Interview by Arianna Govoni
Considered by many as the spearhead of the Italian symphonic metal panorama, SinHeresy gets back on track bringing some fresh air. Indeed it’s a recent news that the band has announced the arrival of its third full length album, which will be out in July via Scarlet Records. On the occasion of the brand new Milady Metal Festival edition, an event that is mainly dedicated to the female voices in metal, we managed to exchange a few chats with the singer Cecilia Petrini who anticipates us something concerning the upcoming brand new record.
Hi Cecilia, welcome back on Femme Metal webzine. It’s been a while since our latest chat. How are you doing, girl?
Cecilia: Well, I’m very, very good!!
Six years after our latest encounter, we show up here at Arci Tom in Mantua. How do you feel? Are you feeling energetic?
Cecilia: Yes, absolutely! We’re quite thrilled for this new show, because first of all the contest is indeed very nice, we often heard a lot about this new venue, but we didn’t have any chance to play here, so finally today it’s our turn to play here at Arci Tom! Secondly, this concert marks the end of an era, since this is the last show we’re going to introduce and play the songs from our latest record, “Domino”.
Yesterday, May 3rd 2019, you’ve announced that a brand new studio album is coming soon, it will be released by Scarlet Records in July; so I would love to ask you this: would you mind telling something about this upcoming record, “Out Of Connection”? How does this third album differ compared to the previous efforts? Except for the lineup which sees four members now and not six. What topics did you deal with this time around?
Cecilia: Actually there’s no bad blood with the former band members, Alex and Daniele, it was indeed a decision related to some personal matters that we absolutely share! Of course we had to think about the future of the band, we clearly decided to not give up, but indeed to “take advantage” of this separation in order to turn around our music style. Actually, in “Domino” there were already some seed of this change addressed to some more direct music, less symphonic in a way, so it was more smooth under the point of view of the song structures and arrangements. We brought this and we further developped our more energetic, direct and more immediate soul, taking account of the fact that, at this point, we started our journey when we were around 20 yrs old, now we’re almost 30. We’re completely identified with a society that is a slave of the social medias, of the appearance, technology, but it is also allied, so it’s not only a slave in this case! So bringing in these topics in our music was basically unavoidable, since it’s a part of our daily lives.
The front cover that I saw yesterday is very ‘cybernetic’ and kinda futuristic, in some way. What does it want to depict and how does it reconnect to the album itself?
Cecilia: The front cover depicts basically what it could be a sort of visual representation of what each of us interprets as a digital “self”. It’s indeed inseparable to think of the own person only and exclusively in relation to the other people, in a phisical relation to the others, we’re basically in a digital relation compared to other peeps and this is what we wanted to depict in the artwork. Gustavo Sazes has designed it, he’s known for his work with Amaranthe, Volbeat, he made incredible works and we only gave him two little inputs: we just said that we wanted a person depicted in the cover, depicted in a sort of cyberworld and he designed this. He clearly understood what we wanted to show with this change, both musically and personally.
This will be the first release without Alex and Daniel. How did you approach to the recording process? Who has managed their own parts?
Cecilia: The drums have been recorded by Simone Morettin, the former Elvenking drummer, who gave us a huge help with the arrangement of his instrument and this has been recorded at the Hansen studio by Jacob Hansen in Denmark; indeed, concerning the keyboards, Davide, our bass player, managed to record his own parts. Back in the days of our very first EP, “The Spiders And The Butterfly”, Daniele wasn’t still in the band, so Davide managed to arranged the keys and he filled in now temporarily. We continued our path but we still are faithful to our roots.
What has pushed the former band members to leave? Were there other music projects aside or they only wanted to dedicate their lives to something else?
Cecilia: Nothing bad happened, nothing tragic! Basically, it has nothing to do with the artistic vision of the band, indeed Alex and Daniele are still our very first supporters! It was something strictly connected to their own live, because playing music in a band is very demanding, especially for those people, like us, who have not a job that is related to the music. This means that for eight hours a day these people are busy with something else and we have to put away music aside for the spare time we have and that we have to share with family, friends, other hobbies and other activities… It gets very hard to manage! Alex and Daniele preferred to give their own priorities to other aspects of their lives, but as I said, we’re still in good terms!
