HOLY MOTHER
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I have been following
Holy Mother quite many years now and I have all their albums. It's not
a secret that I am a big fan of their music, so a chance to interview Mike
Tirelli, a man that I think has one of the best voices for heavy metal
music, was more than welcome. Especially after their incredible latest
release under the title "Agoraphobia". If you want to listen to something
original that will leave its personal stigma on you,. then you definitely
have to check this band out!
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As the conversation
proceeded Mike proved to be incredibly friendly and a really nice person.
So, let's see what he has to tell us...
1. IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE “MY
WORLD WAR”. WHAT DID HOLY MOTHER DO ALL THIS TIME?
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“My World War” was released in 2000
and this was the last record we had to do with our old record label, which
is a great thing cause this record label held back the band. We couldn’t
do any touring cause we were tied to a small record label for a lot of
years and we couldn’t get out of the contract and finally after “My World
War”, which was the last cd of the contract we were able to get out and
get a new deal. What happened was, I just took the band by myself
and went out and got a new deal with SPV, which is a really good label
and in the midst of all that I wrote the whole new record with a bunch
of different guys from different bands, guys from Yngve Malmsteen, the
drummer actually his name is John Macaluso did all the pre-production in
my studio and Randy Coven still played on the cd, on like 6 songs of the
cd and I played the guitar on the whole cd and basically I had to re-do
the whole drums in Europe, in Germany and Frank Gilchriest is now the new
drummer of this band right now and he also plays with Virgin Steele. Frank
is a great drummer and he did a really great job on the record and I have
a full band now, all new members. I have a guitar player, his name is Tommy
Hellbent, he played in Rondinelli before for a while and the bass player
is from a band called Monstrosity, Mark Van erp and from another band called
Solstice and they are both signed on SPV. It took me a long time to find
people that can really play like this and I finally got a band together
that is the best band Holy Mother has ever been so far. I am really, really
happy and that’s great, so the band looks forward to playing in the States
and also looking forward to playing in Europe and I was surprised that
Messiah’s Kiss didn’t play in Greece last year cause that’s one of the
places I was always looking forward to going along with Italy you know…
2. IF I ASKED YOU TO POINT OUT THE
MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF YOUR CAREER, WHICH WOULD THEY BE?
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Hm...I can not know which the most
important would be! I guess this is the most important time of my career
right now! Signing with the new label, putting out a new cd this year and
this is important because Holy Mother hasn’t come out in 3 years and it’s
gonna be important that the band does really well as far as the record
sells and all that, so I’d say this year is the most important, but getting
back to the last question what I was doing also, I forgot to say, is that
I found new members, I found the new record deal and in the midst of all
that I also did a tour and I recorded a record with Messiah’s Kiss! They
are a European band, they are from Germany and I am from America so I did
that too and that also set me up for the new Holy Mother album cause people
see me again, they see me out on tour and now they are ready to hear the
new Holy Mother record and everything’s set up perfectly!
3. SO, YOU HAVE A NEW ALBUM OUT UNDER
THE TITLE “AGORAPHOBIA”. MUSICALLY I THINK IS LIKE TAKING “MY WORLD WAR”
A STEP BEYOND. I MEAN THESE TWO ALBUMS ARE CONNECTED AND “AGORAPHOBIA”
IS THE NATURAL FOLLOWER OF “MY WORLD WAR”. SO, DO YOU THINK YOU MANAGED
TO FIND YOUR STIGMA, YOUR PERSONAL SOUND?
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Yes! Definitely! On this cd we definitely
managed to find out our personal sound. What I always, always wanted to
do…I wanted to use the guitar more in a precocious way and also I wanted
the drums to be a little bit less predictable as far as the old drums.
The old drums were more predictable, their beats, etc…Now I wanted to give
it a new twinge, like a modern metal sound on guitars and everything and
I wanted to keep the vocals where I was before, so people could recognize
it’s me and I think we came out with a really good mix on the cd. There
are a lot of good songs and it’s very powerful!
-I THINK THAT RIGHT FROM THE FIRST
MOMENT HOLY MOTHER HAD A PERSONAL SOUND AND NO ONE COULD MIX YOU WITH ANOTHER
BAND…
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I don’t think so either. We don’t really
sound too much like another band!
-NO! YOU DON’T!
4. GIVE US SOME GENERAL INFO REGARDING
“AGORAPHOBIA”. WHERE WAS IT RECORDED, WHO WAS THE PRODUCER, HOW LONG DID
IT TAKE YOU?
