Rockezine.com interview with Domine on Feb 19, 2004

with Enrico on Feb 19, 2004


		First of all since Domine to me is a totally unknown band, could you tell us a little about your background? Hi!!! Very briefly: DOMINE is one of the most successful bands of the Italian metal scene. We are an epic POWER metal band from Florence, Italy, and the actual line-up is Enrico Paoli, that’s me, on guitar, Riccardo Paoli on bass, Morby on vocals, Stefano Bonini on drums and Riccardo Lacono on keyboards. Our style is a mix of classic heavy metal totally influenced by the bands of the 80’s, especially the English bands of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal like Maiden, Saxon, Tygers Of Pan Tang and Angel Witch and by the first wave of the American Metal bands of the 80’s like Manowar, Warlord, Omen, Savage Grace and Virgin Steele. We like to write songs with epic and majestic atmospheres, with a lot of melody and big guitars. We are influenced a lot by heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery writers, movies and fantasy illustrators. I guess it’s natural for us to play the music we love, the music we grew up with, with all the influences of all the interests we have outside of music. We got some attention with our first CD Champion Eternal, an album released in 1997 that became some kind of a cult-release. The band was not new when the debut album was released, being around since 1983 and having previously recorded four demo tapes (from 1986-1994) in that same epic power metal style, long before the genre became a band-wagon to jump on. However, the line-up of the band drastically changed just before the CD and this recording was really a new start. We have released our second album Dragonlord – Tales Of The Noble Steel in 1999, our third album Stormbringer Ruler – The Legend Of The Power Supreme in 2001 and our fourth CD Emperor Of The Black Runes is just out. We have played many gigs during the years; we have done a European tour with Agent Steel, Riot and Anvil in 2000. We have supported bands like Rage, Grave Digger, Running Wild, Gamma Ray during their Italian tours. We played some big festivals like Gods Of Metal 2000 with Iron Maiden, Wacken Open Air Festival 2002, Gods Of Metal 2002 with Manowar and Heineken Jamming Festival 2003 with Maiden again and many other festivals in our country with local bands. Our albums have been licensed in Japan, USA (Dragonlord was released in the US by Metal Blade), Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Russia. So, here we are now talking to you!
		Although Domine released their debut album only in 1997 you guys have been quite active long before that; since 1986 to be precise. Why did it take so long to get a record deal, and what did you guys do during that long period of recording demo tapes? I think there are two main reasons. First of all, the very first line-up of the band was made of friends. We were just schoolmates having fun playing the music we loved and we did not have any kind of professional attitude. If we had, we should have fired band members and got a better line-up together since the first day. Instead, we went on in a very amateuristic way, recorded many demos, many songs, struggling to play gigs but in the end the band was not really working out well. It was just for fun. The second main reason was the Italian scene during the 80’s was terrible. There was almost no chance to get a record deal for a heavy metal band, there were just very few independent labels interested in this kind of music, and it was even difficult to find a recording studio with people who understood this kind of music. The scene was almost nothing. Well, now it’s not THAT big, it’s still pretty underground but at least there are some labels, promoters, magazines interested in Metal and some good bands that do good albums. As soon as we put the line-up of the first CD together, we got a deal. Morby, our singer, has spent 10 years in a band called Sabotage and did two albums with them but they were one of the best bands in Italy during the 80’s.
		How would you promote the new album to the fans and potential fans? Right now, we are doing a lot of interviews. We have some good feedback. In Italy we made the cover of 3 magazines, which is great. The album is released in Japan last November and there was good feedback there too. After all the usual promotions with the media, we will start playing live. We have booked some gigs in Italy from April on, we will play in Greece and we are checking with an agency if there’s a chance to jump on a European tour and some summer festivals. But nothing is confirmed, so I better shut up and keep my fingers crossed!!!
		As I listened to your new album, Emperor Of The Black Runes, I heard some Rhapsody and even Bal-Sagoth influences. Would you like to comment on that? I think Rhapsody is a good band, but we are different. We play more traditional heavy metal, while they are much more symphonic and ‘German’ if you know what I mean. For instance, we use keyboards too but our sound is mostly based on guitars while Rhapsody use these big symphonic arrangements with a lot of classical instruments. That’s because we started playing during the 80s, before Rhapsody, even our first CD was released before theirs. We share something with them of course, I guess we are both into Manowar and epic atmospheres, but we have a very different approach to song writing. Fabio, the singer, is a good friend; we have shared the stage many times when he sang with Vision Divine. Bal-Sagoth are much more extreme, it’s a black metal band. I have a problem with that kind of vocal style. They also have many orchestral parts and I read in an interview that Alex from Rhapsody really likes them. I think Domine’s main influences are Manowar, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy and Queen but also other kinds of music like prog rock and melodic hard rock. I guess, after all, we are children of the 70s/80s playing our music with the sounds of 2000.
