Vision
Divine
“Stream Of Consciousness”
is Vision Divine’s latest release and finds them at their best! Catchy,
melodic and powerful heavy metal with a strong and extremely beautiful
and clever concept is what they offer and I am sure you will be magnetized
by its beauty and splendor. Below follows a really interesting and informative
interview that will clear many things out for you!
1. WHICH ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LABYRINTH
AND VISION DIVINE?
Well,I know most of the people often compare
Labyrinth to Vision Divine,and somehow I also think it’s normal,because
of my long past spent with that band (I created them in distant 1991).Anyway,
I really think that especially now Vision Divine are having their own identityand
the last 2 albums from these bands show perfectly that we are taking 2
different directions,that will make Vision Divine always more and more
different from Labyrinth in the future. Musically talking,VD are strictly
connected with melodies,but we are also trying to develop our sound,moving
from a typical power metal style to a more various approach,as we have
always liked to do.
2. I THINK THAT YOUR NEW SINGER MICHELE LUPPI
FITS MUCH BETTER WITH YOU THAN FABIO LIONE AND OF COURSE HAS AN AMAZING
VOICE. DO YOU AGREE? WHERE DID YOU FIND HIM?
Of course,I totally agree with you!I will
always be grateful to Fabio for the good times we had together,and he’s
a good friend of mine since more than 10 years,but Michele has been a choice
we had to take,in order to finally give VD an identity as real bandand
not as a side project anymore. I also have to add that since I heard this
amazing voice I realized that he would have given something special to
this band, a special and unique occasion to start a new era with the band
with a great brand new singer…it’s not something so common to find.
3.THE ALBUM IS A CONCEPT ONE ABOUT A MAN'S JOURNEY
TOWARDS MADNESS. CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT IT?
Sure. The album tells the story of a man completely
obsessed by the need of discovering the real meaning of life and what’s
hidden in the afterlife. This obsession gets so big that he finally decides
to suicide right to have all his questions answered. But at the moment
in which he tries to kill himself, during the coma, his guardian angel
arrives, telling him that his time hasn’t come yet. Anyway he will be guided
in the Afterlife so that he will be able to see everything. Besides this,
he will also discover the reason why we are not allowed to know so much
before the right time… In fact, he will complete is journey,reaching the
point in which he will also see the whole Universe through the eyes of
God… Of course a mortal mind is not made for this and all the truth is
so huge for him that once he’s sent back to normal life there is no other
solution to him than madness and the story ends from where it started,
in a cell of an asylum for madmen.
4. ARE VISION DIVINE OLAF'S MAIN ACTIVITY NOW?
HOW DO OTHER MEMBERS SEE THE BAND AND ESPECIALLY OLEG SMIRNOFF?
I happy to tell you that from Stream of Consciousness
on,VD are a real complete band. VD are our main activity now, and we are
already working on new material ‘cause we wanna show to people that we’ve
never been stronger than now. Oleg is my “right arm”.We are working perfectly
together, and as I told you,we already have many ideas for the next album
and we decided to start preparing something, even if I know it’s a little
too early.
5. THE MUSIC IS MAINLY AGGRESSIVE AND SPEEDY WITH
VOCALS MAKING IT MUCH MORE EMOTIONAL, ALONG WITH THE KEYS. DO YOU AGREE
AND IF NOT WHAT IS YOUR MUSICAL TARGET?
I agree with you. Melody is probably the most
important target we have, every time we start writing material. Of course
we would like to compose a pop album and that’s why we generally choose
to mix these kind of vocals with aggressive guitars or speedy songs. The
only thing I would like to have from people is not to be seen as a simple
“power metal” band. Of course we like power metal, but I think we also
do something different in many occasions,as for example “the fallen feather”
or “ through the eyes of God”. This is something we are intended to develop
even further with the next release.
6. "STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS" SOUNDS MORE HEAVY
METAL THAN ACTUALLY POWER. WHAT WOULD YOU CALL ITS SOUND?
I like to call it simply Heavy Metal,for the
reasons I told you before. We all like power metal at its best, but I don’t
think we can be considered to be a 100% power metal band. On the contrary
I think we perfectly fit with what Heavy Metal is considered to be: a music
that offers heavy guitars, sometimes played fast, other times maybe slower,
but I don’t see the point: I always believed heavy metal includes all of
these particularities in it.
7. EVERY REFRAIN IN THE ALBUM IS VERY STRONG AND
CATCHY WITH MICHELE SINGING HIS BEST, ESPECIALLY ON "THE FALLEN FATHER".
IS IT A WAY OF COMPOSING BUILDING AROUND A STRONG REFRAIN OR JUST A PATTERN
OF SHOWING YOUR SINGER'S ABILITY?
Eheh,sorry for repeating it too many times:
melody is the most important thing to us. It doesn’t mean we have to create
something close to disco or pop music, of course, but we like to think
that we write something capable to remain impressed in the listener’s ears.
Generally we start writings from guitar riffs (is it metal or not?) then
after we fix vocal melodies and if necessary we rearrange guitars in order
to work at best for the melody…
8. IF WE PUT ASIDE THE INTERLUDES BETWEEN SONGS
AND THE TRACK "IDENTITIES" THERE ARE NEITHER SLOW SONGS NOR BALLADS IN
THE ALBUM. IS THIS PART OF THE WHOLE AGGRESSIVE CHARACTER OF THE ALBUM
OR YOU JUST DID NOT FEEL LIKE WRITING SUCH SONGS?
