• ‘Mind Collapse’, the only thing that will make us free and ready to build the new mankind.
• "If you ask me what do I think about life…I’ll tell you that life is a short travel in which if you really want to be a human, you have to leave a mark for the others but expecially for yourself, making a change and building something as mithological". - Shesa

• The band was formed on May 2000 by Shesa (vocals) and Corax (drums), initially as a cover band. Later, the band starts to elaborate its own sounds with the help of all its members. After playing in many pubs of their city (Palermo), In October 2001 is recorded at ‘Raven Studios’ the first own demo-cd of the band titled ‘Tied to the strings’, which includes 6 songs. After recording the first demo the band enters in the ‘Italian Metal Alleance’ and brings part of some italian underground compilations. Now Next are preparing the new material for the recording of their second promo-cd. The band will enter in studio to record on summer 2002.

2.WHY DID YOU NAME YOUR BAND NEXT? WHAT DID YOU WANT TO SAY? AMONG WHICH OTHER NAMES WAS IT SELECTED? HOW IMPORTANT DO YOU THINK IS THE "RIGHT" CHOICE OF A BAND NAME?

• Shesa : “The name we choose for the band agrees with our music, that we consider as the next world’s music, something that steps over the odiern limits of all types of Metal music; it’s a mixture of Gothic, industrial, Thrash, ambient, electronic music and other, so it can’t be classified in the common metal genres. And another important thing is that the name ‘Next’ is short and easy to be remembered.”

3.WHY DO YOU USE NICKNAMES AND NOT REAL LIFE NAMES? DO YOU WANT IN THIS WAY TO CREATE AN "ATMOSPHERE", A TALK AROUND YOU OR DO YOU WANT TO PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL EVERYDAY LIVES?

• Shesa : “Our nicknames are the consequence of a society’s violence, played against our minds and changing our identity. We were born with common names but now we become Shesa, Caos, Metustria, Corax…it has been a spontaneous metamorphosis that made us playing our music and be ourselves.”

4.FILL US IN REGARDING THE BAND RELEASES.HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC? WHICH BANDS DO YOU LIKE AND WHICH DO YOU DISLIKE?

• Shesa : “Our music is fondamentally a sort ok Industrial-Gothic, even if, as I said before, we have also other musical influences. Our atmospheres reèresent both sides of our personality: The sinthetic one,  that works like a mechanism as the world in which we live; and the dark one that makes you see all our fears and our internal desires. The main bands who influenced more our sound are Rammstein (we all like them so much), Marilyn Manson (Antichrist-Superstar period) and also some Cradle of Filth (you can find some of their influence hearing our first release ‘Tied to the Strings’) and Nine Inch Nails.”

5.ARE YOU STILL SATISFIED WITH YOUR WORK OR IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D LIKE TO BE CHANGED?

• Caos : “Now we are going to record our second demo, that is very near to the music we want to play, more than the first demo. We increased the electronic parts and the heavyness of guitars, and also we have more clean vocals than before. I don’t know how NEXT sound will change in the future, but we can say that now we are satisfied with our music. And so we want to play our music all over the world, making live performances outside our country.”

6.WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO NEXT? WHAT WILL YOU DO IN THE FUTURE IN ORDER TO PROMOTE YOUR MUSIC?

• Caos : “First we are searching for a good contract, that is very important to promote our music all over the world. Another important thing for us is to make many live performances, so that people can see better what we are and can appreciate better the meaning of our music. To do that we are going to work with a promotion agency, that today is an important ally for a band that is still in the underground world.”

7.HAVE YOU DONE ANY LIVE SHOWS? DO YOU LIKE PERFORMING LIVE? WITH WHICH BAND WOULD YOU LIKE TO TOUR?

• Caos : “Yes we have done some live shows all around Sicily and this summer we’ll have other 4 dates in here. From September we count on doing our shows outside Sicily, that securely is not the best place where play Metal or alternative music in general.  A great thing would be playing concerts outside Italy, expecially in Germany, where we think our music would be a lot appreciated. It would be incredible for us to tour with the gorgeous german band Rammstein. We wish we could!!”

8.WHAT ARE YOUR LYRICS TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU INSPIRED BY REAL LIFE OR FANTASY? COULD YOU MENTION IN BRIEF WHAT EACH SONG IS TALKING ABOUT?

• Shesa : Our lyrics speak about the choking cage that society has built around all of us, to control each thought of us. Society wants to control us turning every action and choice it on the “right way”. Society obliges us  to wear conventional masks that involve precise and foreseeable roles. But now is the moment to break this cage and to throw away this masks, this is the moment to built a new mankind, free from inibitions and chains.