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“Agoraphobia” was recorded in my studio,
in New York except for the drums and except for the mixing. We mixed the
cd in Hamburg, Germany and we did the drums in Germany also. All the other
instruments were done in my studio, most of the bass, most of the guitars
and the vocals were done here except for “Agoraphobia” actually the vocals
were done in Hamburg. The general tracks, the basic ones were done in my
studio, produced by myself and also produced by Herman Frank which is,
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him, he was a guitar player for a
couple years in Accept and also he is the guitar player of a band called
Victory. So, he actually played a couple of solos on the album and he helped
me produce it and mix it! And he did a fine job! Also a gentleman who was
on tour with me and played the bass for Messiah’s Kiss, Wayne Banks. He
also helped me with the final mixes, cause I went back and re-mixed it
for a third time at the end of the Messiah’s Kiss tour. Wayne Banks also
played the bass on it and helped me mix a couple of songs on the cd. But
basically it was produced by myself and Herman Frank.
5. YOU HAD MANY CO-OPERATIONS IN THE
MAKING OF THIS CD. HOW DID YOU ARRANGE ALL THESE?
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I wanted a variation of different feels
and styles on this record. I was looking for a certain feel on this record,
which is really important to me and I know that we are on a new label and
I know this could make a great cd for Holy Mother, so I wanted to get it
right, so I reached a couple of musicians friends like John Macaluso, who
also played with TNT, Yngve Malmsteen and with a band called Ark. I reached
out to him to do some pre-production with me along with Randy Coven and
along with those guys I put the songs together as far as writing them and
the pre-production and after that I presented it to the record company
and they seemed that they liked the songs a lot and we only had to do the
drums over, so I reached out to another guy cause John Macaluso was doing
an Yngve tour for a while, so I reached out for a guy that wanted to be
in the band permanently, members that would want to go out on a tour, so
I reached out to Frank Gilchriest cause I knew him from the guitar player
who is at the band now, Tommy Hellbent. He took me up with Frank and Frank
came over the Europe and recorded the drums and he actually sounded even
better than what John did. He copied what John did but played it more powerful
and that’s actually what I was looking for and then on the guitar parts…I
wanted to play all the guitar myself as far as the rhythms go cause I was
looking for a certain feel, so I didn’t have to worry for the guitars too
much and as far as the solos go, I gave them to Tommy Hellbent and I had
Herman Frank also play some new solos. Just people that I knew in the business
to collaborate on this whole thing. That’s what made it sound the way I
wanted it!
6. LET’S GO TO THE LYRICS NOW. WHERE
ARE THEY REFERRING TO? WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO WRITE LYRICS?
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Basically the lyrics…”Agoraphobia”
is a person who has fear of leaving his home…
-YES I KNOW THAT! IT’S A GREEK WORD.
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It’s a Greek word?!?!?! Really?
-DIDN’T YOU KNOW THAT?
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So, you know what it means? (laughter!!!)
-YES!
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Ok! It’s a Greek word! That’s great!!!
Basically this is what this song’s all about and then… I actually know
someone personally who like that stuff and he intrigued me to write about
it, so I read some books about it. Also there is another song called “Skitzo”
which is another fear kind of thing, someone who is kind of crazy and then
we got…what else do we have on the cd? Hahaha! “Hungry For Ecstasy” kind
of like…you know…hmm…
-ABOUT SEX…
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Yeah! There you go! Pretty much! Hahaha!
“Nympho” is all about…
-WELL I THINK THE WORD SAYS IT ALL!
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There you go! Hahaha! You know the
whole thing! And “Success” is what this record’s gonna be and what my life’s
gonna be. That’s song is special! I think it is a very positive song with
a lot of power and “Heaven’s Door” is about a near death experience like
out of body experience, when you experience death out of your body…That’s
something I heard a lot about and read about and it was interesting to
write about…Hahaha!
-IS THERE A GENERAL CONCEPT BEHIND
THESE SONGS?
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Definitely yeah! The general concept
is that a lot of them are about people’s anxiety, like the song “Society
Anxiety”, that’s another song in there and it’s all about general people’s
anxieties and phobias that they have to deal with everyday…
7. WHICH IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
FEARS AND SEX? I MEAN SOME OF THE SONGS ARE DEALING WITH FEARS LIKE AGORAPHOBIA,
ETC AND OTHERS DEAL WITH SEX.