Well, I think “fallen feather” is a slow song,at
least in its first part. “Identities” is almost a ballad, and also “we
are we are not” doesn’t push too much on the pedal, at least compared with
what we were used to playing in the past ahah! Of course we are not a radio
band and generally we feel satisfied enough with writing a song or 2 like
“ versions of the same” just to give some break to our ears and to the
listeners…I don’t know what to say more than this,’cause after all I can
assure you that we really record the music we like,so everything is part
of a very natural process.
9. THE OPENING TRACK "STREAM OF UNCIONSCIOUSNESS"
PRESENTS A MAN LISTENING TO THE RADIO TO THE SONG "IDENTITITES" WHICH ALSO
CLOSES THE ALBUM. DOES THIS DEJA-VU HELP THE CONCEPT ANYHOW?
Well,I hope so! The album opens with the madman
already closed in a cell of an asylum and through the song coming from
the radio, we live a flashback of the full story so that we understand
why he his encaged here…then at the end the story goes back to where it
started, as if the whole album was just a flash passed by in his mind in
the space of a few seconds…
10. I CANNOT CHOOSE BETWEEN "THE FALLEN FATHER"
AND "THROUGH THE EYES OF GOD" FOR A FAVORITE. WHICH ONE IS YOURS AND WHAT
CAN TOU TELL US ABOUT IT?
You named exactly my favourite songs,no kidding!
They are also some of the songs we like most to play on stage. What I like
from these songs is that they are a little different from a typical song
played at 200 Km/h. We can give atmosphere to a show,when we play them,and
we also see that people change their attitude,calming down as carefully
listening. Of course after this it’s better (they need to be) to
kick them in the ass with another heavy song, ahah!
11.WHY DID FABIO LEONE LEAVE THE BAND? WHAT DO
YOU THINK ABOUT RHAPSODY?
I explained the reasons many times and as
I always said it was a matter of business, because of his new contract
with the new management that was not making life easy for Vision Divine.
Unfortunately I see in these last days that some of Rhapsody’s guys are
not confirming this version somehow and they are making things a little
more confused… I don’t know what to say but I can repeat: that was the
reason why, and my computer is still full of all the emails I exchanged
with the management, trying to find a solution that we never found, surely
not because of my will. About Rhapsody I always said since their first
album that they are a good band, who found the way to come out in a very
personal way, and surely they are highly professional and I esteem them
very much, but besides this they don’t play my favourite kind of music,
neither lyrically nor musically.
12.PERSONALLY I BELIEVE THAT ITALIAN METAL SCENE
IS ONE OF THE BEST METAL SCENES AROUND THE WOLRD AT THE MOMENT, BECAUSE
THE NEW BANDS DON'T TRY TO SOUND AS RHAPSODY. DO YOU AGREE? WHAT DO YOU
THINK ABOUT THE METAL SCENE OF YOUR COUNTRY?
Thanks for the affirmation! I think Italy
is developing very well but we still need some experience before we can
affirm to be really competitive. Unfortunately I also think that people
are hard to change their mind,and I see that often magazines or even fans
themselves are easy to think about Italians as a 2nd division kind of heavy
metal, even if in my opinion nowadays we are superior even to Germany,
in number of good bands and the quality or our releases.
13.ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE FEEDBACK YOU GOT
THIS FAR? IS THERE A COMMON STATEMENT YOU GET TO READ OFTEN (REGARDING
YOUR MUSIC)?
I’m really satisfied with everything we had
so far! Of course I knew that this album would have been as a new start
to me and to this band, but honestly I don’t care and I don’t mind.I am
sure of what we do and truly believe that Vision Divine have something
to offer to the listeners,on album and especially on a live show (don’t
miss us,if you’ll ever have the chance). Of course as I told you we have
to trust this harder and harder ‘cause people don’t change their mind easily,
but I believe that if you are good,soon or later people will notice it.
14.IF TIME TRAVEL WAS POSSIBLE, WHAT PERIOD WOULD
YOU LIKE TO VISIT AND WHY?
Definitely XVIII Century. I love ambientations
of that period and the music they were playing…and of course the life they
were spending (well,I would not like to be part of the court of France
before the revolution,of course).
15.WHICH ELEMENTS AND EMOTIONS DO YOU THINK THAT
YOU'D LIKE TO EVOLVE MORE ON YOUR NEXT ALBUM AND WHY?
For the next album I already created and copyrighted
another story on the style of what I always wrote as Vision Divine.
This time we will tell the story of a scientist that finally finds the
way to decode the whole system of our genetic code. This will bring him
to affirm that the man becomes able to be practically Immortal. Of course
at this point the human kind becomes the GOD we’ve been always looking
for in our history… but is it true?
16.THANK YOU! HAVE I FORGOTTEN TO ASK YOU ANYTHING
AND YOU'D LIKE TO MENTION?
No, I had a nice time talking with you and
I also want to thank you on behalf of the whole band for the nice review.
I truly hope we will have a chance to meet for a show in your nice Country,some
day!
George “Volt”
Tassis
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