interview with Kalisantrope
What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?
N: Hi, I'm Noemi, I'm 22 y/o and I play bass guitar
A: Hi guys! I'm Alex, I'm 24 y/o and I play drums and percussions
D: Hi, I'm Davide, I', 24 y/o and I play keyboards
Did you make music even when you were young? K: Yeah, all of us started when we were very young, about 15 y/o. We played some rock covers like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Noemi (only her) sang Death and Pantera songs.
Where are you from? K: we are from Milan, Italy
What year did the band form? K: we formed in 2013 but we already played together in a different band where we played a different genre.
What's your style of genre? K: our genre is a mix of prog rock, free jazz and experimental music. We also love adding a psychedelic sound in our music.
What inspires you?
A: I'm inspired by latin music like bossa nova, fusion and merengue and electronic music.
D: I take inspiration from classical music and from old prog like Le Orme and Banco del Mutuo Soccorso. But also I love today's prog and the mix between different genre.
N: I'm very keen on free jazz and acid jazz. Also ambient can be a very fertile environment for prog rock lovers
How often and where do you reherse? K: we reherse once a week in the basement of alex's home and we have always a special guest, Yumi, the beautiful Alex's black dog
Do you have other interests of work outside the band?
A: I work as sound engineer and basically music is my entire world
N: Right now I'm studying to become music manager and producer but I have also a solid background in world's literature which is something very useful when you are writing a song and you need inspiration.
D: My interests outside the band are very far from music because I'm interested in the natural environment and all the ways to preserve it.
Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? W: If there is something we are sure about is exactly this: we love to do things on our own because we are more free to explore and to learn the tricks of the music industry.
What are your songs about? W: Our songs are a bit dark (ahahaha only a bit LOL). We don't have lyrics so it's more complicated to make people understand what are we talking about. So we always explain that to the audience. The main themes we deal with are death, human suffering and the cruelty of nature. We are inspired by literature (like John Donne and Giacomo Leopardi), science (like parasites and fungus) and history (the Holodomor and the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima)
Have you done any covers live? K: We don't like to play covers. The only cover we used to play is “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg
Do you have a regular place you play live often? K: we prefer to perform every time in different venues in order to attract new fans and to know new people
What was your first gig like? K: It was both amazing and terrifying because the venue was awesome and the stage was enormous but it was the very first time we played our songs and we didn't know anyone from the audience
Where do you plan to gig the comming year? K: We would like to visit our country first but it's very hard to find venues outside Milan. But we have a gig in The Netherlands next September with one of the most amazing italian group, Unreal City, and we are extremely happy about it.
Where can people buy your merchandise? K: You can buy our first EP on Bandcamp, which is a very good website to sell merch
Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? K: It's easier from older bands because everyone has started to listen to music with those incredible artists, who, back in the days, experimented a lot. But we think that people should look around more in order to find inspiration from today's groups which are as good as the old ones. Not only musicians should open their ears but also the consumers of music, who stay always in the past
What advice would you give other bands or artists? K: Be yourselves, always. And stop fighting each other because an artist can only learn from or have fun with another artist!
How do you get psyched for a gig? K: Well, we usually drink water and believe us, the effect is pure magic!
Do you have any new material? K: Of course! We are writing our new full-length album, entitled “Brinicle” and it will be released in February/March 2017. This album will be less dark and it will have a harder sound. We are trying to create a more solid and complex sound
What are your web sites? http://kalisantrope.altervista.org/ https://kalisantrope.bandcamp.com/releases
How can people reach you? Via our fb page https://www.facebook.com/KalisantropeOfficial/ and our personal profiles
What are your plans for the future? We would like to experiment more with our music by adding new intruments and by exploring new
