shirts in Australia, Mexico, USA, France, Germany and so on..!!!).
Lou: When listening to the music on "Forget Every Sunrise" it's very easy to compare you to bands like In Flames, Omnium Gatherum and Dark Tranquility. Would you class these bands as your influences? Which other bands have influenced you?
Corrado: We couldn't deny that Swedish death metal is obviously one of our main influences. We all love Dark Tranquillity and the whole Gothenburg scene (In Flames, At The Gates and so on). Anyway we have a lot more of references in the doom/goth and black scene. To name a few we love bands like Sentenced, Novembre, Dissection, Anathema, Paradise lost, classic My Dying Bride & Katatonia. We're also big fans of USA death metal (Chuck Schuldiner's Death is one of our favourite band for each one of us) and of course we've all grown up listening to classic heavy and thrash metal.
Lou: Are you pleased that you're compared to bands like these? Or does it annoy you?
Corrado: Naturally we are all happy to be compared to this important bands. The problem could be only if someone said that we copy their sound and ideas... but fortunately none has noticed yet... ehhehe!
We really believe that today, with so many bands out there trying to emerge from the underground, a personal sound is something fundamental.
Lou: How would you describe the EP in only 5 words?
Corrado: It is difficult for me to define music in general but I make an attempt!!
Metal
Melancholic
Powerful
Introspective
FANTASTIC!!! Eeheheeh, forgive me, that was the advertise time! To be serious I'd say "wide-ranging".
Lou: What sort of subjects do you like to write about in your songs?
Corrado: So far, exclusively our singer Francesco has dealt of the texts. They talk about various topics, often social, sometimes fantastic and sometimes lyrics are crude, telling about life and death either directly or filtered by his sensitivity. What is certain is that our songs never treat with politics. Topics covered until now have always followed the music and the lyrics were born from what the music communicated to our singer, adapting to the mood sometimes angry, more often melancholic of our songs.
Lou: Do you have any plans to record an album in the near future?
Corrado: In our program we would record an entire album the next year, we have yet other songs we composed in this last months. We received interesting offers from indie labels that could permit to us to record our first full lenght. We'll see what will happen in the next future! We're not in hurry to enter in the studios because we're still in the song-writing process and in the records our last EP we put both our souls and good part of our savings!
Lou: Is "An Eternal Memory" (2007) still available? If so, where can we get it from?
Corrado: "An Eternal Memory" is an important chapter of our evolution but it doesn’t represent our music in this moment. For this reason we decided not to print it again. In this moment who would like to buy it can contact us and to order the last copies we have.
Lou: Corrado, you play bass in the band (and very well, I must say!). How old were you when you first picked up the bass?
Corrado: You are too kind with me Lou... be careful... I could believe your words!! Eheheeh!
Anyway I bought my first bass when I was 20!!! I decided to start playing very late and Fabio (my drummer) encouraged me making this choice and I'll always thank him for this.
Lou: Which bass players do you really admire? Do guys like Lemmy or Billy Sheehan really inspire you, or would you recommend someone else?
Corrado: Lemmy is the Rock & Roll! I love him for his incredible attitude, presence on stage and for his ideas while Billy Sheehan is simply enormous. It's difficult deny my admiration for them but they aren't my main inspiration. My first idol was Cliff Burton, my last in line was Steve Di Giorgio. Anyway I'm wild about a lot of bass players, and this list grows especially after live shows!!
For example this year after the exhibition of Morbid Angel I fell in love with David "Evil D" Vincent! If I have to recommend someone here in Italy I would say Andrea Arcangeli from DGM. Just listen to him and to his great band!
Lou: Do you have any tips for aspiring bass players?
Corrado: Play what you feel, don't start with the aim to play complicated lines but instead musical and rhythmic solutions. Study scales and don't listen too much to guitar players: they play another instrument!
Lou: Are you, or any of the other guys in the band, involved with any other bands?
Corrado: Lahmia is not only our band but also our life... anyway almost everyone of us have other side-projects, Fabio, Flavio and me play in another band called Velodrama (rock), Francesco has a black metal project in which I should play bass and another death-metal band (the name at the time is top-secret, eheheh). We like to have new musical experience, so I don't know anything about the near future (!!!) except that we will always play in Lahmia and it will be always our musical priority!
