SOUL TAKERS – Interview with Mauro

The Italian SOUL TAKERS really is really “soul takers” Their beautiful romantic sounds framed in heavy metal frames attract many sensitive souls (like the siren singing) to acquiring souls and to taking from them the emotional energy Besides in the band really are the two beautiful sirens which they bewitch not only their charm but and the musical skills like the rest of the band

The beginning of the band reach till 90. years, but his present face is different somewhat. The two sisters (Francesca and Federica) initiated rise of SOUL TAKERS supposedly. It is unusual thing because guys usually want to found metal bands, hahaha

Yes, youre right! But times are changing and there are always more girls who like heavy-metal and rock in general Francesca and Federica started playing classic music when they were children (and nowadays they teach classical music). When they discovered metal music they were fascinated by this kind of sound and decided to begin playing metal and they created a cover-band: this band was Soul Takers.

Federica plays the piano. It will astonish nobody but Francesca plays the guitar and it will astonish somebody and especially some orthodox guitarists can make chauvinistic pain of head. Unfortunately such stereotype often reigns, that woman has too little energy to play the guitar, drums or else to use growling in metal music. Obviously I do not think so and I don't share this sentence. At present women are in many metal bands (and this usually is better for bands) So, where does Francesca take energy and inspirations to create such progressive- heavy metal riffs from?

Franscesca plays piano too. And in the first times Federica too played the guitar in the band.

Then she had to stop because of health problems In any case Francesca loves playing guitar and she finds the strength to play in this feeling. I dont think that a person must be stronger to play guitar. Im sure it is a mysoginic prejudice: the will and energy to play is the same in men and women. I know that a some people think that it is not so. But I find this way of thinking really stupid.

Why have you been named the band – SOUL TAKERS? What we should interpret the name of the band?

This is a really silly story to tell…Francesca and Federica were looking for a name for their band and, looking in a TV-magazine, they found this terrible horror movie called Soul Takers…Actually nobody of us ever saw it 🙂 To be more serious…this name is the reflection of what we ask from music: to get in touch with our soul, to offer emotions to the listener.

Tides is your debut album. This is connection of heavy metal with classic music. There are the parties of piano as well as the violin or the cello behind the dynamic guitars and the rhythmical section. The classic instruments perform the important part there. And the very melancholy Dino's singing stands on the front of the whole

Francesca and Federica both have a degree in conservatory (piano) and Francesca is studying composition at the conservatory too, at the moment. Francesca and Federica are musical teachers and have a parallel career in other musical branches (Federica plays often in classical concerts and Francesca plays, and sometimes she composes too, music for the silent movies).

From Francescas interest in silent movies we took some ideas for our video clip, who is available in our CD (and it is also possible to download it from our website). There are some images taken from importat silent movies in it (Nosferatu, Un Chien Andaloux, The Birth of a Nation, Vampyr). Jari (violin) and our singer Dino too studied classical music at the conservatory. So you can easily understand why were so close to classical music! 😀

You are not first if you claim that heavy metal is the natural evolution of classic music. However in this is something true. Can you unroll this hypothesis?

This is only our way to intend metal music: and it is the way of some other bandI think that Cannibal Corpse dont give about classical music, or at least dont think about their music as the natural evolution of classical music. Ha ha ha In any case metal is a totally free kind of music: so everyone can interpret it in his own way. There are no rules in heavy-metal I like this! This is a great strength even if this could become a weakness too

Probably you are right, but I thought heavy metal but not death metal or other kinds of metal music, ha ha ha Where does so much sadness, melancholy as well as depression in your music from? What do you inspire?

Mmm I dont think were so depressivebetter sad or melancholic. In any case I think that life is not so happy, and that we live in strange times. We try to keep hope alive, in our sadness: We dont want people to suicide themselves, we just ask ourselves about life mysteries: death, love, time passing byThere are no answers, but why shouldnt we questioning about?

Do you know what is “duhkha”? It is Sanskrit definition spiking about essence of suffering. The definition is use by Buddhists. What do you think – Where is the cause of suffering?

I don't know, maybe the grief is in our nature. Maybe Buddhist are right: they think that human suffering derives from affection to people and things that we are obliged to lose because of death and our world fragility. Detaching ourselves from every desire could take us to avoid suffering. But is that what we really want?

