The release of a new album by a long-lived band, especially when coming after the publication of a slab of over 79 minutes of music, is a way juicy excuse for getting hold of the guys in said band and bombing them with questions. Well, the band involved in this exercise of mine is Insider, powerful and eclectic “cosmic doom prog” metal band from the Italian underground scene. The “excuse” is the release of their totally self-produced new album Event Horizon plus the launch of the band’s own label. And there’s nothing like interacting with a band about their tunes and what’s behind them to realize how many ways exist for enjoying as well as for personally interpreting the sensations created/inspired by music! Of course, this in case the music is able to evoke sensations worth experiencing … No problem, Insider’s music is very much inspirational!
So here I am, Marilena, with a rich interview to the backbone of band Insider, the brothers Marco and Piero Ranalli, freely speaking about the present, the past and the future …
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Marilena - Hi Marco, hi Piero! I am glad you are taking part to this interview, especially for the fact that I am a fan of yours and I particularly appreciated your brand new album “Event Horizon”. So let’s start with it immediately. You guys had announced your new album already while releasing the “… Vibrations of The Tapes…” CD, during 2012. Hence it seems you have been working on it for long time. Now Event Horizon is finally out. And, as far as I could perceive while listening to it (READ HERE), the new album in a concentrate of surprises and a substantial change in your style, especially towards darkness. Or at least this was my impression. So, why did you decide to write such a dark album?
Marco & Piero - Hello Marilena! Yes, it si true, we announced the new album during the release of “…Vibrations from the tapes…” simply because it was already completed and we were looking for a label for releasing it. Some time had passed by, replies were late and so we decided to start Andruid Records, that is our own label as well as “alchemic laboratory” endowed with recording studio. In the new album there has actually been no change in style. We decided to make a completely instrumental album, so it is obvious that the structure of the tracks can’t compare with a song with refrains and so on. The tracks in Event Horizon are like mini-suites, music in them has got its own path to follow. It may sound strange to you but these mini.suites were born from jam sessions we made in the rehearsal room. Obviously we then reorganized this material in a better way and it came out as a thoroughly collective work. We feel we have never had a particular style that identified our work, we never felt slaves of any style. For example, you found this album sounding dark, but we can assure you that this album bloomed out of the intense joy we experience when we can play together.
Marilena - I see your point. Well, darkness was the impression I got from the new album but, of course, this doesn’t imply, for me, that musicians were not having pleasure and satisfaction in composing that dark music. While listening to Event Horizon I had the impression that your style conjugated psych prog à-la Hawkwind with doom hinting to definitely funereal atmospheres and martial tension as well as additions of “industrial” sounds or moods. Are there any particular sources of inspiration for what I feel as a new approach to psychedelia? Is it for exploring new paths or is it, somehow, part of your past musical experience rising up back to surface?
Marco & Piero - Event Horizon is not the result of planning, nobody decided in advance what we had or wanted to do, or better nobody didn’t plan it before playing. It has been a “work in progress” and the music acquired its shape and grew progressively. We had no idea of whereabout music was leading us. We just abandoned our minds to improvisations which we subsequently rehearsed and reorganized. That’s probably why some unconscious fantasies of ours came out. If we had any sources of inspiration we don’t know. This is what you, the listeners, might feel and find. What we can say is that we just eviscerate our experience. It has been a truly psychedelic experience, in the strict sense: three souls communicating to each other via their musical instruments!
Marilena– Let’s deal a bit with themes. Cosmos seems to be something you always liked, both as graphic imagery as well as a way for dealing with spirituality and torments of everyday life. My own feeling in listening to Event Horizon was that you went back to deal with cosmos but in a very solid and, probably, painfully way, actually more painfully than before. While making this interview, though, I realize that your attitude while composing was quite different. But I’ll try to explain my point: you mention the physics of the black holes in the album/track titles and you paired this with a cover graphics that seems to hint to the “light at the bottom of the tunnel”, basically one of the visions mentioned by the people who experienced semi-death …
Marco & Piero- Cosmos is something belonging to everybody, it is not possible to behave as if it doesn’t exist. It is always there. You can keep your head as low as you like but sooner or later you’ll have to raise your eyes to the sky and cope with its immensity … and this is not always pleasant. The “Event Horizon”, or else the horizon of the events, is a part of a black hole where modern science can’t yet understand what happens, or where anything may happen. Hence this musical experience was conceived and developed as if we were in a “horizon of the events”. And from this we drew the name of the album. As far as the cover image is concerned, we wanted something that would not be directly connected to the structure of a black hole but that would rather suggest it. We particularly liked the picture we eventually selected (which was reworked by the skilfull hand of our graphic artist, Bianca Carestia). But that picture has nothing to do with the light at the bottom of the tunnel and with the semi-death experiences. Nobody of us knows what is wating for us after death. And what is the pleasure of living if you know right from the start what will be of you??