Lou: What is the metal scene like in Italy? Are there a lot of good venues and bands around at the moment?
Corrado: There's quite a nice scene here in Rome... it's not huge and heavy metal is not as much popular as it is in country like Germany or the ones of the Scandinavian area, but there's still a present and active underground. The Italian capital gave birth to groups such as Novembre and Stormlord and I have no doubt that in the future it will bring other top level bands.
What more harms to the scene (not just the metal one) is that a big part of the venues support mainly (if not only) the cover-bands... but we all hope the situation could change in the next future. Fortunately even today there are promoters and clubs who support and believe in the heavy metal underground and help the band who deserves it to emerge through the local scene. I see a lot of young bands of big talent and I really hope and believe that they may gain popularity in Italy and Euorope in a near future. Obviously we are trying our best to be one of those, eheheh!
Lou: Which bands have you toured with so far? Are there any bands that you would love to share the stage with?
Corrado: We had the great opportunity to open a live show to Illogicist, the best Italian techno-death band from Aosta (a little city in north Italy) and we will repeat this beautiful experience on 5th of December. In the next month we will live another great night sharing the stage with Stormlord. We would love to play as much as possible supporting our favourite bands from Italy, Europe and America but this is very difficult because today the sad law is "pay for play"... if you want to tour with or sometimes even open a single gig you have to pay a lot of money.
Anyway we'll try to make our dreams become true and we hope to have soon such great opportunities.
Lou: Do you have any plans to tour the UK?
Corrado: In this moment our first objective is to play all around our country, we are organizing some mini-tours in different zones of Italy, but we would love to play in foreign country and UK, and so Germany, is surely uppermost in our dreams. If you can help us you know our contacts, eheheh!
Lou: Which is your most popular song to play live?
Corrado: I think "Glass Eyed Child" and "Nightfall" from our EP... anyway there is another song, "The Tunnel", still not recorded but only after few shows it's becoming very popular!!!
Lou: What is the best / most memorable gig you've played so far?
Corrado: Probably the concert with Illogicist. It was really amazing, we all love their music and they are like a guide for us! The audience was great and everything was smooth on that night. Another great gig was the one we played in a small club here in Rome with a couple of friend bands... the audience that night went totally mad and it was great to play in front of a lot of never-stopping banging heads!
Lou: We have a weekly Podcast on LouciferSpeaks.com (it's kinda like a radio show that you can download and listen to at your leisure). Would it be OK if we featured one of your songs on it?
Corrado: What are you waiting for??? Hurry up!!! Eheeheheheeheh! It would be a pleasure Lou, thanks for your support!
Lou: Computer games seem to be featuring Metal music more and more these days.
If Lahmia were going to lend one of their songs to computer game, which song would you use? Also, what kind of game would you want it to be? A zombie shoot 'em up? Guitar Hero?
Corrado: Nice question!!! I would use "Grinding Dreams" for a game like Silent Hill or Resident Evil! How do you call that kind of game? Third person adventure/shot-em-up horror game? Anyway it will be perfect... according to me!
Lou: What's the best thing about being in a band like Lahmia?
Corrado: Feeling that you are never the last one, that you can always participate to the composition of new songs and it exactly what happens each time we realize a new song. Our first songwriter is Flavio (lead guitar) but each one of us has is role in composition!! On the other hand you always know that you are playing with 4 brothers... It's enough to desire that this experience could persist in the eternity!!
Lou: Feel free to plug your website or merchandise now...
Corrado: Thanks!! We invite all the metal-heads and readers of Loucifer Speaks to go on www.myspace.com/lahmia and listen to our new EP "Forget every Sunrise" and leave a comment if you like our music. ;)
There you could also find all the infos about our merchandising (t-shirt, CDs, pins, etc.!!). This is the most important way by which you can support us.
Lou: Thanks again for answering my questions!
Corrado: Thanks to you for Lou for the time you dedicated to me and to Lahmia. See you in UK, ok?