Interview by Blagoja Belchevski & Roberta Ilaria Rossi
The Stompcrash is a dark wave/goth rock band from Milano (Italy). After the release of the first record, “Requiem Rosa”, that received a very good and positive feedback all over the world, this band now comes back to the scene to introduce the fans their new record, “Directions”, an album that deals with love, regret and so many feelings. Christian and Daniele, the lead singers, are proud to explain what’s behind their music…
Hi Christian, hi Daniela. Welcome to our website, Femme Metal.net. How are you doing?
Daniela: Fine thanks! Our new album “Directions” is out and we are very satisfied!
Christian: Hi, fine, I’m happy to be here.
You both are the singers of the Italian goth rock band The Stompcrash, an interesting reality of the “alternative” Italian music scene. Would you mind to tell us in short how was born this project, giving a short biography of the band?
Daniela: Our band The Stompcrash was born in 2002, Christian and I decided to give real expression to our creativity through the music. During these years there was some lineup changes but I think that now we have find a good balance in the band.
Christian: 10 years these days, it’s a long way to the top as said a great r’n’r band! Jokes apart, the band born by a casuality, a chance encounter, just following the love for a kind of music and for great band like The Cure and Depeche Mode. In these 10 years we made 2 albums, some compilations around Europe and many many live gigs, I think we are grown but we have more to do ad to say.
Let’s begin our chat talking about your new record “Directions”. It’s a record that sees a slight change in sound terms, it’s a bit more “aggressive” compared to the previous album “Requiem Rosa”, indeed there’s a great attention to the electronic shares and the guitars are more overshot (prominent), giving a much more stronger and mature sound. How did it happen this music “growth” compared to the “softer” and ’80 sounds and melodies that were on your first record?
Christian: We are more conscious and confident now, during the recording of “Directions” we knew exactly what kind of sound we wanted, we tried to create our sound, was not the same with previous album “Requiem Rosa” that was based entirely on the 80’s sound. I think “Directions” is more modern and personal then “Requiem Rosa”. A more sharp and professional production did the rest, we recorded everything in the studio, an entire month of sessions, mixing and mastering with long date professional guys. The guitars came up just because was not drowned in reverbs and other strange effects, in a certain kind of view the sound in the new record is more plain and clean.
Daniela: “Directions” is different from our first album “Requiem Rosa” for many aspects. In “Directions” we tried to give more emphasis to melodies of the songs and for the first time we used acoustic instruments like piano and acoustic guitar, we are naked in musical terms speaking.
How did this record come to life? What could you tell about the recording/writing process?
Daniela: Christian and I usually write songs together, in this album Christian was more focused in writing lyrics, you can see that he has writes all lyrics except one, and I concentrated myself in creating melodies, after that we dedicate other time to complete the construction of whole song and then Diego and Grace put their personal touch. I think that this new album is more emotional than the first, maybe because there are our personal changes inside. It’s a romantic album, full of stories and atmospheres coming from literature, history and personal experiences.
Christian: This new records contains songs written in four year and chosen between 20 songs. For this record we have have recorded all the 20 songs in our home studio producing a demo records from what we have selected 12 song that we have re-recorded in the studio. Musically speaking Dani has the main parts of the songs, it’s very keyboard oriented, I wrote the lyrics and sing almost all the songs. A characteristic is that the sound vary from song to song, you can find different genres and different stylistic undertones but overall you can always recognize The Stompcrash style.
What could you tell about the lyrics, instead? This is a record that deals with love, guilt and more other feelings. How does a lyric branded The Stompcrash come to birth?
Daniela: Our lyrics sometimes are tales and sometimes feelings and emotions. There is not a rule to write a lyrics with our “brand” The Stompcrash. I think that this new album is more emotional than the first, maybe because there are our personal changes inside. It’s a romantic album, full of stories and atmospheres coming from literature, history and personal experiences.
Christian: There are not rules, we write when we have something to say, usually we don’t plan to write a song, it’s really difficult to say why and how we wrote a song.
Where do you take your inspiration to compose something?
Christian: Inspirations come from everywhere, you can have it from a picture, a book, a movie or just watching the street from a window. This new record is not maily based on literature like “Requiem Rosa”, “Directions” it’s an album about love, sorrow, regret, about blood on the wheels of history, about how in life “behind each corner new directions lie in wait”.