9.WHAT GIVES YOU INSPIRATION AND WHAT'S CAN TAKE AWAY THE INSPIRATION FROM YOU?

• Shesa : “I take my inspiration from the world, from its decadence and from the filth in which it’s fallen…  most people execute orders and follow mass-media’s fashions like puppets; this people throw their lifes away without uderstanding theirself and the others, that is to say understanding nothing. You can understand me better reading my lyrics.”
• Caos : “I don’t really know what gives me the inspiration to write a song. Life is a continuous moving of energies and maybe the secret is here. But i know that nothing can take away the inspiration from me when I get it.”

10.WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO HATE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?

• Shesa : The music industry is a cancer for the music… it destroys art’s purity planning marketing strategies that vulgarize music… this process happens more to the pop artists that are like controlled dolls, as Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys, that says what people want to hear… Art must have the brevery to tell also  all of that is horrible and terribile to hear.

11.WHICH IS MAN'S BIGGEST TEMPTATION?

• Shesa : Feeling bigger than god… It needs an advanced conscience level. I am very near to it and it’s beautyful cause I feel free to experiment with my human part with all its sides.

12.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHICH HISTORICAL PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY? WHAT WOULD YOU MISS THE MOST FROM OUR TIME?

• Caos : “I’ve been always interested from all prechristian populations in general. Because I think that Pagan religions are the ones which can bring humanity to a real high spiritual dimension,  and the old greeks and romans  represent very well this concept, being the great real foundations of our culture. For me, the general level of an actual middle-class-man of our so called ‘civilization’, with his mental paranoids, sexual frustrations and with his continuous money research, can’t arrive at all at the level of any peasant of 2000 years ago. In a so ancient world maybe I could miss... ...just my keyboards! But definitely I don’t think so, cause in my actual world I use my electronic instruments just to explain my hate for what our plastified-humanity is.”

13.WITH WHICH OTHER MUSIC DO YOU THINK METAL CAN BE COMBINED PERFECTLY AND WITH WHICH DO YOU THINK HAS NOTHING TO DO?

• Caos : “I think in general that you can mix Metal music with other different music styles, but the result depends from how you mix them. However not all genres are compatible with Metal, because of their different roots. For example, the actual tendence to mix Metal music with rap vocals is not a good idea i think, even if it has obtained much success. They are too different at the basis. For example we mix Metal music with electronic beats and sounds, mantaining our gothic tendencies with keyboards and vocals.”

14.MANY METAL MUSICIANS ACCUSE POP STARS FOR THEIR LIFE STYLE, YET WE SEE SUCH BEHAVIOURS IN THE METAL SCENE AS WELL (BANDS PAYING TO MAKE A COVER FOR SUCCESFUL MAGAZINES, HAVING A GOOD REVIEW, METAL LABELS PROMOTING SPECIFIC BANDS AND GENRES EACH EPOCH,ETC).IS IT MAYBE AFTER ALL TRUE THAT THE METAL INDUSTRY DOESN'T DIFFER FROM THE POP? WHICH ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THAT?

• Caos : “That’s a good question!!!  Well, coerence becomes often a problem when you start entering in the music-bysiness. You know, usually  metal or alternative bands feel a sort of hate against Pop music and its relative life style (they say that pop stars play music just to make money, you know...). But when a Metal band finds a contract, starts playing concerts all around the world and becomes very famous, can append that all that, including money, induce the  band’s members to  feel theirselves as rockstars, becoming  not very different from any pop star.  However it depends from the bands... This mechanism,  we think,  can be harmful for a band’s musical expression and spontaneousness, even if today all music is almost always influenced from the labels’ decisions. Our life’s dream is first to have music as a fisrt job, and we’ll try to realize it until death. And if also a large part of people can like our music we’ll be too happy, obviously! But surely without being Popstars!”

15.WHAT PROLOGUE AND TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO HAVE?

• Shesa : “I’d like that this interview to be named as our next demo: ‘Mind Collapse’, the only thing that will make us free and ready to build the new mankind.”

16.THANK YOU!HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?

• Shesa : “If you ask me what do I think about life…I’ll tell you that life is a short travel in which if you really want to be a human, you have to leave a mark for the others but expecially for yourself, making a change and building something as mithological. And that’s what we’re trying to do now...and we’ll manage to do it!!! That’s for sure!!!”
Christine  Parastatidou