From today, SinHeresy will play as a quartet, basically, or are you currently searching for a drummer and a new keyboard player? How will these instruments will be played live?
Cecilia: At this point yes, because it clearly becomes a bit harder to manage, but concerning the keys, since we have reduced them already both in “Domino” and “Out Of Connection”, as you will hear, we’ll rely on the pre-recorded parts. Concerning the drums, well, we won’t have any base, unfortunately, but we have both Simone who helped us with the recordings and Gabriele Boz, which is here with us today at Milady Metal Fest; in this case, we could rely on some other drummer of our region, like Alfredo Macuz, Michele Manfredi… Yes, we have some friends who could help us under this point of view! It’s indeed nice to see that each of us offers his own contribution to the band. It’s heartwarming!
Maybe SinHeresy has been one of the few Italian bands who succeeded to play abroad with just a debut album released. I’m talking about “Paint The World”: on the occasion of all the tour you had on the road, you’ve managed to share the stage with Lordi and Tarja Turunen. What do you currently remember about these experiences and what kind of lessons do you think you learned?
Cecilia: Off stage, Tarja Turunen is a very sweet woman and this, of course, has been a huge help for us who have felt back then a bit intimidated. Indeed she’s been very sweet, so was her stuff! I have to say that everyone is a very friendly person, so we haven’t had any problem on that tour! We shared with her five gigs in the biggest European cities, and after seeing her so calm and sweet off stage pushed me to “capture” with my own eyes and ear something about her moves, about her attitude, because she’s very dynamic, without taking into account that under the technical point of view she’s a war machine! It was indeed one of the most beautiful experiences I made with the band! From every tour you bring home something different, because each tour comes in a different moment of your live where you are, more or less, prepared to deal with certain situations. If, perhaps, with Lordi it was our very first big tour and we were also very unprepared due to the preparation of the stage, all the things you have to do before facing the gig itself, with Tarja we felt more prepared, so everything was smooth. Moreover, we’ve been lucky to share the stage with another support act, The Shiver, which is an Italian band, so this made the communication even easier and it helped us in managing all the technical aspects… Indeed I had more freedom to observe Tarja’s attitude, as I mentioned earlier, both on and off stage. It helped me to learn a lot and to grow personally as a singer, it made me understand one important thing: loving your own job! She loves her job with all her heart and you can clearly see it in everything she does, this has really incited me to continue with the band, also because, as I said earlier, many are the difficulties. Seeing somebody like her who dedicates herself with all her heart, well… you couldn’t feel more inspired to do the same!
As you know, I had the chance to see SinHeresy few years ago in Bologna when you supported Anathema and on that occasion you offered the Italian audience an amazing acoustic performance. What’s your most beautiful memory of that night?
Cecilia: Indeed I surely remember all the preparation we had that is was quite hectic, because we’ve been warned about the fact that the gig was going to be unplugged less than a month earlier! We didn’t arrange our own songs in a more acustic version, so we had to completely re-arranged them and rehearse them in less than a month… so we found ourselves in hot water, but as soon as we entered the stage with palpitations, seeing the lights going down, you start off with your guitar harp, the keys, gives you some relax. Music loosen you up, but at the same time it scares you, because you don’t know if you’re going to give a good performance, but the more you go on, the more you get calmer and the more you play well. Also having a good reception from the audience is clearly an exchange of energy which helps a lot.
Waiting for the band to introduce this brand new studio album, what’s currently brewing for SinHeresy?
Cecilia: At the moment we have booked some summer fest, the first one will take place in Bulgaria at Hails Of Rock, where we’re going to play on June 30 in good company of Children Of Bodom and Garbage. Then we’ll host a series of gigs that will be more intense this Fall and we’re preparing some new video in order to promote the new album! The first one will be released at the end of the month, we’re preparing a second one in order to unleash it in the summer.
So there’s some hype for this brand new record! Well, Cecilia, I thank you for giving me this spot. You’re always so sweet! I offer you the chance to share the final word with our fans and you can conclude this chat the way you want! See you in a couple of hours!
Cecilia: I can do nothing but thanking you for this interview, for the presence and the constant support that you personally give to the Italian music scene. The only thing I can say is to stay tuned on our social medias because we’ll offer some new. Yesterday we announced the arrival of this new studio album and a lot of things will be announced shortly!