In 2007 the nameless debut meant the First encounter with a new seminal Italian band. Pathosray plays heavy progressive metal which combines high levelled technical skilfulness with emotive compositions. The second album ‘Sunless Skies’ is available now and it completely comes up to the high expectations. Therefore we contacted Pathosray again and talked to the sympathetic and enthusiast bassist Fabio D’Amore.
Hello guys, here Vera, we met at ProgPower in the Netherlands! How are you? Now that your excellent sophomore album is about to come out, it is time for a new interview and update… Hello Vera! Here is Fabio! Of course, we all remember about you and the big support you gave us during our journey for Prog Power Europe! Yes, finally it’s time for us and for our fans, for a new album, and of course, for a new experience!
I think your debut album was received very well. Are you a bit satisfied about what you reached after your entrance in the scene? Yes absolutely! The first album was really well received, all over the world. We were really satisfied, and I can’t hide, maybe a little bit surprised? Probably, we couldn’t have thought to have such good responses, and I can also say that, both invitations to Prog Power USA and Prog Power EU gave us a huge chance to get in touch with a lot of fans and new friends, that discovered the band there on stage!
To support the first album you played selected gigs in Italy. What about those live performances with an album to sell in your own country? Unfortunately, that’s the bad side of the whole thing. Considering the fact that a big crisis took place in the music business (and not only…), and the difficulties a prog metal band finds to play gigs around, we can also add the problems we had for the distribution of the album in our own country. People couldn’t find our album anywhere and few concerts we played far from home, we tried to sell as many CD’s as possible ourselves, to satisfy those who couldn’t reach our music. So, the promotion we did playing live concerts was the only way we had to sell our music to the audience. But it seemed Italy wasn’t so interested in our music for the past two years… Now we hope for a change…
But you played some important gigs abroad. First I would like to hear about your memories and experiences of the trip to Atlanta to play on the US ProgPower fest over there… Sure! That was for us our best experience in our lives, as a band, as musicians and as fans. It was an incredible chance for us to show what the band is able to do and play on stage, and also to promote our music directly from our own mouths… I explain: the fact we were there, in the biggest market for us, increased the potential the band already had, from the time of the first release. People got to know us in person and we spent a lot of time with all fans and friends. Personally, I couldn’t ask for more…
A bit later you played at the Dutch ProgPower fest. I hope you have good memories on that. Can you tell as much as possible about this adventure for you? Another great experience: just a week later, we were already ready to leave for another Prog Power, this time the European version, in Holland. We were all really excited, after the American experience, and our willing was to repeat the great performance on stage and try to show our music to new fans, and to a different audience. We were really interested to see the reactions we could get in Europe, and I can surely say we were really satisfied! Of course, both festivals were completely different, so I won’t tell which ones I preferred, because I couldn’t give you an answer. They both were great!! I think the audience was really satisfied too and, watching back some short films, you can also find on YouTube, it seems we played a really good gig. The location was so funny, so different from our home towns, and from Atlanta! So, we had two great-frenetic weeks we can’t forget hehe.
I remember you told me that four new songs were recorded (preproduction) at that time. When you came home you focused on writing material for ‘Sunless Skies’. Can you go a bit deeper into this time and writing? Yes, exactly! We recorded a 4-song preproduction, before leaving for the US. We started working around June 2008, and we tried to do our best to have a product that could tell us if we were ready to record the new album. The excitement was extremely high: it was the very first time in the band history that there was the possibility to work all together, with the same line-up, on the new compositions. Even if we were just recording four songs, we already had the rest of the ‘Sunless Skies’ tracks written and ready for the official record. The result was incredible and that was a good point that gave us the right strength to face both concerts abroad, and to increase our excitement, once we got home. We spent the whole month of October on finishing writing some lyrics and studying in detail how the album would have to sound. At the moment we felt ready to start, we entered the studio, around November, and we started the long process that took us to have ‘Sunless Skies’.
