Eldritch – The Power Of Italy
Italy's Eldritch have been creating quality metal for about 15 years now, and their latest effort – Neighbourhell is sure to be yet another winner. Their vocalist, Terence Holler, is one of my favorite vocalists in the business, who's delivery on what is my own personal favorite album from the band – El Nino, is an all time classic. Terence was kind enough to give us the lowdown on the new album, and himself.
Hey Terence! I'd like to start with current events, what is the band doing these Days?
Well, in these days we’re preparing the live act with old and new songs, trying to make a kick-ass setlist!!!!!! We also are doing promotional things, like interviews, radio and TV appearances.
Can you tell us about the new album, NEIGHBOURHELL?
Yes, the new album is the best thing we could ever do actually!!!!!!! It was a team work. Of course, the music comes mostfully from Eugene and something from Peck as well. This time we gave each member of the band its own space. This gave the songs a more mature and rock emotion. NEIGHBOURHELL is a real perfect mixture of all previous albums, but always with something different!!!! It’s typical of us to change a bit style album after album!!!!!
The album's title is quite unique, what does it mean?
Well, the name is my Idea about my life!!!! I live very close to hell!!!!! I’m hell’s neighbor!!!!!!!! It’s the perfect place for me to live…….near hell….
How does the album sound in comparison with Portrait Of The Abyss Within?
I think this album is warmer and rock compared to P.O.T.A.W. The songs are more raw and yet catchy. It’s naturally more mature and the songs are all heavy and have all a sinister mood…It’s a sad and introspective album….
Was the album produced and engineered by the same team that did the last one?
Almost all the same people as the previous!!!! But now, the drums were cured with the help of Marco Ribecai at his studios. For the rest, Eugene did all the production and Niko Santaniello the engineering like always. This team works fine!!!!!! The album is really powerful and heavy!!!!!
What's the writing process within the band, what comes first, music or lyrics?
Usually Eugene brings an Idea of music and then records a sort of half song on a cd. Then he gives it to me and I create the melody, and later on, the lyrics.. Then I let him listen to it for some correction, if required, and then the song is quite ready!!
I always had a hard time describing your music, since though you have some power metal elements, you seem to be closer to prog metal, how would you say you sound?
It’s definitely not prog-metal, or power-metal!! For us it’s a sort of melodic and technical, modern thrash-metal!!!!!! Sometimes aggressive and sometimes melodic! We think we are a bit different than all the rest!!!!!!!!
You've changed labels, from Inside Out to SPV, why did you do that and in what ways did it affect the band?
Well now, we’re on Diversity-Media/SPV and we feel like home!!!!!!! We actually never had problems with any of our labels. It’s just that sometimes we need a change….Like for women!!!!!!!! We need to change women once a while!!!!!!! We became friends with the guys from the record company and this helps for having a clean and trusty relation!!! It’s nice, we work fine!!!
On Reverse you did a cover of My Sharona, why did you decide to do it?
Oh, My Sharona was a song we always used to play at our sound checks, and it was a nice idea to remake it in a heavy way!!! Well, it came out fine!!! There’s also a great videoclip for this track and we had a lot of TV airplay on MTV!!!!!
Are there any other cover versions you did and might release?
In the past we recorded DREAMING (TELL ME) from Ingwie Malmsteen’s RISING FORCE and this song will be on the EL NINO re-release. Now for this album you can find FAITH NO MORE’s From out of nowhere (on the digipack version)
You're re-releasing some of your former albums, why is that, and are they re-released versions going to be different than the original versions?
Our record company is re-releasing the former albums because a lot of fans are asking for them since years!!!! Yes, they’ll be different. They’ll include all the old demos, photos and curious things that the fans deserve!!!! It will show ELDRITCH at a 100% when we were young!!! It’s a good idea and I think that There are a lot of our old unreleased songs which are still good a deserved to be published.
You did a couple of video clips, how happy are you with the results, and what is your take on doing videos in general?
Oh yeah, we did 4 videos in these years!!!! You could see them all on our official site (www.eldritchweb.com) , we really had fun doing these videos!!! It was a new experience for us working 3 or 4 entire days for just a 4 minute song!!!!! It really gets you tired!!!! We had good feedback from MTV, Rock TV and ALL Music channels and this gave us more popularity in our country!!!! Videos are a good way for promotion as well as playing live shows! We adore doing them…
Italy is known for its power metal bands, I always viewed you as a more sophisticated band than most others, how well is the band doing in Italy?
As I said before, we’re one of Italy’s most famous heavy bands!! We played several shows and some big events like God of Metal (2 times!) and some TV shows and lots of radio airplay…..Yes, we are for sure a part of Italy’s rock history and we’re proud of our status!!!!
Can you give us some details on you own bio, I read you were born in the US, and currently living in Tuscany, how did you get from the US to Italy and when?
Oh yes, I come from New York, but 20 years ago my parents wanted to move to this beautiful country!!! Tuscany is a wonderful land and I live in a wonderful mansion surrounded by trees, then there’s the ocean, my own swimming pool for parties!!! And it’s also a quiet place for relaxing!!!
You wrote down a couple of your favorite actors, the first one was Mario Merola, who is he?
Oh, Mario Merola is an old actor from Naples, which I adore because he always acted in films about Mafia!!!! He’s always a big Mafia boss and I like how he plays the role!!!!!!!!
What kind of memorable live shows did you do in the last year or so?
Well, we played a lot of shows in Italy, but last year we didn’t play much, because we were preparing the new album. But we played a great show in Turin for a Tv recording of the gig and it was awesome!!!!!!! We played all our fast and thrashy songs and we left the crowd breathless!!!!!
What kind of live shows are planned for the band once the album is released?
We’re playing some minor shows in our area just to warm up for our big event; we’ll be headliners at the CHICAGO POWERFEST in USA on April 7th!! Then, we’ll play at the EVOLUTION FEST with TESTAMENT, MOONSPELL, ATHEIST, DEATH ANGEL and many more in JULY!! Of course, we’ll travel Europe I guess after summer and in the meantime we’ll travel Italy!