Daniela: Sometimes it’s easy to write a song because you feel that is the right moment to write… Sometimes you have time to dedicate to music but you don’t have the right feeling to compose … There is no rules and no time to do this … It’s art and creativity.
Among your influences, you mention giants stars like Depeche Mode, The Cure, Joy Division, Siouxsie and The Banshees and much more. How did you approach yourselves to their music and what kind of ‘side effect’ has it had on your way of being yourself and to approach with music?
Daniela:I love Depeche Mode and The Cure and many other bands from ’80, I had classical piano studies but these bands bring me to synthesizer and to a sound inspired directly to them, this is the first and main side effect! We are constantly influenced from what we listen, especially when what we listen has a very emotional feeling. When we wrote a song we always try to put our emotions in it, we always try to bring these emotions to the listener, It’s surely another side effect. We love the music of these bands but we have our identity and our sound, we don’t want to emulate them.
The fusion of your voices creates somehow a unique result, with a more gothic sound given by Christian’s voice and a more post-punk one by Daniela’s vocals, giving also some great tracks that mix multiple genres like deathrock, goth and new wave. What causes the choice of experimenting these genres merging them all together?
Christian: We are both singers of the band and we usually sing in different songs but I think we have great results when we sing together in the same song, in the future we will use more double vocals. Daniela is always very focused in playing synth and keyboards, it’s not easy to sing when you have to play two keyboards together so to be singable by Daniela a song have to be tailored on her. “Directions” has very complicated keyboards framework and it’s the main reason that brings me to sings more songs then her. About the different kinds of genres, it comes because we just follow our feeling for a song, every song is a world apart, we don’t plan to make a particular kind of music, we just follow what comes in the song we are writing, you can view our albums as a collections of singles.
Daniela: We have the opportunity to use male and female voices into the songs. There are songs in which the male voice is better than the female voice and this is the result of “Directions”. We thought that the two voices male and female are another thing that help us to build our “brand” The Stompcrash!
In this record, you’ve managed to experiment your own sound, giving the fans the proof of your talent, that is clearly visible in this record but you mainly were born as “darkwave band” and your lyrics were quite inspired by masters of gothic novels like Lovecraft and Poe, from which you resume the decadent aesthetics later developed by Oscar Wilde, also present in your first album “Requiem Rosa”, in particular in the track called “Dorian”. Everything here is stuffed by that sense of gutting the man from society and from himself visible/active in the works by Franz Kafka. Living estranged for a while from the musical world, what is the influence that these writers have had in your life? What has driven you to take them as icons guide of your music?
Daniela: Dorian will never died, what does it mean? People think only to useless things and to the exteriority. The song “Dorian” spoke about Dorian Gray’s tales but the meaning is very actual, just see around you, it’s everything based on nothing, also friendship is now reduced in something virtual and just apparent. We live too fast and we never ask a questions about what happened around us, reading Kafka bring you in a different mind condition, you’ll fell you in another world that unfortunately is very similar to our world.
Have you ever been fans of such writers? If so, is there any particular work that you like the most or that has influenced your music career?
Daniela: There are many good contemporary writers but I think that writers like Poe or Lovecraft , Kafka can leave marks in your life. I think “The Trial” and “Metamorphosis” of Kafka are the works we like the most.
From a distance of your first record, released in 2007, you’ve faced to play abroad and not only in Italy. Have you received a different welcome/reception? What are the differences between your Italian and international fan base?
Christian: We experienced that our kind of music is better received abroad instead in Italy, it’s not simple to do a good gig in Italy. Consideration and support for the band is frequently better outside Italy, it’s a fact. The majority of our fans are based in the north and east of Europe so our wish is to play there in the next months.
Now you’ve released your second record, which comes in your sixth year in the music scene. What are your future goals and/or dreams for the nearest future?
Daniela: In these 4 years from the last record we have written a lot and now we have many new songs. Soon will be a new professional videoclip and maybe a new EP or album. Next spring we will play at two international festivals one in Munich one in Austria. I wish there will be the chance to play live for every people wants to hear us. Step by step the band is grown, until now was a walk I hope the band will start to run! We will not wait four years anymore for our third album!
Thanks so much for your precious time guys. Femme Metal gives you the chance to say “hi” to our readers and your fans out there!
Daniela: Thank you too! Take time to visit our websites and follow us! Kisses!
Christian: Thanks for support and keep in touch!
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