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Marilena– Eh eh, you are right … Speaking a bit more about art and graphics, you are musicians but you seem to be rather concerned about graphics too. Judging from how the cover arts of your albums varied thorough the years one may perceive that you try to convey your messages somehow also via the graphical expression, which never seems to be pure decoration. Is it correct?
Marco & Piero - As stated above, we were in the need of graphic art that would reflect the way in which our music had been conceived. The sound is pure abstraction and has no graphical expression apart from the images induced in our minds by the experience of listening to music. And so after repeated listening and working on the music this is the cover art we came up to. It is obvious that graphic art should not be simple and meaningless decoration, otherwise what is the meaning of it? Whenever it is possible, there must be a tight, insoluble bonding between music and imagery. In the past albums maybe also the lyrics contributed in inspiring the cover arts. This time we decided the vibrations of the music would have ruled.
Marilena - With “…Vibrations from the Tapes…”, very long album (over 79 minutes) you guys shared with us and made us experiment and enjoy your own pleasure in building up long jam sessions lead by complex as well as airy improvisations almost unrelated from the concept of time. With album Even Horizon you seem to have gone back to an album which appears to be built over a more rigid structure and relatively short tracks (rarely over 9 minutes). Just my impression? And, by the way, which is your favourite way or method for writing music? And how do you interact among each other normally for song writing?
Marco & Piero - The mode of song writing is not depending on us but on the music itself, it depends on the direction that it happens to take. Album “…Vibrations from the tapes…” is simply the instant photo of a moment. Our way of writing music is basically always the same: everything is generated during jam sessions performed in the rehearsal room. Also album “Event Horizon” had been conceived in this manner, with the difference that in this case the raw musical “material” was subsequently reorganized because the music that was composed suggested it. Improvisation is our writing method and so everything is born out of the empathy created every time among us. We have so much material recorded in the rehearsal room … Who knows, maybe there will be a “…Vibrations from the tapes… vol.2”! But this time we are not going to say anything in advance, we don’t want to spoil the surprise …
Marilena– Eh eh, … cool! Your band Insider is quite long-lived. You actively contributed to the development and establishment of the Italian doom, prog and psychedelic scene. As a matter of fact you have links with seminal bands like Requiem and Mario Di Donato’s The Black, and you also worked with Paul Chain. Could you please tell something about your history? And could you also, please, tell something about the evolution you experienced right during the early days of your activity and until when you defined your own “cosmic doom prog” style?
Marco & Piero - Our first album dates back to 1996: 17 years have passed since then! The relationships we had with the bands you mention are simply due to the fact that our mates Giuseppe Miccoli (one of the drummers in Requiem and in The Black) and Eugenio Mucci (vocalist in Requiem) were playing in those bands. But apart from this we actually had nothing to do with those bands and we never felt ourselves as part of that scene. Mind you, the folks in those bands are good friends whom we have been knowing for a long time indeed. Time ago we even had a rehearsal room in the same old farm-house where Mario The Black had his own! But we never happened to share anything like gigs or musical experiences or collaborations. Our approach has always been different. The other bands and guys always identified themselves into a well defined style, let’s call it Heavy Metal. As far as we are concerned, we did employ somewhat extreme sounds but we did it in our own way … This is probably why we always happened to confuse journalists! Paul Chain mixed our first two albums. In that case it was Paul’s way of working on music that made us interact one another. We needed a person who was totally external to the band and who was able to duly manipulate our material by taking the best out of it. And thanks to his experience he succeeded. As far as our history and our style are concerned and how style changed in time, we can just say that it has all been just a natural evolution and everyone contributed with his own experience.
