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mercoledì 16 marzo 2016

Pioggia Nera interview by Filip "Hell" Fuchs

Ecco qua l'intervista che Filip "Hell" Fuchs (See You In Hell), ci ha fatto nell'estate 2015 per la sua 'zine. Purtroppo Filip ci ha lasciati il 9 gennaio 2016. Vogliamo ricordare il suo entusiasmo per il punk e il diy riportando tutta l'intervista!

Here the interview Filip "Hell" Fuchs (See You In Hell) did in summer 2015 for his 'zine. Sadly Filip leave us on january 9th. We want to celebrate his enthusiasm for punk and diy, posting the whole interview.

Rest In Punk Filip!



1) How was the very first PIOGGIA NERA gig? When and where it took the place? Were you nervous and stressed out or did you already had experiences from previous bands, so it was no big deal?


First of all: Daris=voice, Ago= guitar, Arca=bass, Fede=drums. Let’s start!
Daris: the very first Pioggia Nera show took place on the 17 of July in 2004 nearby the Tanaro river in the city of Asti. It was a great time for Italian anarcho-punk, and that night we played with the best bands of that decade: Bleeding, Rivolta, Kontatto, Campus Sterminii, Drunkards and many more.
We had a previous band from 2001 so we weren’t nervous at all; the important thing for us was our entry in the anarcho-punk scene, in which we were sure to find an audience interested in our music and people and bands to build a friendship with.
The show itself was pretty messed up: I remember cutting my finger dancing during Kontatto’s show, and therefore there was blood all over the bass while I was playing later (at that time Pioggia Nera was a 3 piece band); the bass wasn’t even mine, but I borrowed it from Bleeding!
I bring many good memories of that show!

2) How would you compare your new 2nd “Danze Dei Mizerabili” LP to the 1st one? What kind of progression/changes the band underwent since the release of “Teatri Di Menzogne” back in 2006?
Daris: “Danze dei miserabili”, like “Teatri di menzogne”, is part of a trilogy; we came up with this decision as soon as we started writing songs for the band.
Every album holds a very peculiar meaning.
“Teatri di mezogne” is about our relationship with the reality around us, with the anxieties and fears of a society that doesn’t accept individual freedom, a society that drowns man into illusion and push him into becoming a machine. Behind these visions, these nightmares, were born the songs.
With “Danze dei miserabili” we have enclosed those visions in our own mind, we have caged them in order to get rid of them, cursing and destroying the life itself. What came out was an introspective journey , a new consciousness forged by our becoming estranged with society. To realize that society is rotten brought us to escape and find the darkest places of the soul, where we could dance e get finally rid of human decay.
Musically speaking, I guess you can see some changes, which is perfectly natural; being Pioggia Nera a “research project”, it’s normal for things (music, lyrics and shows) to mature year after year and find their way in their present time.

3) Did PIOGGIA NERA ever played outside the Italy? Why there weren’t more (or any) European tours? In recent years there is a good number of Italian (esp. crust) bands touring Europe f.e., so after 2 great LPs maybe you should try it as well?
Daris: We played only one show in Austria (Innsbruck), on the 21 of February in 2008. Organizing a tour has always been difficult for us, and every time we tried it ended up with no results.
We have always been broke, and you have to put up with some expenses in order to set up a tour; in addition to this, over the years we put more distance between us, which has made harder even organizing practices and Italian shows.
I’m sure that touring would be a really interesting experience, but we are always broke and really badly organized, so I’m starting losing hope and I don’t worry too much about the future. Every show is a great experience itself, and that’s enough for me.
Ago: I’ve been lucky to tour a lot playing in Kontatto, and I would love to tour with Pioggia Nera, expecially in order to share this experience with the other guys and to get the band known more outside Italy. Too bad we already have a lot of problems getting ourselves together for practicing or playing here, so I’m not sure we are ever gonna make it. But you know, never say die!

5) What about your gigs in Italy? Where do you play most? What about South of Italy, is there still this division seen also in hardcore/punk with this part of the country kind of isolated from the North? Did you ever played there?
Arca: we play mostly in the north of Italy because of work related problems. In the last few years we played in Torino, Milano, Monza, Genova, and other cities. In the south there is a very active scene with a lot of bands, but we had never been able to play that far with the new line-up, unfortunately; we hope to do it someday. Years ago I remember Pioggia Nera went to play in Roma, it was before 2010 anyway.
I think there is a good spirit of cooperation and support between bands from the north and the south and many southern bands always play in the north while touring and they get a great support. Every summer in the south take place two big festivals called Rozz Fest and Lecce Hc, in which many bands both from the north and the south play.
Ago: I think the only division between the two scenes is the one about distances and the money you need to go all the way to the south. There are many cities in which you can play, I think about Roma, Napoli, Bari, Palermo, Catania…but I’ve never been able to go there, even if we have been asked to. I would like to go to Sardegna as well, but being an island makes the money issue maybe even more troubling…

