Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes, we are all from different bands playing also different genres of music.

How is it that you started playing music? Me (Miro, frontman singer and guitar player) and Drumzilla (Alberto, drummer) were looking for a music project in order to explore different types of hard rock music until we could find our common one.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? In order: Gianluca “Miro” Mirizzi (frontman, singer and guitar player, age 36), Alberto “Drumzilla” Cataleta (drummer, age 36), Daniele “Dan” Piscitelli (guitar player, age 21), Salvatore “Salvo” Palumbo (bass guitar player, age 25).

Have you had other previous members? Yes, we had a previous bass guitar player who was involved in our first album recording, but he quit because he had a job opportunity in the other side of the country; for live events we had one guitar and one bass guitar players but they were more like session men.

Did you make music even when you were young? We did but we never showed our ideas, our music and lyrics outside our rehearsal rooms or even our bedrooms

Where are you from? I am the only one who is from the other side of the country, from Verona (north of Italy), the other folks are from Manfredonia (south of Italy) where we all live and play.

What year did the band form? Easy question: 2016.

What's your style of genre? Hard rock, heavy rock.

What inspires you? Guns n roses, SOAD, Tool, Foo Fighters, Metallica.

How often and where do you reherse? From 1 to 4 times a week depending on our incoming events. When we record our songs we reharsal every day. In the town we live there are 2 rehearsal buildings available. Sometimes we meet at the recording studio and play there...until the owner kicks us out.

How have you developed since you started with the music? It is a hard way to the top… but you know the song already. The point is, if you decide to make it as your job, you have to work hard, study a lot and travel because in the south of Italy there are little opportunities compare to the rest of the Country.

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? We all have other interests: bikes, photography, our family, sports.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that? We are looking for the best option agency in order to play our type of music around our country but it is not easy, there is a lot of competitions among the agencies themself in order to place their artists.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that? We had a label for our first album release. They steal money. They make promises they do not keep. Nowadays bands have to pay for the label (unless you are very famous), not the opposite. We had a big lesson here.

What made you decide to make this music? This is not something you decide but something you feel. In my case, I felt I could make music, my music.

What are your songs about? Our songs talk about us, about our experiences and mistakes. Sometimes about our good things. As I said earlier, I am 36 year-old: I can speak a little about my life ;) But I am scared because I have a lot more to see and live (hopefully). Our songs talk about real stories, for example in “Raining Tears” we talk about that little blonde girl who had a sad childhood and life was never grateful with her because real life is not a fairy tales. Or like “Damned Time” about a woman who passed away because of her cancer while his love was there, praying God uselessly. “Erase It” is about our will to get new chances to live and to leave the past behind. “Crazy Roulette” talks about people living with their smartphones and their social life loosing any type of contact with the real world. Or (last example I swear) “Dark Sunrise”, which claims that God often has been used by humans as a means to control and manipulate other humans. Basically these songs show many topics taken from a daytime life.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? I do. So, everything is about what I want to say.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? In the firs album I started from the music, now, for the secondo one, I want to try starting from the lyrics (even if some song still starts from the music).

Do you compose in a certain enviroment? Right after something has gone wrong. The sad and blue feeling, somehow, opens my creative skills. Most of the time I write lyrics everywhere I can, on a train, at the supermarket, at home, waiting on the line at the post office… but I make my music at home or at the rehearsal room with Alberto the drummer.

Have you done any covers live? Yes, we covered 20 songs of Foo Fighter and some classic hard rock from the 70’s to the 2000’s.

What language do you sing in? English, even if I am starting to write some songs in Italian to be more comprehensible to my countrymate.

What are the least and most people to attend one of your gigs? Least: very old people, they can’t stand metal music. Most: young people, families, teenagers, young adults, women and men at the same proportion.

What ages are most of your concert attendants? 16-45

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? We like to vary but we have our 4 favorite ones.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? No, we change based on where they call us.

What was your first gig like? It was pretty good, we were at a rock festival deep high in the mountain. We played 5 songs, so excited on our first show, people liked us even if nobody knew us.

What was your latest gig? Three days before this interview. We were in a club singing our songs among other bands…each band played a different type of music: Rock (us), rap, trap, pop, reaggeton,… it was cool, people enjoyed our music.

Have you had to cancel a gig? Once, our guitar session man was not available. We had to bring some covers to get a 2-hour music list and without the second guitar we could not play most of the songs. It was in 2017.

Where have you played live this year? For the moment, at “the Alibi”, in Foggia city.

Where do you plan to gig the comming year?

Around the southern country where the rock festival takes place and where clubs call for us.

At the moment we do not have any date confirmed yet.

This spring, in particular, we are going to performe at Sanremo Rock, the biggest rock national event. We are so proud of being selected for this fest. We will do our best J

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale? We still don’t sell merchandise. Probably this summer.

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? It is a smart way to bring your music always with you on your ipod, your smart phone and your computer. But I am an old school guy, I buy records, Viniles and I listen to them at home.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? Once we had less “phantomatic wise guys” who dictated their preferences in the big labels; so everyone could play and experiment different types of music. Nowadays, there is a huge big filter of what people must listen to, so if trap is the new music, most of the labels will sell trap music. Do you listen to this? I will give you this only so that I can sell records.

What do you think of my work? Very interesting work, especially because you explore the music world starting from the bottom artist up to famous ones.

How do you think and know that this interview will help you in the music business? I am happy to share my music world to you and to your followers. For the future, you will never know.

Do you have any role models or idols? Michael Jackson and Dave Grohl as showmen, Slash as guitar player (he is not the best but he gives you the feeling of what he is emotions) and most of all, as a guitar player, Gary Moore..I missed him as much as I miss Michael Jackson.

Why do you think that they exist? They dedicated their lives to the music and to the feeling their music spread out to people. They are simply magic.

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? It is always madatory to get inspiration from the past bands, when everything was more simple. Simple riffs, simple words and groove are the basics to start with. The active bands or modern bands are very complexed, they have a lot of sounds built-in the studios with a lot of instruments and different tracks; if you look into the detail of their songs and remove all the non essential sounds, you can get the semplicity to get the inspiration from but it is quite hard so stick to the old bands.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Find places to play and people to like us. Everyone moves toward one direction and sometimes it looks like we are running the opposite side. Hard rock is also this.

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Play your music because for your self. Never think of playing to sell records or being famous because you will miss the point of composing and playing. Followers and likers will come. You have to be selfish for this reason. Do not

How do you get psyched for a gig? We want to have fun ourself first and this makes our performance sharp. Behind that there are a lot of rehearsals.

Do you have any new material? We do, we are working on the second album, right now we have made 7 songs.

What are your web sites?

Facebook: www.facebook.com/soniccrushband/

Instagram: @soniccrushband Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO-vwVuSwlT8UDcKfJzeeRQ

How can people reach? On facebook we answer almost immediately.

What are your plans for the future? A second album, more to play, more to go and performe.

Do you have something to add?

If you want to play Rock n Roll you know this is going to be hard, but it is worth it.

If you want to give us a chance, enjoy downloading our album “Dark Sunrise” on all the major digital stores (itunes, amazon, googleplay, spotify, …)