Rockezine.com interview with Mesmerize on Feb 25, 2002

with Andrea Tito on Feb 25, 2002

OFF THE BEATEN PATH WITH MESMERIZE On the 25th of February, the Italian heavy metal band Mesmerize released their new album "Off The Beaten Path". REZ had a friendly conversation with Andrea Tito, the bassplayer. Here we go…
		Andrea, what have the reactions been so far on the new and 3rd "Off The Beaten Path" record? Did you expect this? Do you have a large promo campaign? Well, actually the CD has just been released, so up till now we’ve got no reactions from the fans, which are the most important listeners to me. So far we just received a bunch of reviews from magazines, webzines and radios, which received a promo, and the reactions are quite good overall and we’re definetely happy about it: lovers of Classic Heavy Metal seems to like our album so much, and even those who are not really into this kind of music seem to recognize anyway what our music is about.
		About our expectations, I can tell you that we really had no clue, because we got so involved in this record that we really can’t judge it under an objective point of view and I can tell you that we’re really curious to hear the thoughts of the listeners: as for ourselves, we’re really convinced that we’ve made the best album in our possibilities! The promo campaign has just started and is definetely very good, because we’ve already had the chance to give a lot of interviews all around Europe: our promotional team is doing a great work, and we’re answering to contacts with great pleasure!
		How long did it take to write and record this cd? Is this your usual way of working? The writing process started right after the release of our debut CD “Tales Of Wonder” in 1998: in the following months we wrote the music for about twenty songs, and we sacrificed four of them to be included in the 2nd (and last!) CD “Vultures Paradise” for our former label Underground Symphony. We worked really hard on the rest of the tracks, and 11 of them are now the tracklist of the new CD “Off The Beaten Path”: they’ve been crafted and arranged with great care before entering the recording studio in mid-2001.
		The recording and mixing sessions lasted about a couple of months, but not full-time, of course. Anyway, the way we write songs hasn’t changed at all during the years: everyhing starts with me or Piero (guitars) creating some guitar or bass riff, which is developed by the band into a full song while Folco (vocals) creates almost all the vocal lines. We like to work as a band, because everyone gives his own opinions and ideas, and we keep on trying different arrangements until everyone of us is satisfied with the result and this can really take some time, to be honest, but very rewarding in the end!
		Are you satisfied with the way the record turned out? Who did the production and will you work with him again in the future? Who did the artwork on the cd and are you happy with the way it is now? Yes, we’re completely satisfied about how “Off The Beaten Path” has turned out, and also both with the production and graphics. As I told you, we’re pretty sure this is the best possible “portrait” of Mesmerize at this moment of our career: the songs turned out how we wanted them to, and I think they are a big step forward for us, since they sound more mature and better structured, and in my opinion they also have a very peculiar sound which can help us creating a very personal style, easily recognizable as ours.
		About the production, we worked closely with two guys we already knew and collaborated in the past: the recording has been done by Andrea Trapasso, a really talented sound engineer which we had the chance to work with many times in the past couple of years, when we recorded stuff for various Tribute CD`s (Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Queensryche, and so on...); the mixing and the mastering has been done by the well-known Frank Andiver a long-time friend of ours, one of the most important musician and sound engineer of the italian metal scene, a guy with a really huge experience and also a nice mate to hang around with!
		Our drummer and guitarist Andrea and Piero helped a lot during those processes, assisting the guys I mentioned to follow the production of the CD from the beginning to the end: we’re really satisfied about the production, so I suppose we’ll ask them again in the future to work together!
		As for the artwork, it has been done once again bye the great australian painter Shane Parker, which is another Mesmerize trademark, since he did all the three covers of our CD`s: every time he surprises us with his great skills, because, we just give him some inputs about what we want, and the final result is always better than any expectation!
		This time the painting represents an old and wise man, who knows a lot but still has a lot more to learn, who decides to leave the comfortable and already beaten path to venture in a scary and unknown forest: this is kind of a metaphore, and it means that you have to suffer and sweat to build your own experience and live your own life. The character of the picture is the same wizard that appeared on our debut CD “Tales Of Wonder”: you’ll be able to watch the picture in its details, because the booklet of the CD is also a full color poster of the cover itself. We’ve always done this also with our first two CD`s, because Shane’s illustrations are so beautiful that they deserve a big lay out!
		Who writes all the music and the lyrics within your band? What`s your procedure on this? Has this been different in the past? I am actually the main composer, because I wrote about 70% of the music, while the rest must be credited to our guitar player Piero. About the lyrics, they are written again by me and Piero (we wrote 4 each), but also with the contribution of our singer Folco (who wrote 2): there is not a particular rule about it, it just depends on the inspiration and the availability of the single band members! Our writing process has always been this way, and I suppose we’ll go on this way even in the future.