You had great expectations about new guitarist Alessio Velliscig, because he also had composing talents. Did he have an influence on the writing and songs? Well, we all knew Alessio for a long time, and we all knew he couldn’t disappoint our expectations, so we were kind of sure we were choosing the right new member! Yes, you said the right thing: Alessio has a really good talent in composition and of course, you can hear his influence through the whole album, but as far as you can hear the influence from the other members of the band.
What are – in your opinion – the biggest differences between the debut and ‘Sunless Skies’? Well, I can say that there are a lot of big differences between ‘Pathosray’ and the new album. The first could be the song writing process: this time we could work all together, without changing the line-up during the recordings, and the “team spirit” is something you can hear when you’re listening to the album. Then, I can add the production: the recording process has gone really good, and we had the possibility to choose the best studio, the Swedish Fascination Street. There’s a huge difference between the old sound and the new one. Last but not least, the lyrics are absolutely better done and all of us tried to write something for this new album.
Is there a lyrical concept (this idea loomed up in me when listening to the two last songs, but of course I can be wrong) If so, please tell us about this concept. If not, any details about lyrical contents would be nice though… No, it’s not a real lyrical concept album, but I can say that before starting writing the lyrics we decided to bring some main themes along the album. You can find lyrics talking about the bad sides of our new modern society, politics, religions, illusions, drugs/dependence and so on…I think this was the way we wanted ‘Sunless Skies’ to be and we really liked its result. If you notice, the whole themes always refer to the relationship between mankind and reality.
You recorded the album at your own Artesonika studio, that must have been a relief and more relax way of working. Can you tell something about the studio (since when is it operational for example) and the recording process? For sure: working in our proper studio meant living the whole album recording in a better and relaxing way. You might know that recording an album means a lot of stress and efforts to spend, but in this way we saved all our energies to the mixing and mastering session. We took our times, without rushing, but always remembering that we were recording our second album, and not a pre-production, of course hehe. The recording process is quite the same as a usual one: we prepared all the guides and metronomes, before starting the drums, and so on with the other instruments. Of course, we spent a lot of time on the vocals and keyboards arrangements. We didn’t want to sound too “old”, both in vocal ideas and keyboard sounds. After everything was properly edited and fixed, it was the time to send all the projects to Sweden and wait for the first mixed samples.
This time no Hansen, but another famous studio for mix and mastering: Fascination Street studio with Jens Bogren and Johan Ornborg. Did you go over there to assist? How was it to work with these guys? No, unfortunately we couldn’t effort the trip to Sweden at that time, and professionally, just for my experience, I would have liked to assist the sessions, as the other guys could also say. But of course, that didn’t affect the impressive result we obtained! Jens and Johan are great guys, and working with them was exactly what we wanted to do. They mixed and mastered the album in the way we wanted for ‘Sunless Skies’, and we didn’t need to press them or remind them what to do: I think they have the right experience to offer their bands what they’re looking for, also adding some cool ideas and effects!
One of my favourite tracks on the new album is ‘Poltergeist’ and its amazing sequel ‘For The Last Time’. Can you tell a bit more about these tracks which seem connected in a kind of way (but ‘For The Last Time’ is older, isn’t it?) Yes, in some way, ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘For The Last Time’ are musically connected. There’s also a meaning behind the lyrics: ‘Poltergeist’ explains the inner relationship between a man and his dependence; that could be alcohol, drug, or whatever else… It’s a sort of dialogue, and this dependence is speaking to his “friend”. First everything seems to be great, and it is offered to become someone more than he is, but going on with the rest of the lyrics, you can notice that the dependence becomes the real owner of his body and his brain. So, at the end, “Man is everything, and Man is nothing…” , that’s how both lyrics are linked, explaining the concept of the emptiness a man could feel, after any kind of dependence or wrong situation. Of course, ‘For The Last Time’ is an older song, we once recorded last year, but that we re-recorded for the occasion. The idea of linking it with a “bigger” song already existed at that time, so we did it for the new album.