Marilena - Insider started as a band where vocal parts were rather, let’s say, “solid”, even when strained as to make them more affine to the psychedelic genre. What made you decide to become a completely instrumental band? Have you ever happened to think about bringing some vocal parts back into your music?
Marco & Piero - Well, there is no particular or strict decision behind this. Fate decided. We are not close to a possible re-introduction of vocal parts sometimes in the future … if music will require it! It’s always MUSIC ruling, not the musician.
Marilena - In your past releases you relied onto various Italian labels. The last one, Phonosphera (the cool label which released Vibrations from the Tapes) is fortunately alive and kicking and I sincerely hope it will be going on for long time. The other labels are unfortunately all extinct. For the new album Even Horizon you guys started your own label, Andruid Records, related to your own professional recording studio. So, would you like to tell us something about this new experience of music production? Are you thinking about releasing your new album also as vinyl version? And are you maybe going to reissue your old albums via Andruid Records? And are you going to extend the activity of the label also via the production of other bands?
Marco & Piero - We had thought about stepping into this kind of activity since a while. Hence, as soon as the ideal conditions were established we did it. The recording studio is basically long-lived. We have always recorded everything by ourselves. Back in time the studio was named “Stellar Madhouse studios”. Therefore this part of the activity is purely the full establishment of something already on-going. In addition to it we started the label. Yes, there are a few projects for the future, although we prefer not to anticipate anything. For the moment the label has been started for publishing the albums by Insider and by the band’s members. Right now we are not ready for satisfying any requests coming from other bands, however we’ll spread the news whenever this will be viable in the future.
Marilena - What is your attitude towards the live activity? Is there any chance of seeing you guys on tour around Italy and, why not, also Europe?
Marco & Piero - Well, you know very well that touring is often a direct consequence of a new album and it is the best way for a band to promote their own work. We do hope we’ll be able to play live as much as possible around Italy and in Europe. In the past we did it and we know what this means and the intensity of the feelings coming from playing live. The organization of a tour is not always and not completely depending on the band solely. Therefore if there will be possibilities and adequate situations this will surely happen.
Marilena - OK, Marco & Piero, thanks for taking part to the interview! Glad to know that many more surprises and cool music is going to come from you after Even Horizon. And hopefully I’ll see you guys on stage soon!
Marco & Piero - Thanks and cheers!
Interview by Marilena Moroni
Insider | Facebook
Official Website
Reverbnation
Audruid Records
So here I am, Marilena, with a rich interview to the backbone of band Insider, the brothers Marco and Piero Ranalli, freely speaking about the present, the past and the future …
Marilena - Hi Marco, hi Piero! I am glad you are taking part to this interview, especially for the fact that I am a fan of yours and I particularly appreciated your brand new album “Event Horizon”. So let’s start with it immediately. You guys had announced your new album already while releasing the “… Vibrations of The Tapes…” CD, during 2012. Hence it seems you have been working on it for long time. Now Event Horizon is finally out. And, as far as I could perceive while listening to it (READ HERE), the new album in a concentrate of surprises and a substantial change in your style, especially towards darkness. Or at least this was my impression. So, why did you decide to write such a dark album?
Marco & Piero - Hello Marilena! Yes, it si true, we announced the new album during the release of “…Vibrations from the tapes…” simply because it was already completed and we were looking for a label for releasing it. Some time had passed by, replies were late and so we decided to start Andruid Records, that is our own label as well as “alchemic laboratory” endowed with recording studio. In the new album there has actually been no change in style. We decided to make a completely instrumental album, so it is obvious that the structure of the tracks can’t compare with a song with refrains and so on. The tracks in Event Horizon are like mini-suites, music in them has got its own path to follow. It may sound strange to you but these mini.suites were born from jam sessions we made in the rehearsal room. Obviously we then reorganized this material in a better way and it came out as a thoroughly collective work. We feel we have never had a particular style that identified our work, we never felt slaves of any style. For example, you found this album sounding dark, but we can assure you that this album bloomed out of the intense joy we experience when we can play together.