		What about touring? Will you be doing this in the near future and do you like it or not? Of course we like it! I think that playing live is the best part of being in a band, because the vibe you get when you’re on stage in front of people who really like the music you’re doing is really overwhelming, emotionally speaking. We love to have a closer contact with our audience, and we’ve always played a lot, during our career, even if just touring here in Italy. Now that we have the new CD around, we’re gonna play a huge number of concerts again: we have already started doing gigs to promote “Off The Beaten Path” and to present new songs, and it looks like they’re being appreciated by the audience, so we’re definetely confident about the future.
		You know, one of our biggest dream would be touring even outside of Italy, but it depends heavily on the record sales in foreign countries: if those sales are good enough, Mesmerize will surely play some gigs around Europe and of course we would just be happy about it! The ideal situation would be playing as support act for a bigger name: anyway, it’s too early to talk about it, let’s just cross fingers and see what happens!!
		Please tell us something about the lyrics on this album. Maybe explain songs like "Overdoze" or "Jail TV"? As our musical style hasn’t changed at all (we’ve always played classic Heavy Metal and we always will!), even the subjects of our lyrics are about the same stuff we wrote about in the past: mainly based on “tales”, we’re continuing the tradition started with our debut “Tales Of Wonder”, taking inspiration from the things we like best, such as books, movies, legends, comics, or sometime creating new stories of our own, using strong metaphores to tell our feelings about life and stuff like that.
		To give you some examples about our “tales” lyrics, I’ll mention a few of our influences: “Argos Died Twice” is continuing the saga started with “Children Of Reality” on our first album, inspired to the old sci-fi movie “Logan’s Run”; “Doom Of The Darksword” is based on the second book of the fantasy Darksword trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman; “King Of Terror” takes inspiration from a famous italian comic books character called Diabolik (which Folco is a great fan of!); “Where Skye Meets The Sea” is about Scottish legends from the Isle of Skye, while “Gates Of Mercy” pays a huge debt to the work of William Shakespeare.
		The two songs you mentioned in your question are the perfect example of the two kind of lyrics we write: I wrote “Jail TV” inspired by the background of an america comic book called “Cruel And Unusual” by Vertigo/DC, and it’s about a Pay-per-view cable TV showing what happens in a maximum security penitentiary. Of course the story is fictional and exaggerated confronted to reality, but such a sick and twisted environment is worth writing a story about! “Overdoze”, on the contrary, is based upon a strong metaphore, and was written by Folco: it talks about those people who keep their mind asleep, not deciding what they really want to do with their lives, and they just keep waiting while life goes on and time runs short.
		You know, sometimes we feel the urge of express some of our thoughts about life: we did it also in the title-track “Off The Beaten Path”, which is nothing else than a suggestion to live following your own thoughts and making your own experiences, just listening to yourself and not to other people’s decisions.
		Are you satisfied about what your record label Dragonheart does for your band? If not, what could be improved the next 2 albums you will do with them? Well, up till now we couldn’t be happier than we are, because they’re doing such a great job! You know, we’re not that used to it, because our former label did no promotion at all with our first two CD`s: we had to do it all by ourselves, sending promo stuff to magazines and webzines, contacting them for interviews and all the usual stuff a record label should do to promote its own product! Luckily, now we can concentrate our strenght and efforts on the artistic side, on the music, because Dragonheart is taking care of all the promotion and judging by the first results, as I told you, they’re doing a very good work!
		What`s your opinion on the internet and the online magazines in relationship to bands like yours? I just think all the best about it, because Internet is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to promote a band: we’ve seeen it for ourselves in the recent past years, because we’ve both spread our name all over the world and also gained a lot of contacts thanks to our Internet site. Online magazines are useful to it too, and I must admit that they are the first sites I surf to when I connect my personal computer to the net: there I get all the info I need about the music I love the most, information and details which would have been really harder to get without the net! So you get my “thumbs up” about it!
		Do you think the rock and metal scene is healthy at this very moment? Seen any new talent lately? You`ve been around since 1988 now and please give us your view on the Italian scene as well. Honestly I can just talk about the current metal scene, and I must admit that, even if these days can’t be compared to the glorious eighties (which cannot be easily matched, in my opinion), the scene is quite healthy: I’ve listened to many new bands playing metal, and this is definetely great, because the more metal music is spread around, the better are the chances to hear great good stuff!
		About the Italian scene, things couldn’t be better: with great bands such as Rhapsody, Labyrinth, Domine, White Skull and so on, Italy gained a very special place in the metal scene, a thing that was really unthinkable just some years ago; all these bands I’ve mentioned paved the way for the whole Italian scene to be considered worldwide, and this is very positive, and obviously ourselves too are taking advantage of it.
		Andrea, thanks for your time and good luck with Mesmerize. Any last comment? Anything REZ forgot to ask? Future plans? Well, first of all, let me thank you so much for your kind interest and the space you`ve given us! I think you asked us very good questions, so I guess they’re enough. But if the readers wanna know more about Mesmerize, or read our latest news, they can check our Internet site at: www.mesmerize.it Ok, that’s all for now!! A big hello to all the Rockezine friends. Keep the faith alive!! See ya!!
(Johan Godschalk)