		In “The Aquilonia Suite” you use a part of the original soundtrack theme of Conan The Barbarian. How difficult was it to get permission to use that part? Not as difficult as actually writing the song! It’s not easy to write an 11 minutes epic song. We only use a few themes from the soundtrack. We took inspiration from those themes to write our own song in our own epic power metal style, with a lot of changes from slow and evocative to fast and heavy moments. The song is inspired by the Conan books by Robert E. Howard and by the movie too. It’s called “Part I” because there are many good stories in Howard’s books, like “The Hand Of Nergal”, “The Hour Of The Dragon”, “The Tower Of The Elephant” that I guess there will be more stories to cover in part II or more. This is a real homage to the writer who basically invented the “modern” heroic fantasy literature and to Basil Poledouris who wrote one of the most epic works of arts EVER. A real source of inspiration. We had to work hard but we really love it and everybody seems to love that song.
		What song is your favourite on Emperor Of The Black Runes? I enjoy the whole album but my favourite songs of the album are “The Sun Of The New Season”, “The Aquilonia Suite” and “True Believer”. These are the songs I truly love to listen to when I put on our CD. I would buy a CD with those songs on it. These are the songs which I like to play live. I love to play the heavier and faster tracks like “Battle Gods” and “Arioch, The Chaos Star” because you can just rock hard and get a great reaction from the kids. Usually, when I listen to the CD I like the more complex and longer songs, when we play live I like the more direct and faster track. I guess those are the two sides of our style.
		I like the artwork of the album. Who has done it and what does it exactly represent? All our cover art is done by a painter. Her name is Giovanna Corsini. Her style is usually more neo classic but she studied a lot of heroic fantasy artists and illustrators like Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta, Chris Achilleos, Rodney Matthews and Boris Vallejo to work on our stuff. I usually torture her and she does many good paintings, all oil on canvas, then we choose the ones we like. Like all the covers of our albums, on Emperor.. we have Elric Of Melnibonè, the main character of an amazing saga of books written by a wonderful English writer called Michael Moorcock. “Emperor Of The Black Runes” is one of the many names by which Elric Of Melnibonè is known, so are “Champion Eternal”, “Dragonlord”, “Stormbringer Ruler”, “Bearer Of The Black Sword” and “Last Of The Dragonlords”. I’ve been a huge fan of his works for many years, even before I started playing music and his books are a constant source of inspiration. The Elric Of Melnibonè saga is, in my opinion, the best heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery saga ever written. We have used the character even for the covers of our old demo tapes and I wrote many songs about him, on this album the song “The Song Of The Swords” is related to the first book of the saga. He’s on the cover of our new album too. We are not the first band to use this character for the covers (Cirith Ungol, Faithful Breath, Diamond Head) and Michael Moorcock himself wrote lyrics for Hawkwind and Blue Oyster Cult. We don’t claim we invented anything about him, it’s just such a powerful influence for us and we like to give credit to the creator of this great character. At some gigs I even had fans of Domine who wanted me to sign Michael Moorcocks books because, they told me, they would never have known about those books if I had never written songs about them. A great compliment. There are also rumors that Michael Moorcock is working for a possible movie trilogy about Elric for Universal.
		Are you aware that there’s a typo on the cover (Thulsa Doom is spelled incorrectly once) and if so doesn’t it bother you? Yes, of course I’m aware but as people say: shit happens! You are the first to point it out, nobody seems to care. Some people don’t even read lyrics. It will be corrected in the next pressings anyway. It bothers me a little but I have the first Queen album, one of my old time favourite albums, and on its side there’s written QUENN instead of QUEEN. I guess I could live with it, let me just check my heart pulse… yeah, I’m still alive! Eh! Eh! Eh! Some people even look for pressings with errors like this, they usually get rare. Crazy!
