Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

What is your name? I am Gabriel Cyphre

What´s the name of your music project? Gabriel Cyphre

How was the band formed? In the beginning, the first months of the year 2009, Gabriel Cyphre was a band, and there were three members, bassist, guitarist, and me, the singer, composer and producer. Then i decided to keep going making music using this name without the other members, because i wanted to feel free at making music, and since i think i am a dominant person in general, I hate when someone tells me to change something I created, you know? When you're in a band, you have to respect all the ideas of the other members, and that's exactly what i hate most, because I love to express my self in any single way i can, and no one can tell me "I don't like the lyrics, can you change them a little?", hell no! This is the reason why my music project is a One-Man-Band.

Can you tell about your project? I decided to give myself some kind of reason to live, so I created a "character" called "Gabriel Cyphre", it's not a puppet or a mask, it's just the representation of the two faces of the world, the good and the evil, I mean, G.C. could be the deepest parts inside of the human being.
How old are you? I was born in 15th May 1990, so I’m 24 right now.

Where are you from? I was born in Italy, my mother’s italian and father’s canadian. Now i Live in Italy.
What do you do in this project? I basically do everything in my music project. I’m a composer, producer and singer.

What was the ambitions of the band when you started? My biggest ambition was  only to be known worldwide and spreading the messages i usually tell in my songs.

Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? That’s exactly a hard question to answer, because you can’t explain my music. That’s why i used to say “When words fail music speaks”.

Where was your first gig? It was in a pub in Rome, Italy, during the year 2009.

Where was the latest gig? My latest gig was in Rome some year ago. Honestly, i never performed somewhere out of Italy because i never found a honest and trustable booking agency who could set up some tour dates for me. My fans keep asking me WHEN and IF will i ever start a tour, and i can’t say anything about it because i really don’t know HOW to find a trustable booking agency, since i cannot set up tour dates by myself, i need someone else’s help.

Who writes your songs? I write my own songs. The songwriting processi s very long. There are three points to write a song for me, the first, I need to know ‘what’ I wanna talk about, and once I decide it, I set my brain in a "writing mode", for the whole day I constantly think about the song I have to write, so when I have some good word or phrase in mind, I write it down on the notepad of my smartphone, once I've collected something like fifty words or phrases, I step on the third and last part for the writing process, which is putting them all together and correcting them all, delete, add rhymes, enlarge or shrink each phrase to make it sounds better. Once I finish the third part, I start to compose music for that lyrics.

What genre of music do you make? And who are your inspirations? There is not exactly a name to label my music, because i take inspirations from everything i love. For example, one day i found a very calm a awesome music composition made with the harpsichord on youtube, and the the after i fell in love with a pop song i’ve been listening in the radio while i was in a shopping center, and the day after i was listening to a metalcore song which i fell in love too, and so i decided to make a song putting all the latest songs and music compositions i’ve been listening and likeing the days before, and that’s how i created “Become As One”, which is one of the songs that i made a music video. So basically my music cannot be explained or labeled, because i’m totally free at composing, and i do everything i like. There are a thousand of influences, influences from videogames musics, such as the legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Alice Madness Returns, Batman, Metal Gear Rising, Tomb Raider, Halo, Devil May Cry, and many many others, but i’m also very inspired by Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, Amy Winehouse, Nirvana, John Lennon, System Of A Down, Slipknot, David Bowie, Emilie Autumn, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Johann Sebastian Bach, Alice Cooper, and so many others.

What are your songs about? The main theme for my songs are my insane perception of life, and all the emotions that I would be afraid to tell by talking; but, I think they are the same that every human being could feel in his/her own subconscious. You know, I could ask to someone "why people keep  having children when they know that there is no reason to keep alive the human race?" But I am sure everyone could tell me that I'm insane, and they have right, but i am right too, and they know it in their subconscious. There’s no reason to live or keeping our race alive, but we keep doing it, so who’s the real insane? So i think all of us are insane, one way or another.

Have you made any albums? Yes, i actually made two albums, one went out the 3rd January 2013, which is titled “Master of Madness”, and my second album went out the 27th March 2014, which is titled “Rainbow on the Fallen Skylands”. I also made some singles and a couple of EPs.

Do you have any clips on YouTube? I actually have four music videos on youtube, and some other songs on Youtube, so, yes.

At what age did you start playing? I started to play my first instrument, the acoustic guitar when i was fourteen.

What are the plans for the rest of the year? I’m actually working on a new album, my third album, and it’s about creepypasta stories. I already recorded four new songs, i can mention some of the titles, one is titled “Edward Mordrake’s Agony” the other one is titled “Fear Named Bathory”, and i can’t tell anything else about these new songs because i hate spoilers in general. Anyway the most hard part will be the music video, because i want it to be something really great, something I’ve never done before, and something bigger than I used to do in the past, something really epic, scary and creepy, so i’m not thinking about to finish everything for the end of this year, but I’ll try anyway. It’s supposed to be released for the first months of the year 2016. I can’t really say anything more about it. But I’m sure it’ll be epic.