Marilena - I see your point. Well, darkness was the impression I got from the new album but, of course, this doesn’t imply, for me, that musicians were not having pleasure and satisfaction in composing that dark music. While listening to Event Horizon I had the impression that your style conjugated psych prog à-la Hawkwind with doom hinting to definitely funereal atmospheres and martial tension as well as additions of “industrial” sounds or moods. Are there any particular sources of inspiration for what I feel as a new approach to psychedelia? Is it for exploring new paths or is it, somehow, part of your past musical experience rising up back to surface?
Marco & Piero - Event Horizon is not the result of planning, nobody decided in advance what we had or wanted to do, or better nobody didn’t plan it before playing. It has been a “work in progress” and the music acquired its shape and grew progressively. We had no idea of whereabout music was leading us. We just abandoned our minds to improvisations which we subsequently rehearsed and reorganized. That’s probably why some unconscious fantasies of ours came out. If we had any sources of inspiration we don’t know. This is what you, the listeners, might feel and find. What we can say is that we just eviscerate our experience. It has been a truly psychedelic experience, in the strict sense: three souls communicating to each other via their musical instruments!
Marilena– Let’s deal a bit with themes. Cosmos seems to be something you always liked, both as graphic imagery as well as a way for dealing with spirituality and torments of everyday life. My own feeling in listening to Event Horizon was that you went back to deal with cosmos but in a very solid and, probably, painfully way, actually more painfully than before. While making this interview, though, I realize that your attitude while composing was quite different. But I’ll try to explain my point: you mention the physics of the black holes in the album/track titles and you paired this with a cover graphics that seems to hint to the “light at the bottom of the tunnel”, basically one of the visions mentioned by the people who experienced semi-death …
Marco & Piero- Cosmos is something belonging to everybody, it is not possible to behave as if it doesn’t exist. It is always there. You can keep your head as low as you like but sooner or later you’ll have to raise your eyes to the sky and cope with its immensity … and this is not always pleasant. The “Event Horizon”, or else the horizon of the events, is a part of a black hole where modern science can’t yet understand what happens, or where anything may happen. Hence this musical experience was conceived and developed as if we were in a “horizon of the events”. And from this we drew the name of the album. As far as the cover image is concerned, we wanted something that would not be directly connected to the structure of a black hole but that would rather suggest it. We particularly liked the picture we eventually selected (which was reworked by the skilfull hand of our graphic artist, Bianca Carestia). But that picture has nothing to do with the light at the bottom of the tunnel and with the semi-death experiences. Nobody of us knows what is wating for us after death. And what is the pleasure of living if you know right from the start what will be of you??
Marilena– Eh eh, you are right … Speaking a bit more about art and graphics, you are musicians but you seem to be rather concerned about graphics too. Judging from how the cover arts of your albums varied thorough the years one may perceive that you try to convey your messages somehow also via the graphical expression, which never seems to be pure decoration. Is it correct?
Marco & Piero - As stated above, we were in the need of graphic art that would reflect the way in which our music had been conceived. The sound is pure abstraction and has no graphical expression apart from the images induced in our minds by the experience of listening to music. And so after repeated listening and working on the music this is the cover art we came up to. It is obvious that graphic art should not be simple and meaningless decoration, otherwise what is the meaning of it? Whenever it is possible, there must be a tight, insoluble bonding between music and imagery. In the past albums maybe also the lyrics contributed in inspiring the cover arts. This time we decided the vibrations of the music would have ruled.
Marilena - With “…Vibrations from the Tapes…”, very long album (over 79 minutes) you guys shared with us and made us experiment and enjoy your own pleasure in building up long jam sessions lead by complex as well as airy improvisations almost unrelated from the concept of time. With album Even Horizon you seem to have gone back to an album which appears to be built over a more rigid structure and relatively short tracks (rarely over 9 minutes). Just my impression? And, by the way, which is your favourite way or method for writing music? And how do you interact among each other normally for song writing?