6) I suppose that you often play in Italy in various squats/social centers, tell us more about these places and which ones you find most interesting/inspirational? Was anybody from the band ever involved in running place like this?
Arca: the best places are of course those with great food and a decent table-football!! ;-)

We always try to play in diy places, squats or social centers; the best places I’ve played recently, both for the spirit and the people, were FOA Boccaccio (Monza), Kavarna (Cremona), Pellicceria Occupata (Genova) and Asilo Occupato (Torino). In september we’re gonna play a couple of good show with some great friends: in Atlantide (Bologna) with Horror Vacui and CSA Mayday (La Spezia) with Drunkards and Jilted.In the last few years Ago and me have taken part in the life of Telos Squat in Saronno (near Milano), which was evicted by the police last year. It was a great experience, both politically speaking and about organizing shows.
Ago: of course we prefer to play in diy places because it’s where punk finds its better support, but I’ve experienced great times in other venues, expecially outside Italy; I think that sometimes the place itself is less important than the way in which things are organized and managed, so you can have a great show in a club or a bar if it’s done with the same diy spirit as it would be in a squat.I’ve seen many differences between Italy and the rest of Europe, since in some countries seems easier to get a diy place and to keep it, while in other countries you have to find regular places in which set up event but bringing you own way to do it, which is great because you can expand your boundaries and maybe get more people involved in your activities and ideas.Moreover, during the years, I felt sometimes that for some people the diy ethic was just a way to justify cheap organization if not total lack of care about the bands and that can only play against true diy spirit, pushing people away from it. To me diy it means doing things in the best possible way, to show how we don’t need all the mainstream bullshit to create something great.Anyway, I’ve been really close to Telos Squat and I really like FOA Boccaccio as well; now that I’m spending half of my life in Bologna, I’m really attached to Atalantide.
7) Tell us more about your influences and if possible in greater detail – not only bands names, but also what exactly did influenced you from their music and which their records would you recommend most? I think it is safe to say that you are often compared to NERORGASMO, right? Aren’t you already sick about it, haha?
Daris: The comparison with Nerorgasmo is an everlasting one, but I often ask myself how much we actually hold in common. I don’t argue that they are —and have always been— a source of inspiration, but we have always looked at the introspective side of things, we have always described reality through nightmares, visions and ghosts, differently from Nerorgasmo who were more crude and nihilistic. About other bands we’ve been influenced from I could say Adolescents, TSOL, Germs, and all those bands who were able to express their dissent with gloomy music, though in an aggressive way, distant from death rock or goth music; funny thing, over the years people compared us to bands we didin’t even know about!
Maybe some horror literature and movies have had some little influence on us, but not too much, because, after all, Pioggia Nera is simply a way to describe what we are and what we are living.
I like to describe our music as “chamber music”, because it doesn’t talk directly to society, it doesn’t send riot hymns and it doesn’t offer any easy way out or any revolutionary solution.
Pioggia Nera talks to the individual, to the single self, and every song is like a face to face conversation.
In our songs and lyrics are enclosed our soul, our emotions, and these are things to be told in the intimacy of the long, sleepless, futureless nights of deep thinking.
We are for sure not a band for the masses…
Arca: I think that by now Pioggia Nera is influencing itself! We’ve been able to create a spirit in our songs, music and lyrics, which is the peculiar Pioggia Nera spirit. We owe much to Nerorgasmo, but not only to them! Each one of us listen to a lot of different music, and of course a big influence comes from early American punk (Adolescents, Germs, Dead Boys, TSOL), and from that grew in us the urge to create angry and simple riffs combined with the kind of lyrics typical of some early Italian punk as Contropotere and “La tua morte non aspetta” from Wretched, beside of course Nerorgasmo.
Another band I really like is Havoc from Torino, a dark, negative and inspirational hardcore band.
Talking about Nerorgasmo I want to mention Via Luminosa, a new band born from the ashes of Nerorgasmo and Arturo (90’s Torino hardcore), a kind of very peculiar post-punk, don’t miss it!
Speaking about myself, I really like Italian hardcore, old school better, and lately I’m enjoying some ‘fast & furious’ hc as Culo from USA.
Ago: when I first knew the band as a fan I was really impressed by the atmosphere the music created in my mind, and this peculiarity is the point of the band, I guess. The emotions created by the music, as a Beethoven symphony could do, are enforced by the power of the lyrics, which can touch some deep corners of your soul.
Being so intimate and personal, I agree with Arca when he says the Pioggia Nera is a self-influenced band, like as it keeps on thinking about itself, looking itself in the mirror, and finally finds new ways to talk about its perception of reality.
Of course there are many influences from the old punk scene, simply because it’s what we have listened growing up, and I think I don’t have any more names to add to the list…


