Kingcrow

Interview date

8 Juin 2010

Interviewer

Didier

I N T E R V I E W

Interview Ivan Nastasi (by mailer)


Hello and thanks for taking the time to answer questions from our webzine auxportesdumetal.com

Hello and thank you to have this interest in our band, we appreciate it

Could you first present the band to our readers that wouldn't know you already?

Yes of course. Kingcrow were born in 1996 thanks to Diego Cafolla and his brother Manuel "Thundra" Cafolla. The first period was influenced by classic heavy metal music that soon changed into a more progressive style. You can see this kind of evolution in every work that we did, especially in "Timetropia", and mainly in our last album, Phlegethon, that represent I think, the very best of our powerful progressive rock until now. A lot of musicians (also singers..) were part of Kingcrow during the years. Everyone has left a mark in our music and has helped us become what we are now.

We have received quite a number of new italian progmetal bands recently, guys like Pathosray, Future is Tomorrow and Chemistry Room. Do you know them?

Yes we know. Well they’re all good bands, a bit more metal-oriented than we are.

What explains the popularity of this metal style in Italy?

Well, in Italy progressive metal is based on Dream Theater music influences, or similar. There’s also a trail of power epic metal influence that affect Italian people, see for example Rhapsody of Fire or Labyrinth.

Tell us a bit about your new line up?

Of course. Kingcrow now are:

  • Diego Marchesi: lead singer
  • Diego Cafolla and myself : guitar and backing vocals
  • Thundra Cafolla: Drums & Percussions
  • Cristian Della Polla: Keyboards & Synths
  • Francesco D’Errico: Bass Guitar.

The guideline that represent our musical style is Diego Cafolla. With the project Kingcrow, all of us have learned how to become eclectic, everyone with its own instrument. We all have different musical influences, but we can work easily together cause we have no inhibitions in playing music.

Wasn't it difficult to change singer, that's sometime quite a bit portion of the identity of a band?

Well, we were lucky! We’ve found Diego thanks to Stefano Tissi our first singer. He suggested us to give it a try with him cause of his powerful, warm and emphatic voice..and that was true. We didn’t want to search other singers, we chose him immediately.

Your new CD is called Phlegethon, tough name to pronounce, isn't this already a challenge for potential customers?

During recording session the first probable CD title was Lovocaine, that is another song of the album. It’s a compound word, the same idea as Timetropia’s name. Finally we changed it into "Phlegethon" because it shows better the concept idea (essentially a psychological journey of a man that will transform him from victim to executioner) and the whole sound, with sweet and obscures atmospheres. If you compare this with the same river of the Greek Mythology and its role in Dante's inferno you’ll find the connections with our concept.

Tell us a bit about the making of this CD

We spent one year and a half to have Phlegethon ready! We implemented the instrumentation in our recording studio, in order to have a good final sound and to be competitive with other professional band. We dedicated a period to our new singer, in order to give him the right idea of what kingcrow music is. We spent a lot of time to search the right sound and arrangements, sometimes also structural changes, according with Diego’s voice. With “Phlegethon” we've experimented a lot of new things...as usual we pushed ourselves in new directions, to keep our sound fresh and alive.

Who composes the music? Is this a band effort?

Diego Cafolla is the main songwriter. He's a guitarist who has the advantage of being able to evolve taking the best of old and modern music, turning it into an original style. He develops the concept idea and all the songs. And then everyone helps him with his own style, giving ideas and suggestions, finding the right whole sound.

What would you consider bands which are part of your influences? I have mentioned Queenryche, Rush, Porcupine Tree, Pain Of Salvation and Riverside in my review. Would you agree with this.

You’re right. Now our influences are directed toward these bands, but not only. Apart from their music style, mainly for the idea of what rock progressive is. As we said about "Insider" album, our music is a "continuous flow of emotions narrated by music". If I tell you that somewhere in Phlegethon I listen also references to Prodigy..you know, we’re really open-minded![laughs]

I was very impressed with the high quality of the album. In terms of production, in terms of composition and in technical ability. But I didn't know the previous album. Would you consider Phlegethon, as a more mature album?

For sure! This is the best album that we've ever done until now, in terms of sound quality and composition. We did everything in order to be satisfied in all points of view. We changed solos, riffs, synths, vocal lines, lyrics, if necessary, sometimes spending two days only to modify 15 seconds of a synth sound or about one week to find the right group of notes in a solo.

What are the plans for Kingcrow in the coming months?

Concerts and concerts! We're working with our management to organize a tour around Europe and some live shows in Italy. Soon you'll have news about that.

On your web site it shows that you have not done concerts for almost 2 years, and the upcoming concert in Perugia is cancelled. Is this something you don't like to do?

It isn't. If you'll take a look at "Timetropia tour" video on youtube.com you’ll see that we really like to be on stage! As I explain before we had a long hard working period for the making of Phlegethon and to complete the new line up. You know, we cannot have concerts without singer and bassist… Unfortunately the concert in Perugia was cancelled not because of us. Now we have some events that have only to be confirmed.

Thanks a lot and hope to see you live one of these days.

Thank you too for the interview, we’ll be soon on stage!