A lot of metal bands are doing so-called concept albums, and most of them suck big time!!!		Does the album have a concept, or are all the songs separate stories based on fantasy books? And how exactly does the title of the album tie in with the songs? No, the album is not a concept album. I get this question all the time, with every release we do, but we have NEVER done a concept album. I can understand why everybody is asking because when you listen to one of our CD’s you get the feeling of a “whole” work, with an intro and different tracks that might change mood according to a story. We have some songs which are based on books or movies we love but actually, there’s not a single story. Not only that, but a lot of metal bands are doing so-called concept albums, and most of them suck big time!!! If I think about a concept album, I think about The Who’s “Tommy” or “Quadrophenia”, or Yes “Tales From Topographic Oceans”, or Genesis “The Lanb Lies Down On Broadway”, or Jethro Tull “Thick As A Brick” and “A Passion Play”, just to name a few I love. In these real concept albums, you can find structures with main music themes that come back during the story many are related to some characters of the story, and the work is structured like an opera. That’s not an easy work to write. Most of the metal bands just record 10 songs and then mix them together without silence between each song and they think they have a concept album. I’m a huge heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery litterature fan, I love writers like Micheal Moorcock, Robert E.Howard, Paul Anderson, Frank Herbert, Gene Wolf, Ursula LeGuin, Tanith Lee, Clive Barker, H.P.Lovecraft, and J.R.R. Tolkien, of course. I’ve been into this kind of readings since I was a kid, even much longer before I actually discovered metal music. I guess I was attracted to metal music because I saw it had lyrics about those kind of stories and epic atmospheres. I have read hundreds of books and I think it is really boring to see these young kids writing about the same stupid stories with swords and dragons. I mean, I like stories of swords and dragons too, but they must be good and not the same simple stories. Those bands think they can become like Rhapsody overnight. Journalists usually receive promo copies of the album with no lyrics but it’s a little depressing to get sometimes thrown into that bunch. We are much more personal and dedicated, but hey that’s why we are doing interviews for!!! So people may understand what we are doing. “The Aquilonia Suite” is based on the “Conan The Barbarian” books by R.E. Howard. “Battle Gods” and “Overture Mortale” are musically inspired by a theme from W.A.Mozart’s “Don Juan”, while on the lyrics side, it’s inspired by a Chinese sword and sorcery movie called “Legend Of Zu”. Very Epic. “Arioch, The Chaos Star” is loosely based on the Michael Moorcock books, but I took a chance to put something personal in, talking about universal evil. Same thing “Icarus Ascending”. I started from the myth of Icarus to write about freedom, in a personal way. “The Prince In The Scarlet Robe” is based on the Corum saga by Michael Moorcock. It has the subtitle “The Three Who Are One part I” so I can write about other characters in future songs. “The Song Of The Sword” is again based on the Elric of Melnibonè books, in particular on the first book of the saga. “The Sun Of The New Season” is epic and melancholic with a lot of Celtic harmonies and it’s a song about hope for the future. “True Believer” is another one with very personal lyrics, dedicated to everybody who spends his life believing in something, whatever it may be. The CD ends with “The Forest Of Light”, an all acoustic song that was a kind of experiment for us. The lyrics are about a kind of calm after the storm, another song of hope for the future and very loosely inspired by the theme of Tanelorn, the city of peace, from the Moorcock books.
		Apparently you guys are fans of fantasy novels given the content of the lyrics. What books do you read and what is your favourite writer? As I said before, I love many many writers and a lot of books, Michael Moorcock is my favourite. I also read other stuff, for instance, now I’m reading Micheal Moore’s last book about USA government, which is smart, intelligent, funny and scary at the same time. Before that I read “Ring” by Koji Suzuki, which is horror and Traci Lords biography “Underneath It All” which is...ehm...you know! We are all big movies buffs too. I read a lot of movie magazines, especially about B-movies and underground stuff like horror and art-house movies. I love Dario Argento!
		Since this is quite a big issue in the world of fantasy (and outside it too), what do you think of Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings trilogy? I think it’s great. I’ve been following Peter Jackson’s work since he started with those wild splatter movies, Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles and BrainDead. Then he proved to be a great director with Heavently Creatures and The Frighteners but now he has topped everything with this huge trilogy. Of course, he had to change a few things, the book is very difficult to translate into a movie, but I think we can live with those changes. There are some incredible epic moments. The soundtrack is amazing too!
		Any hopes and wishes for the future of Domine? We are very realistic persons and we have been around for so long that we don’t really make big plans for world domination, if you know what I mean! We just wish we will keep on being successful enough to keep on playing our music and enjoy it. So far so good. Let’s just see what the future brings. This album is getting some good feedback, we would love to play in countries we have never been, like Japan or USA.
		Thank you very much for this interview. Is there anything you want to add to it? First of all, I want to thank you for your time and support. We love to come to play for you guys. In the meantime, check our web site www.dominetruemetal.com and give a listening to our new album Emperor Of The Black Runes, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Ciao!!!
(Frank van de Voorde)