8) Both your LPs were co-released in cooperation of more small DIY labels, why not one “bigger” label like f.e. Agipunk? Do you plan to release your records in the future in the same way?
Daris: Good question. First of all, being part of diy production and distribution is a simple and natural consequence of the diy scene we are part of. That being said, we’ll probably never have the chance to be produced by a big underground label, since we are “dead meat”, because we don’t play live too often, it takes a long time for us to release an album and we never had the opportunity to tour outside Italy.
Anyway, what matters to me is not the total amount of live shows, nor the need of keeping on releasing albums or the depending on social networks.
What remains is the album itself, the story it tells and the emotion it holds. Maybe this has not the same appeal for everyone as it has for us.
Arca: we’re always out of money, so our releases were born with the help of many diy labels (thank you all!).
Since I run a small diy label (Calimocho autoproduzioni) I prefer this way of cooperation, because if it’s done in the right way it allows to share a project with people you previously didn’t know and it can be a starting point for new friendships e cooperation. I think that in the internet era is really important to grow relationships beyond the virtual surface, and a great way to do that is cooperating with various diy labels.
Ago: Since you mentioned Agipunk, that’s the simple story: they took part in co-releasing the first lp; they were interested in our second album, but they weren’t fully satisfied with the recordings, and since we didn’t have the money to record new takes or for a new mixing, we decided to do it on our own with the help of those who were interested in helping us. Anyway, Agipunk is helping us with the distribution of the record.
That being said, I think that’s obvious that if a single label put out a record, it wants the band to play and tour in order to make the record spread, otherwise it will have plenty of boxes of records piled in a garage…
For the problems we have already talked about I guess the next record will be a coproduction too, and that’s great, because it means that many people still believe in what we are doing!

9) There are many reunions of old 80s hardcore/punk bands everywhere around the world incl. Italy, have you seen any of these reunited bands playing live? If so, then which were good and which sucked? And what do you in general think about this nostalgia trips?
Arca: I think that every band has its own reasons to reunite. I’ve seen some of these bands, as Mob 47, Bloody Riot, Impact, Doom, some were good, some weren’t. Some bands still have a genuine spirit and you can tell the love to play.
I think these nostalgic operations can give a good time both to the younger kids and to the older ones, as long as we don’t get stuck in the 80’s punk, since there are a lot of good bands nowadays.
One of my favorite band, both live and on vinyl, from the past that is Nabat, but in this case it’s not a reunion, since they never broke up!
Ago: I’ve seen a lot of these reunions, and of course some were good, some were not and some were great!
I think it’s a good thing if the band really wants to start playing again with the same spirit of the early times, and it gives the chance to younger people to see some good bands from the past. Of course when you see bands who are really shitty on stage maybe with only one original member, you ask yourself why they are fucking doing this…
I think people is smart enough to prefer a good new band rather than a shitty old one…or at least I hope so!

10) How is the hardcore/punk scene in the part of Italy you come from? I think that you originally came from Pavia, but I am not sure now. I played twice w/my bands in nearby Vigevano in CSA La Sede (last time in 2003), I have heard that this place got burned down by Nazis, really?
Arca: La Sede was burnt down twice by fucking Nazis! It was a great and active place in which we played too with our first bands.
Now with Pioggia Nera we are split between Pavia and Varese. North Italian scene is quite united, expecially in the last few years; in Milano, for example, many collectives were born and there is a mutual support between them, in order to book shows for touring bands and supporting them. This happens thanks to friendship and political relationship that goes beyond the music itself. That’s positive and it’s better than a few years ago, let’s hope it will keep on growing!
In my area in the past few years Telos Squat had become a kind of a landmark for the scene, and many bands were born, as Overcharge, Eco, Zona d’ombra and Motron (d-beat band in which I play with Ago) and more…
Ago: as Arca said, Telos Squat was a great place because it created something that never existed before in our area, and was able to involve young kids in the diy punk ethics and various political matters. It became a good connection point for touring bands and Italian bands as well. After the eviction they kept on organizing event all around the city and tried to squat again a couple of times, but finally they have always been evicted again.
A few years ago we started a collective called Punks on Parole in order to organize show for touring bands in the Milano area, and that allowed us to become closer to some places and people, and that is always a good thing. Now this project is dead because some of us have moved or just don’t have time anymore to be part of it, but a new network of Milano based collectives is keeping on with the good job! (on facebook: Milano DIY HardcorePunk).
Generally speaking, I believe that sometimes people focus too much on this “scene” matter, maybe creating divisions on silly things as the kind of music you like and stuff like that…fashions come and go, and in the end only passion, dedication and friendship are important.