Are you such melancholic and romantic everyday also?

I dont know: were six people, and were really different between us. I think I am romantic, and I think were romantic in generalbut I dont know: it is really hard to evaluate yourself. Maybe Im just a cynic guy, or I am romantic and cynic at the same timeI dont know!

And will I hear some funny joke?

No, you wont! Ah ah, Im not good in telling jokes in Italian: try to think about my skill in English! Ah ah ah

What are relationships between you in the team. The beautiful women The romantic guys Does nobody love somebody in the band? Hahaha

I will only tell you that two members of the band are married and other two have a stable relationship. We once had a female violin player, but since we fired her and Jari joined the band we do not have the possibility to have 3 couples at the same time in the band ahahaha !!!!!!

In majority your texts are very dejecting. I saw that the vocalist Dino is not author of lyrics. But I have to admit that he understands their message well

Thank you. Francesca and Federica wrote most of the lyrics of the oldest songs and then we re-arranged them before recording, Mauro and I mostly composed the Ťnewerť ones. In our lyrics we try to speak about feelings, about our human condition. Some of them were inspired by our readings (like Blind Dreamers, inspired by Macbeths soliloquy, or 1936, inspired by a tale by Musil) some other simply by our sensations and thoughts.

And what does the public receive you on concerts? Do you also arrange a scenery for melancholy climate additionally?

No, usually we do not have space enough for this kind of scenery. We would like to have it but nowadays it would be too expensive and we could not use it in all the clubs we play in so it would not be a good investment at the moment. Usually we have a good reaction when we play live, we sell CDs, t-shirts and so onI think this is the best way to get known and to get in touch with metal-fans. Hope this would help for our next album.

Did you play beyond your country somewhere yet?

Not yet unfortunately, we are trying to get in contact with different managements in order to play outside Italy, but nothings planned yet and now we are focusing on our new album. So I think well play outside Italy after our new album publication.

We will suppose that somebody wants to invite you to play show. What he should make conditions for your arrival?

It all depends on the different conditions, obviously. Of course it is not a great deal going abroad for only one live show so what we have to do is planning different gigs in the same period in the same area as we have our deal with our jobs here in Italy. We would be very happy to play abroad and were working on it.

Dont you have sometimes desire to play song more lively and with more positive message? Personally I'm delight of “Tides” however rather I would not recommend the album for someone with suicidal ideas, hahaha

I think for us playing this music is some sort of therapy for our everyday life, to heal our problems and frustration, and our lyrics too Yes, I think our music is a kind of music-therapy for us. I do not know the effect on our listeners, but this romantic-sadness is in some ways a trademark of our sound. Actually, I personally play a lot of different genres (most of all funk) so Im not focused only on this particular style and so do all the other members.

What you told, you also realized the video clip for song “Tides”. Is it your only video?

Unfortunately yes, it is available through our website in different formats, but it is the only one we did for this album. It has been a nice experience, as we never did this before, we recorded it with a very little budget as you can imagine and I must admit we are satisfied of the final result. We havent planned a video for our next album yet but I think well do something similar, maybe with a better budget, I hope.

Well supposedly you already work on the new album? What will it be?

Yes, we are working on some new songs, weve already written 6 songs that will be included in our next full-length CD we will record in July at New Sin Studios. Actually there are no major changes as I think our new songs are the simple evolution of our style and come from our different musical experiences. Perhaps we are trying to compose shorter songs and we included some different arrangements with drum machines and so onbut even the songs we already composed can be changed again several times before entering the studio.

Can we to purchase your album “Tides” by Internet? You told that you also have nice T-shirts?

Of course you can (and you must ha ha ha). It is possible to purchase our CDs and t-shirts through our website with paypal, the most comfortable means for both you and us. Sowhat are you waiting for?

Ok. It's time to good-bye!!! Thank you for answer on my questions Dear maniacs it is the message of SOUL TAKERS for you!!!…

Thank you very much for this interview, to your readers: please visit our website where you can download some mp3 files and sign our guestbook.

May the Great Frog be with you.

The interview had to be without jokes, quite serious!