-YES! SINCE ALMOST HALF OF THE SONGS
DEAL WITH PHOBIAS AND THE OTHER HALF OF THEM DEAL WITH SEX…
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Yes! Tell you what…Sex is what makes
the world go around obviously and I always like to write about sex! Hahaha!
I guess it’s one of the best pleasures we get! As far as the fears go…there’s
no real connection there! Hahaha!
-WELL YOU SAID THAT THERE IS A GENERAL
CONCEPT BEHIND. THAT’S WHY I AM ASKING…
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Well, there is because the song “Nympho”
is about a girl who is a nymphomaniac and she also is kind of agoraphobic
in a way too! She has a lot of anxieties, but she also loves sex! That’s
a release for her fears and makes feel better! Hahaha!
8. WHO DID THE COVER ARTWORK? IS HE
THE SAME GUY WHO DID YOUR PREVIOUS ARTWORKS AS WELL?
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Yes! He is the same guy Philipe from
Belgium…I forgot his last name. Yes he is the same guy!
-GIVE US A DESCRIPTION AND TELL ME
HOW IT’S CONNECTED WITH THE LYRICS.
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Well, as far as the cover goes we wanted
to keep the same concept. That monster kind of guy. His name is Tox…
-I WANTED TO ASK YOU HIS NAME…
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Yeah! His name is Tox and we wanted
to keep the same concept and what the artist did was put the guy inside
of a glass ball kind of thing, where he couldn’t get out, cause he has
some kind of fear…
9. BY THE WAY WHY WAS “TOXIC RAIN”
RELEASED WITH 2 COVERS? THE ONE WITH THE GREEN COLOR AND THE OTHER ONE
WITH TOX?
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Generally because “Toxic Rain” was
released with the first cover and the first couple of weeks that it came
out it did really, really well and they wanted to re-release it again.
It did really well, so they released it again and what they did was put
a new cover on it. We turned it over to this artist and said “hey listen
we’re going to release it again, the record did really well and we want
to put it out in the market and give somebody something new, so maybe will
buy it again and some more people will buy it”. So this is when he created
this Tox guy. That’s the beginning of that…
-I HAVE “TOXIC RAIN” WITH THE GREEN
COVER…
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Oh, alright! You don’t have the other
one?
-NO I DON’T.
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You never got the other one?????
-NO!!!
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Ohh men! I have to send you one! Hahahaha!
10. WHY DO YOU HAVE A COVER SONG IN
ALL YOUR RELEASES AND WITH WHAT CRITERIA DO YOU SELECT WHICH SONG YOU WILL
COVER?
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I just wanted to do something
off base a little bit. I wanted to do something that it was a little older
in time, a little older song that what we’ve been doing on the previous
cds and I thought we should do an Ozzy song, cause Ozzy is very, very popular.
As you know he has his own TV show and I decided to do an old Black Sabbath
song and that was mainly the thing behind it cause we everyone in the band
was Black Sabbath fan for so many years and “Never Say Die” would be a
perfect cover song for the band to do, so that’s why we did it!
-IS IT SOMEHOW CONNECTED TO YOUR LYRICS?
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In ways it is yes! Because the band
exists quite a long and we are not exactly where we wanna be yet, so we
keep working a lot and keep fighting forward, so I think there’s definitely
a connection with what the band feels and not so much as what the lyrics
are all about. Never die and keep going on!
11. YOU BELONG NOW TO A BIG LABEL.
AREN’T YOU AFRAID THAT THEY MIGHT NOT SUPPORT YOU AS A SMALLER LABEL WOULD
DO?
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Yes and no! The smaller label supported
us but they didn’t have the ability to put us on tour as I was saying.
The bigger label is…I know the people at the label now, because I did a
tour Messiah’s Kiss and I’ve been at the label’s office in Germany a couple
of times and I know everybody, so what I do is…I am scared of that, since
we are on a bigger label, that they are gonna forget about us, but I do
my job, I call them almost everyday, day after day and asking them what’s
up and what we’re gonna be doing next. Keeping on them, don’t letting them
fall asleep, you know!
-WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM THIS COOPERATION?
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Expect from what? From the label?
-FROM YOUR COOPERATION WITH THE LABEL…
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I expect the band to…this is what my
expectations definitely is…to do a large tour in Europe, including Greece!