Marco & Piero - The mode of song writing is not depending on us but on the music itself, it depends on the direction that it happens to take. Album “…Vibrations from the tapes…” is simply the instant photo of a moment. Our way of writing music is basically always the same: everything is generated during jam sessions performed in the rehearsal room. Also album “Event Horizon” had been conceived in this manner, with the difference that in this case the raw musical “material” was subsequently reorganized because the music that was composed suggested it. Improvisation is our writing method and so everything is born out of the empathy created every time among us. We have so much material recorded in the rehearsal room … Who knows, maybe there will be a “…Vibrations from the tapes… vol.2”! But this time we are not going to say anything in advance, we don’t want to spoil the surprise …
Marilena– Eh eh, … cool! Your band Insider is quite long-lived. You actively contributed to the development and establishment of the Italian doom, prog and psychedelic scene. As a matter of fact you have links with seminal bands like Requiem and Mario Di Donato’s The Black, and you also worked with Paul Chain. Could you please tell something about your history? And could you also, please, tell something about the evolution you experienced right during the early days of your activity and until when you defined your own “cosmic doom prog” style?
Marco & Piero - Our first album dates back to 1996: 17 years have passed since then! The relationships we had with the bands you mention are simply due to the fact that our mates Giuseppe Miccoli (one of the drummers in Requiem and in The Black) and Eugenio Mucci (vocalist in Requiem) were playing in those bands. But apart from this we actually had nothing to do with those bands and we never felt ourselves as part of that scene. Mind you, the folks in those bands are good friends whom we have been knowing for a long time indeed. Time ago we even had a rehearsal room in the same old farm-house where Mario The Black had his own! But we never happened to share anything like gigs or musical experiences or collaborations. Our approach has always been different. The other bands and guys always identified themselves into a well defined style, let’s call it Heavy Metal. As far as we are concerned, we did employ somewhat extreme sounds but we did it in our own way … This is probably why we always happened to confuse journalists! Paul Chain mixed our first two albums. In that case it was Paul’s way of working on music that made us interact one another. We needed a person who was totally external to the band and who was able to duly manipulate our material by taking the best out of it. And thanks to his experience he succeeded. As far as our history and our style are concerned and how style changed in time, we can just say that it has all been just a natural evolution and everyone contributed with his own experience.
Marilena - Insider started as a band where vocal parts were rather, let’s say, “solid”, even when strained as to make them more affine to the psychedelic genre. What made you decide to become a completely instrumental band? Have you ever happened to think about bringing some vocal parts back into your music?
Marco & Piero - Well, there is no particular or strict decision behind this. Fate decided. We are not close to a possible re-introduction of vocal parts sometimes in the future … if music will require it! It’s always MUSIC ruling, not the musician.
Marilena - In your past releases you relied onto various Italian labels. The last one, Phonosphera (the cool label which released Vibrations from the Tapes) is fortunately alive and kicking and I sincerely hope it will be going on for long time. The other labels are unfortunately all extinct. For the new album Even Horizon you guys started your own label, Andruid Records, related to your own professional recording studio. So, would you like to tell us something about this new experience of music production? Are you thinking about releasing your new album also as vinyl version? And are you maybe going to reissue your old albums via Andruid Records? And are you going to extend the activity of the label also via the production of other bands?
Marco & Piero - We had thought about stepping into this kind of activity since a while. Hence, as soon as the ideal conditions were established we did it. The recording studio is basically long-lived. We have always recorded everything by ourselves. Back in time the studio was named “Stellar Madhouse studios”. Therefore this part of the activity is purely the full establishment of something already on-going. In addition to it we started the label. Yes, there are a few projects for the future, although we prefer not to anticipate anything. For the moment the label has been started for publishing the albums by Insider and by the band’s members. Right now we are not ready for satisfying any requests coming from other bands, however we’ll spread the news whenever this will be viable in the future.
Marilena - What is your attitude towards the live activity? Is there any chance of seeing you guys on tour around Italy and, why not, also Europe?
Marco & Piero - Well, you know very well that touring is often a direct consequence of a new album and it is the best way for a band to promote their own work. We do hope we’ll be able to play live as much as possible around Italy and in Europe. In the past we did it and we know what this means and the intensity of the feelings coming from playing live. The organization of a tour is not always and not completely depending on the band solely. Therefore if there will be possibilities and adequate situations this will surely happen.
Marilena - OK, Marco & Piero, thanks for taking part to the interview! Glad to know that many more surprises and cool music is going to come from you after Even Horizon. And hopefully I’ll see you guys on stage soon!
Marco & Piero - Thanks and cheers!
Interview by Marilena Moroni
Insider | Facebook
Official Website
Reverbnation
Audruid Records