CYDONIA INTERVIEW

With their amazing second disc, Italian band CYDONIA have now entered the realms of "more-than-just-promising" bands. "The Dark Flower" is a brilliant display of how old-school heavy metal can be mixed with thrash metal, modern elements and a large dose of power metal. Singer and band leader Dan caught up with Intromental Webzine for a little chat …

Interview by Benjamin A. Genach

First of all congratulations with your new album! This is without any doubt the best album I have heard in 2003.

"Hi Benjamin, thank you very much for your words!! And thank you for your great review on your website!!!"

What is your own opinion of the new album?

"Personally I find the album perfectly balanced between aggression and melody, and we are very satisfied to this result!"

How has your new album been received from the media (good & bad)?

"Very good! I'm seeing great reviews in every magazine and webzine, I don't know if this new album can have a positive reaction on the kind of music we are playing, the first reaction has been very positive; We didn't believe in such reaction. So we hope to fly high..."

How will you with your own words describe the style of your music? And what has motivated you to change the style of music?

"This new album is more heavy and thrash compare to the first one, my goal was to have very aggressive verses with melodic choruses. The whole atmosphere of the album is much darker/tharash than the previous album, and you can find also many weird and futuristic keyboard parts. There's a big difference, compare to the first, anyway I don't want to do CDs that sound always in the same way. We hope that our fans will understand this new direction. This album is a mixture of thrash/power/nu/cross-over/prog/melodic....melodic/cyber-thrashadow???...It's quite hard to define it...:-) Changing a music style so vastly is a big risk for a new band, but we are not afraid, and this "change" is just a fruit of my personal idea and style; music is the way of my life! I'm sure the next album will be more interesting in every lyrics and song, for me the most important thing is create good songs."

How will you describe the concept of this record? I recall that your debut album was conceptual as well as this one. How do you come up with the ideas to do a conceptual album?

"I have a big interest for space, astronomy, archaeology, and archaeoastronomy. CYDONIA is region on Mars, still exsisting, where since the 70s NASA SPACE PROBES took some snapeshots of these incredible Pyramidal structures, and a huge monument resembling a Sphynx; obviously science never admitted the evidence, hiding behind stupid explanations, saying that are simply shadows. I loved Ufology and other mistery since many years, and I've unified all this with music in Cydonia. This is not science fiction. There are things with neither time nor space, completely opposing the pure concept of matter. There is a big confusion inside every religion, we've confused our religions with fanatic interpretations and this is all a mistake! "The Dark Flower" is my personal vision of the dying world. This is a pure genetic failure, another memory in time…The Dark Flower is the perfect title for this album. The dark side of the flower (world) is the sad and real image of our souls slave in this genetic system, the life. Life (matter) is not the real image of reality. D F is the virtual world where you're living , a deceit for your mind slaves in a sinful genetic system , controlled by soldiers of light , where you can find the answer only in your dreams. I'm tired of the things I see in the world, I feel like I am imprisoned in an imperfect human; there are doors closed to us beyond which I would like to see. This is what I tried to transmit to the readers of my lyrics. "Possibility to stop time hides the key of the limits of the thoughts"."

What has the line up changes done for your music? Has it been an extra injection to the music?

"I think that the new guys were what we were looking for, they are very cool musicians!! I have arranged my music with Pete Daniels completing the work together with real and efficient guitar riffs sounds; each member of the band bring his contribution to the final result. The Dark Flower is a big goal for me and the band, and I think that sonds very good! I work so hard for Cydonia…and so invest a lot of my time, but this is my life. I often sing the melodies in my mind, then I record them with the voice and I develop the best ideas with my keyboards, and prepare demos for the rest of the band. The music in The Dark Flower album is what I got in mind, I have thrown away many songs because I wasn't satisfied with them. And the next album will be more aggressive and also different."

What is your main inspiration source for doing a conceptual record, musically and lyrically?

"It is not easy to explain where I find the inspiration…This is not an influence derivative from science-fiction. I had the idea to that concept because the human race is blind. This is a concept album about our dying world and our pure genetic failure; the world is always at war, and I don't mean about only the war in Iraq!! Another Age will die in front the Sun. We do not notice who has always observed us, who has always allowed our free-will in the game…an alien truth behind false reality? Sometimes inside my dreams and nightmare I feel presences beyond hidden dimension, I found many answers by my self, but the most important sensations were inside my dreams, and this is not a fruit of my imagination, but the truth beyond dark dimension with no time…Maybe I find inspiration from my curse…I'm slave to the Dark Flower…my life."

I remembered that a lot of the medias said that you voice reminded them of Michael Kiske, which I also know is one of your inspiration sources, but a lot has changed since then, how will you describe your voice now compared to your debut album?

"In this new Cd my voice is more heavy and aggressive than the previous album. This album is full of different and particular sounds, also in vocal melodies, I need to feel special sensations by my voice. I think that I'm very lucky, because I got strong versatility, so I can sing every kind of music, and in the next album my vocal parts will be very double-side!!"

Where do you place yourself and the band in the metal scene in a couple of years?

"I'm very busy with my job…we spent some times looking for a new guitarist and a new drummer, it is always difficult to find new guys to work with."

For me it seems that the Italian Metal scene has vanished the past years, what is your opinion to that or would you disagree?

"I don't know very well metal scene in Italy. Maybe there are many similar bands, here in Italy. I never listen Italian metal, because I think that you can find influences and ispirations out from Italy…"

Do you think that the Metal is endangered with all the illegal home copying that seems unstoppable?

"Yes, and this situation is unstoppable…"

Which bands do you see as the most leading within the metal genre nowadays?

"Soilwork, Rammstein…and CYDONIA eh eh eh :-)"

Thank you very much for your interview, and see you in the near future!!

"A great Ciao from Cydonia!!"