What are your sources of inspiration? Videogames plots, bands and artists of different kinds.

What's the first step when making a new song? Inspiration. When I feel really inspired I start to write a song, no matter what it talks about, or what kind of music I’m writing, inspiration drives my hand to write on the paper. Sometime i tried to create songs when i wasn’t really inspired, and i always failed. But when I’m inspired, I can’t do it later, because inspiration comes and goes really fast, and if you don’t grab it in the right moment, you’ll going to create another piece of nothing. Inspiration is like a shiny pokèmon, it appears very rarely, and when it appears, you can’t just keep doing what you were doing, you must stop the world and catch it as fast as possible.

How do you feel about the downloading of music instead of buying albums? I understand if someone doesn’t have enough money to buy my music, so I say: “Download it for free if you’re poor”. The only reason for me to make music is to share emotions and teaching values of life, so if my fans can’t buy my music but they enjoy to listen it, then my goal has been reached. Obviously if they buy my music, the clothes from my clothesline, they make me more happy, because i’m a human, just like you, a slave of the system and slave of the god named Money, and I couldn’t survive without. I couldn’t even make music without money. So, this is my point of view.

What would be your dreams for your music project? Well, my dream is already reached, I made two albums, I make music videos, and I can live doing this, I am also owning a clothes line, that’s everything i want. Maybe i would be happier if I could find a booking agency who can bring me on tour someday, but, you know, it’ll be almost impossible since i’m an indie artist, and booking agencies wants bands and artists owned by record labels.

Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? I listen to Marilyn Manson, John Lennon, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Kerli, Ozzy Osbourne, Cradle of Filth, Iiris, System of a Down, Adrian Von Ziegler, Rob Zombie, Korn, and so many more. I actually like too many bands to mention them all.

What would be your greatest fears for the future? My philosophy is focus-on-the-good. So basically i never try to think about what’s wrong could happen in my life. Fear consumes people, focusing on the good only will bring happiness. So i really don’t know what i fear most.

What do you work with outside of the band and the music? I give most of myself to “Gabriel Cyphre”, but since I’m also a composer, i use to compose music for videogames, background music for companies advertisements, and i’m also a designer of a printing company.

What would you do if there was no music? I don’t think i could ever be able to live in a planet without the opportunity to listen music. I think music IS life.

How important are your fans? That’s the most important part of my life and my music project. I’m a very lonely person, and i feel the luckiest human on this planet to have so many fans over there around the world who are appreciating what i do. That’s always been my dream, and everything i wanted to have in my life. I feel very lucky, even if i have no friends, i know there will be my children of madness out there always able to support me. That’s incredible, and i will never have enough of saying THANKS.

What's the funniest/most memorable thing a fan has done for you? There was a girl who used to listen to my music, and “Gabriel Cyphre” was actually an idol for her. She has my posters on the wall of her room, so basically she wasn’t obsessed, but she  was very inlove with this character named “Gabriel Cyphre”. After a couple of years she sent me a fanart of me, and i thank her so much, I just saw one of her pictures, and i just fell in love like it never happened before. You know what? She’s my girlfriend now. So basically this is the final answer to your question: the most memorable thing a fan did for me was making me falling in love with her. And this is one of the reason why i feel so lucky to be known, because if i wasn’t known on the internet, i couldn’t ever meet her, and i was probably single and sad all alone. She turned my life into magic.

Name two of your own songs you like at the moment? I totally fell in love with my newest song “Edward Mordrake’s Agony” which isn’t published yet, and “Flamingo”.

Do you have any webpages? I’m on all the social media! Tumblr, Facebook, youtube, instagram, twitter.

Any pearls of wisdom for all your fans out there? Life is a story, make yours the best seller!

How do you view the music indurty of today? That’s really sad to say but music industry isn’t working as it worked few years ago. Long story short: if you know the right people you can receive some help to grow in the music industry, if not, you must have a tons of money in your pocket to spend in promotion and production of your music, or, you can follow my steps, do it all by yourself and learn how to make music by your own, edit pictures by your own and publish your songs by your own, but you can’t go very far away this way. You will only need to spend all your energies for the music and sacrifice yourself. You will not become Lady Gaga, but you can be known and popular if your works you’ll do will be great anyway. 

How would you describe your sound in one sentence Insane.

What is your favorite crappy instrument? Harpsichord is my favourite instrument, but i don’t think it’s crappy anyway… I’d say it’s old!

The interview is coming to an end, do you have anything else you want to say?

I just want to say thanks. A big thanks goes to my fans, i really thank them all because they are making my music possible. They make Gabriel Cyphre to live, and i really thank them all. A big thanks goes to my girlfriend Catherine, and my family… Thank you. You makes my dream. I couldn’t even imagine a life without you all.

Thank you very much Gabriel, I hope to see you again in the near future. Thank you too Robex, it’s been a pleasure, and thanks for giving me this chance. I hope to see you too very soon. Peace.