The debut came out on Sensory Records. Now you are part of the Frontiers “family” and in Japan ‘Sunless Skies’ is released by Soundholic. What happened on the label front? I thought Sensory was so impressed by your preproduction four songs? We received one of those offers you can’t refuse, during the recording process of the new album. We thought ‘Sunless Skies’ would have deserved to have the best support possible, and we made our choice. Then yes, in Japan the album is out through Soundholic, which have offered us a deal we couldn’t refuse too, for the Asian marked. At the moment we’re really satisfied and we can’t wait for the album to come out, to get first responses.
There are two female vocalists on the album. Please tell a bit more about them? Of course! One is Silvia Marchesan, and she’s the guest soul voice in ‘Perpetual Eclipse’ and the end of ‘Poltergeist’. She’s exactly what we were looking for: a female singer, not necessary affine to our kind of music, but with a warm voice, really close to black voices! And result was perfect. The other female singer is Klaaire. She’s the singer of the other band me and Ivan have, called Syrayde. For the song ‘The Coldest Lullaby’ we were looking for a powerful voice that could bring the 2nd verse and the refrain at the highest point, talking about feelings. Then, she also helped us with some backing vocals on the Japanese bonus track, ‘Rainfall’. Also there: an impressive result!!
No more occasional grunts, hmm………. Nope – this time we wanted to concentrate on alternative solutions, as filters, vocoders or something we haven’t tried before.
You are confirmed for ProgPower Denmark in September 2009. Any prospects on this new territory? That’s an amazing invitation for us! And again, another huge opportunity for us to play abroad, in a big festival, with great bands and to bring our music always furthest! I’m sure we can repeat our good performances of last year, but I’m also sure that with the new songs we could do even better!!!
Are there other plans for gigs in the pipeline? Of course, we’re always trying to get more gigs possible, abroad and in our territory, to promote the new album. An European tour, supporting a bigger act is always on our plans, but we’ll see what we can get. Our management is working on a lot of stuff for us right now. More, trying to play on festivals, and arrive to those who don’t know us.
Can you tell a bit more about the artwork and its linking with the album? For sure! The artwork was made by Gonzalo “Genzo” Ordonez, an artist from Chile, really well known in his sector, and part of the Deviant Art community. He did a great job for us, and the most important thing is that he’s a great fan of the band, and he took inspiration also thanks to our lyrics and some of our songs we sent him. The artwork represents the ones we think will be our future “sons” and the modern society: people without brain and without critic, homologate with the things medias and politicians tell them to say. We wanted to “denounce” that with writing an album, and of course, showing our feelings, also with the graphics.
In the meantime you are friends with Philippe Giordana. He told me he had loads of help from you to record the latest Fairyland album ‘Score To A New Beginning’… Any thoughts on that? Yes – that’s absolutely great for us! We had lot of fun together in the studio, during the recordings of ‘Score To A New Beginning’, his new album. Marco is the lead singer for the whole record, and I’m the main bassist and back vocalist too. Then, our parts were recorded in Artesonika, so Ivan was the main sound engineer and Alessio played a solo for the opening track of the album. A great experience for us as musicians and we’re really happy we found a great friend from France!
You should even help him out as band in his few live gigs, is that true? Exactly! Me, Marco, Alessio and Ivan will play with Philippe during his next live gigs – for example at Prog Power Scandinavia pre-party and at Metal Fest in UK. We hope to play a lot with him, and I’m sure that would also increase interest on our band, too.
To occlude: what were the highlights until now for Pathosray? Absolutely Prog Power US and EU: experiences that gave us something more. But of course, the coming of this new album is for us something will always remain in our minds. I’m sure this time could be even better than the first one, and probably finally erase our original status of “unknown debut band” (smiles).
And what are the plans for the near future? We’re thinking about filming our first video clip – but we’re still working about that. There are a couple of songs that would be interested to be filmed, and that could also help with the promotion through the net. Then, as I said before, a European tour and new gigs are our main thought right now, and always reaching new fans!
Thanks a lot for this interview! The new album is a stunner again and may my support help in spreading the word/music! I wish you good luck with all your endeavours and hope to see you live again pretty soon. Take care! Thanks a lot to you too Vera, it was nice to have the possibility to talk about Pathosray on Lords of Metal once again! We do hope to see you again soon and hope your readers will like our new album, as much as we do.
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