11) From where comes the inspiration for your lyrics? Historical/horror books or films (recommend some!)? Daily shitty life in general? Tell us more about the topics of your lyrics.
Daris: As I said before, Pioggia Nera is a “research project”, and everything is related to that. Music and lyrics are inspired by everyday life, by what we feel deep down inside and by society-related feelings.
If I had to make a comparison, I would say that Pioggia Nera is the E.A. Poe of punk, since Poe had always referred to himself as a chronicler, never as a writer of fantasy tales. We are chronicler too, as we tell the truth, often hidden behind metaphors, often through visions or actual interior monologues.
Quoting a song of ours, “we feed on the evil that we create ourselves”. We are the nourishment source of that same force we use to write and tell our songs. An eternal circle of fire that burns and never stops.
Ago: when I joined the band in 2012 all the material for “Danze dei miserabili” was already written, so I didn’t take part in the creative process. Now I’m writing some stuff for the upcoming album, and my greatest pleasure was being able to write music and lyrics for the band. That’s because I think it’s not immediate to describe with words what Pioggia Nera is about, it’s more something you have to feel, and it’s something I’ve always felt listening to the first album and when I first heard the new songs I had to learn. I think the main inspiration is the will to see reality in its truth, disrobed by the false appearances of hypocrisy and lies. And seeing reality for what it is makes you closer to freedom, even if the result of your research is far away from hope and optimistic views.

12) How is the band doing right now? Any plans for new releases, gigs, tours? I suppose you are not in your teenage or 20s anymore, so do you feel it is harder or easier to go on w/bands activities now compared to like 5 or 10 years ago? Any opinions about the process of growing older in hardcore/punk scene?
Daris: We are working on new songs for the third album of the trilogy, which we are not sure when it will be released, of course.
The third album will close the circle, as a maturation of the second one and with a clear reconnection to the first one.
I don’t really have any expectation about anything else, I don’t ask myself about the future because probably I just don’t believe in it.
What I’m sure of is that I’ll keep on carrying on my research project, living my life day after day, collecting experiences and treasuring them. I’m not afraid of the march of time, as the time is the object of my constant study.
Time is the recurring theme of our songs and it appears in different shades within our concepts. Time is bound to life as well as it is to death, it’s related to eternity and to oblivion.
That’s why “getting older” looks to me as an useful instrument in order to collect more knowledge about time.
The more the time flows, the more I get to know it. The more it slips away, the more it becomes mine
Arca: Daris is writing new songs for the new album, and it would be great to set up a tour in 2016, but I think it’s becoming more and more hard to combine private life and work with the rest.
The passion is not over, actually I think that growing up leads you to do things better, with more passion and determination then in your teenage years.
Maybe you play less, but you always wanna do your best! I really appreciate those band that in the middle of their thirties achieve a maturity in their music and lyrics without losing the energy and the intensity of the past. I’m thinking about Jilted, Drunkards, Contrasto, Kalashnikov Collective, Kontatto and all those bands that still find inspiration and a way to express themselves in punk hardcore.
Ago: I think that growing older makes you more aware of what you’re doing, of your goals and of the way you wanna reach them. When you’re 18 or so it’s easier to be carried away and maybe you pay more attention to quantity rather than quality; in the same way, I think with time I’ve become more demanding about my writing and playing, I demand more to myself in order to be fully satisfied. Maybe I’m seeing less show now, maybe I’m playing less (but I’m not sure since I have 4 bands right now ), but I always wanna do my best, because I feel that all this is still an essential part of my life, otherwise I wouldn’t be playing anymore.
About Pioggia Nera I’m excited about working on the new album, because now I have the time and the chance to put something mine in the band’s work and I’m looking forward to the upcoming shows because it’s been a while since the last gig we played…that’s pretty much the future of the band I guess, and I’m really eager for carry on this project.

13) Do you know anything about hardcore/punk in East Europe? Any bands from this part of the world you know/listen to?
Ago: I’ve been a few times in Czech Republic and other eastern countries as Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. I know pretty much some Czech bands as See you in hell, Fear of extinction, Malignant tumour, Dread 101, Mass genocide process, Gride, Festa desperado, Lycanthrophy, Sheeva Yoga…I’ve seen some of them in Italy too…plus I’ve shared some good moments with Beton from Bratislava. I’m sure I’ve seen more eastern bands in my life but I’m really bad in remembering names…
14) Thanx a lot for the interview, feel free to add anything in case I forgot to ask about something important…
Daris: Thanks to you for the space you gave us and for the chance to explain some of our basic ideas.
Arca: Thanks to you and those who’ll read the zine. I wanna mention the other bands in which I play with Ago: Miseria (miseriapunx.blogspot.com) and Motron (motroncrust.bandcamp.com).
From Pioggia Nera’s bandcamp you can get the first album in free download and listen to the new one. Stay diy, stay punk!
Ago: as you can notice the drummer couldn’t answer but he says thank you as well…what else? Keep in touch and keep punk alive!

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