Hell In The Club – Interview

Hell In The Club – Interview

16 Dicembre 2014 3 Commenti Alessandro Lifonti

interview by Alessandro Lifonti

italian version

MR: The moment has come for melodicrock.it to interview an italian rock band, and what a shot! We can have a chat with the mighty italian hard rock band: Hell in the club! Welcome guys!
HITC: Hey Alessandro! It’s a pleasure for us!!

MR: You all play in different metal bands (Elvenking, Secret Sphere, Death ss). So why did you switch from metal to hardrock and join your forces to start HITC? 
HITC: With HELL IN THE CLUB Andy wanted to finally have a band that played the music he loved the most. And that is hard rock/rock’n’roll. So that’s why he started this project and that’s why he chose other 3 guys who were born and raised with the same kind of music; Fede, Picco and myself. We were all fans of the great rock bands when were kids, bands like Aerosmith, AC/DC, Guns n’Roses, Led Zeppelin, Motley Crue and son on. So, with HELL IN THE CLUB we finally had the chance to play the music of our heart! 🙂

MR:  There’ s your a new album coming out these days called “Devil on your shoulder! It’s a mix between sleaze, glam, street, and hard rock. Which are the bands of the 80’s who inspired you the most when it comes to writing music for HITC?
HITC: When we write music it’s all very instinctive and spontaneous so there is not a real search for inspiration. It is also true that since we were raised with all the great hard rock, it is natural that in most of our songs there can be the reflection of bands like the ones I already mentioned. But we are also very open minded and we listen to all kinds of music so that inspiration may come from anything actually.

MR: Listening to Devil on your shoulder, we pass from a very powerful song to a sweet ballad: that’ s amazing! In your opinion, which are the strong points of this new record?
HITC: I will say what people is telling us, because it is very difficult to judge our own album and our own music. Our fans and most of the reviewers are saying that the strongest points of this album are our personality, our energy and the will to give to a genre like this, which has been exploited to death, a little spark of freshness. This is absolutely the greatest compliment people can make to a band that honestly started just for fun: it means we have surpassed our goal and we went even further! Wow! 🙂

MR: These days it’ s damn hard to go out there and play live here in Italy! If you’ re not a cover band, you might struggle! What do you think about all this and, are there any chances for you to build a real tour even though we know you’ ve been playing a couple of gigs already ?
HITC: Yes I know what you mean, even if for the previous album we made an awful lot of gigs around Italy (and not only). It was of course thanks to our music and to our will to play wherever, even almost for free, but also thanks to the team of people who was and is working with us. This hard work took us to some real big stages like the Heineken Jammin Festival and Sonisphere, among others. Right now we are organizing a small Italian tour from January to April. We will make something like 6 or 7 gigs in nice clubs. Then we’ll see how things will move on!

MR: Let’ s talk about the lyrics, because we’ re all surprised by your songwriting! As you’ re not british mother tongue, how can you easily write such deep songs as “bare hands” or “we are the ones”?
HITC: Well actually I am half british mother tongue, so I am a bit “advantaged” eheh! We take great care of the lyrics. Both me and Andy firmly believe that lyrics should be as important as the music, may them be light and fun, or deep and serious.

MR: The weak point of some italian singers who sing in english is the accent: you can hear the italian accent in their voice! Davide: when we hear you singing We don’t hear that accent. How is that possible?
HITC: Well, I unveiled the mistery in the previous answer eheh! My mother comes from near Manchester and she moved to Italy when she was 19. So during my childhood I was in deep contact with England. I still am, so this is helping me pretty much. I am also very aware of this thing, I hate when singers have a strong accent and still they sing in English. And I don’t say this with arrogance, I just think it is very important!

MR:  Why is Italy that far from the scandinavian countries  (Sweden above all) when it comes to rock music? What can we do to improve this situation?
HITC: Sweden is a gem when we talk about a rock and heavy metal. It has always been. So I think it is in their blood after all. But I think there are several Italian bands that have the potential to be as cool or as big as those bands. What we lack is the support from the Italian fans, the will to collaborate between bands and to build a strong scene and often we lack in self judgment and humility. When we’ll fix those things, then we’ll have a chance. Because on the other hand we absolutely have good musicians and good songwriters! But hey I am not talking about Hell in the Club.. with HITC it’s all different.. we are humble, we have the will to collaborate and to build a strong rock scene, we have a strong sense of self judgment (even too strong sometimes ahah)..what we lack is mental sanity!!! Ahah I’m just kidding! 🙂

MR: What are the main differences, if there are any differences, between your first release (let the games begin) and your second one (devil on my shoulder)?
HITC: I think there are no BIG differences apart from the fact that we tried to improve everything! The quality of the songs, of the production, of the arrangements, of the artwork, etc.. This time everything is bigger, better and cooler. But there is always room for improvement, so the next record will be even bigger (or so I hope! ahah!!)

MR: Your first record was released by Avenue of allies, and for your second one you have chosen Scarlet records. What did it really happen?
HITC: The first record was released through a collaboration of companies. Red Pony in Italy, Bad Reputation in France, Rubicon Music in Japan and Avenue of Allies for the rest of Europe. This time we wanted to have a more stable relationship and a bigger distribution so, when we had a chat with Filippo from Scarlet we understood they were the right guys for us. Now we have a worldwide distribution contract and at the moment we are very happy!

MR: Guys, thank you once again for this interview. We really hope you can make it to the top and of course we’ re looking forward to catching up with you on the road!
HITC:  Thank you so much!! That was a nice chat indeed! 😉
We really hope you’ll like our new album! See you ON THE ROAD!!!

© 2014, Alessandro Lifonti. All rights reserved.