interview with Cyrax

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes, Marco is actually playing with Shivers Addiction (thrash metal); Lorenzo plays drums in Templar's Sword (hard n' heavy); I keep my feet in many shoes, as I'm playing with Ghost Opera (Kamelot tribute) and Pi Red Project (prog metal); Filippo plays with Alzamantes (folk).

How is it that you started playing music? Well, there was this girl I had a crush on, and I though that playing an instrument would help to impress her. Obviously I failed pretty bad, but I never quit playing since then.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?

Marco Cantoni - vocals

Filippo Ferrari - guitar

Paolo Musazzi - guitar

Cesare Ferrari - bass

Lorenzo Beltrami - drums

Now, let's be clear about this: Cesare and Filippo have no relation, it's just a coincidence.

Have you had other previous members? Yep. Antonio Rubuano was the guitar player on the previous record (along with Paolo Musazzi), while Lorenzo replaced Paolo Biocchi on drums.

Did you make music even when you were young? Of course, we all had other experiences with other bands or even on our own. Many songs featured on our records come from previous projects of Marco's.

Where are you from? We all live in the neighborhood of Milan, quite far from each other actually.

What year did the band form? As I can recall, Marco, Antonio and Paolo started to work together in 2013, maybe 2012. I joined in early 2013.

What's your style of genre? Good question. Sure it's metal, we have some massive prog influences and sympnonic music also inspired us. But the blending of these features with electronic music is something that makes it pretty tough to define our genre. As we wait for someone to find a name to better describe what we do (it could be you maybe…?), we call ourselves prog metal.

How often and where do you reherse? We take our time to learn the songs in serenity, in our homes. I think it's been 2 years since the last reharsals we had.

How have you developed since you started with the music? We all took different paths. Marco and Filippo still attend music schools, Lorenzo plays with a local orchestra. I used to play all day long and that's the way I learned. We are very different in skill and method, some of us read music from the sheet, others (like me) prefer to just play the notes they hear or feel.

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Sure, Marco is a video director and I am a multimedia producer. We also try to use our know-how to enhance the results we can achieve in music.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? Cesare: We know booking agencies, so we don't really need to look for them. Of course we are aware that in our country all major venues work with agencies, which means that if you want to play there you shall ask the agency, but we have no hurry to get there. At the moment none of us is ready undertake such a commitment, but we'll see in the future.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? Cesare: No, not at all. Right now we feel quite good with Bakerteam Records.

What made you decide to make this music? Cesare: It all started with Marco. He wanted to create something original and unique, and in order to accomplish his dream he chose quite a unique and original method: he chose musicians quite randomly, between friends and friends of friends. I recall the day Paolo contacted me, he sayd: "Hello, you don't know me but… We have a mutual friend who told me you are a bass player. Interested in making a record with us?" And I said, hell yes!

What are your songs about? Cesare: Topics depend on the mood we put in the song, but we take great inspiration from literature, theatre, cinema and other forms of art.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? Cesare: I think Marco and Paolo took care of everything, the rest of us just decorated our instrumental parts and I helped Marco fitting lyrics on music.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? Cesare: Usually we write music first, but we already have an idea of what the lyrics will be about at that time, so we write down every idea that might come in handy later on.

Do you compose in a certain enviroment? Cesare: We usually compose in our houses. I have a small home studio, so when I'm up to writing anything I get my machines on, plug in a guitar into the DAW and play along with my thoughts – or lately I write down the parts in MIDI for future orchestral compositions.

Have you done any covers live? Cesare: Not as Cyrax. There's plenty of live performances on YouTube by all of us, especially me probably… But only with other (earlier) projects.

What language do you sing in? Cesare: The main lyrics are in engilsh. In this last record we decided to add some latin phrases, and a choral section in italian. I'd like to have at least a song fully written in italian sooner or later.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Cesare: We haven't ever performed live so far… So I really don't know. Concert attendance for small bands in Italy is equal to zero, this has to be said. Big artists have no trouble selling out dates, but for newcomers as we are the situation is quite nasty.

What ages are most of your concert attendants? Cesare: Well, even if I really couldn't tell, I guess most of them would be between 30 and 45.

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? Cesare: Right now we are working on a setlist, and since we struggle to do things as good as we can we'll probably stick to that one until it's perfect, then I'd like to add some more stuff, obviously, but we'll see.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? Cesare: We probably will.

What was your first gig like? Oh well, like a total disaster! We had a lot of fun but the venue was… really not a venue, and we were kind of unprepared for it. (I'm talking about my very first gig many years ago with another band, since Cyrax never performed live).

What was your latest gig? It was yesterday! Enjoyable evening, good show in a small venue in Genoa with my other band, Ghost Opera.

Have you had to cancel a gig? Shit happens. It happened before and it will sure happen again, but we will try to play every single gig we can take.

Where have you played live this year? Sure we will start here in Milan. There's a couple of venues that probably will give us a chance.

Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Still here probably, no plans yet.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? Right now we only have the two CDs. We'll prep some merch as soon as we start touring.

Where can people buy your merchandise? Our music is available everywhere, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon. For the rest, you'll have to wait.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? It's cool I guess. I do it myself. It's sad that in this world people do not have money enough to buy music – which is a very important thing in everyday's life – but I don't blame people on that.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Well, labels quit selling records. Instead they sell a print and delivery service to the bands who want to distribute their music. On the other hand we have people still listening to The Beatles and The Ramones, neglecting contemporary music. No judgement in my words, I'm just watching it happen.

What do you think of my work? To me, you are like us. You do something that you like, even if sometimes it's tough and it would be easier to be an ordinary kind of person with an ordinary kind of job and lifestyle. We are both patriots and pioneers.

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? I hope it will help us to have more media exposure, but I'm not expecting anything else really. I know that building up an audience is a tough process, and cannot be accomplished just by putting out a record or an interview. We have to work our way through to the next level.

Do you have any role models or idols? Not really, not anymore. All my idols have ended up disappointing me pretty bad, so I kinda lost my faith in role models.

Why do you think that they exist? They are an important source of inspiration, at some points of our life. Until you wake up one day and realize you don't need them anymore. You still follow them, but they are common people to you now, not idols.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Yeah definitely! There's many many amazing bands out there, and none of us will live enough to see them all, but we can take something good from every single note we hear.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Money. Anything you do – I mean just ANYTHING – will cost you money. A record has a cost, a print has a cost, merchandise has a cost, touring has a cost. If we had money there's no limit to what we could do. Money is our only limit.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Learn math, that's where the money is.

How do you get psyched for a gig? I used to drink. I liked it a lot. Right now I just sit with my friends until the bell rings and the lights turn down, and then have fun.

Do you have any new material? Tons. Problem is Cyrax is a very choosy band, and only one out of ten songs that we propose to each other will actually be developed and turn out on a record.

What are your web sites?

www.cyraxmusic.com

www.facebook.com/cyraxmetal

How can people reach you? The best way is on Facebook, we constantly read messages.

What are your plans for the future? A live tour is on the way, then we'll go back to the studio for another record.

Do you have something to add? Yes: this is the most complete interview we've ever had, my congrats! I really hope you liked our work so far, and stay tuned because we will soon have some news for ya! Bye

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