(laughter!) Definitely a tour of Europe either by ourselves or with a major,
major act that we can support them and also to sell a lot of cds and really
get on the map as a very, very big heavy metal band!
12. DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE
SHOWS? I DON’T THINK GREECE IS IN YOUR SCHEDULE…?
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Nothing planned just as yet with the
label, but as soon as the cd comes out, it’s coming out in Europe July
21st, so I am hoping that we can sit down and go over what we’re gonna
be doing as far as touring. We don’t have anything set yet. Probably in
the next month or two we’ll have something to say…
13. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION,
WHAT WOULD IT BE?
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If it were an emotion, it would be
one big orgasm! (laughter!). Starts you of really nice and slow you know
and then explodes into something…like an orgasm! (laughter!). That’s a
good description right?
-YES! DEFINITELY!
14. IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD
IT SHOW?
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Hm…If the music was a painting you
would see thunderstorms on one side and just wonderful mountains and blue
skies on the other side, sunshine! Like a split kind of personality…
15. YOU HAVE ALSO PARTICIPATED IN MESSIAH’S
KISS. HOW DID THIS COOPERATION OCCUR? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THEIR MUSIC?
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I love Messiah’s Kiss! It’s more traditional!
-YES! THAT’S WHY I WANTED TO ASK YOU,
BECAUSE MESSIAH’S KISS AND HOLY MOTHER ARE TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT BANDS.
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Right! Which is really good! I get
to sing with the European guys who are Messiah’s Kiss and it’s a total
sound, it’s more traditional out of the 80s and I think Holy Mother is
more of an American sound, a little more modern on the music side of it.
16. WILL YOU CONTINUE WITH THEM OR
DID YOU JUST HELP THEM WITH THIS SPECIFIC ALBUM?
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No, actually! We’re definitely gonna
continue with Messiah’s Kiss. I have another cd I have to record probably
in about a month or a month and a half with them too. I will be touring
again too!
17. WHICH IS THE STRANGEST/FUNNIEST
QUESTION SOMEONE’S EVER ASKED TO YOU?
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Let me see…Hmm..Haha! I don’t know
what to say…You are gonna laugh! It was another girl interviewing me and
she asked me how my sex life was incorporating with the music I was playing,
how it is compared to the music I create. I said it’s very similar…I take
care with the business in the bedroom and I also take care of the business
in the bedroom! Hahahaha!
18. IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO TRAVEL
BACK IN TIME WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHAT WOULD
YOU MISS THE MOST FROM OUR TIMES?
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Ohh! Very hard question! Hmm…I guess
I’d like to go back to the 60s, it seems to be a great time for partying…
-AND SEXUAL REVOLUTION…
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Right! Hahaha! What I’d miss from today
I think would be all the technology we have today! We are so used to living
with all this technology, computers and great different sounds with music
too! You don’t have to work that much…
19. WHICH TITLE DO YOU THINK COULD
SUM UP EVERYTHING AROUND HOLY MOTHER AND YOUR CAREER TILL NOW?
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Which title…Hmm...I’d say “Success”!
20. IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO MEET THE
CREATURE THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HIM?
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Hahahahaha! My god! This is a hard
question…It’s probably Zeus right?
-I DON’T KNOW! HAHAHA!
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If I met him, what I’d like to ask
him?
-YES! ASK HIM OR TELL HIM…
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I’d like to ask him…I mean I got to
thing about this!
-OK! TAKE YOUR TIME!
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Let me see…How come…That’s a HARD question!!!!
Ohh god! Really tough! I don’t know, what would you ask him?
-I DON’T KNOW! NEVER THOUGHT WHAT I’D
ASK HIM. I AM THE ONE ASKING RIGHT NOW THOUGH! NOT YOU!
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(laughter!) I’d ask him why there’s
so much bad against good and why not everything being good and being all
together and peaceful in the world. Why there’s so much hate in the world
and why aren’t there more peaceful people and more peaceful countries!
That’s what I’d ask him!
21. THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO
ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU’D LIKE TO MENTION?
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Not really! You covered a lot of areas!
Hahaha! So, I think you pretty much summed it all up!
-SO, LEAVE A MESSAGE TO THE FANS…
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Sure! I just want to say to everybody,
especially Greece, unfortunately we haven’t being able to play to Greece
yet, but I am hoping that this year Holy Mother will be there and see all
the fans that have being supporting us all these years. Thanks a lot and
hope to see you soon on tour!
Christine
“azriel” Parastatidou