“Don’t make me talk about all those who pretend to be sound engineers, we would run the risk of being too impolite”
Biography:
This band from the Padua region began as an experimental band in late 1996, playing a kind of cool unique progressive rock, an acid rock with blues influences, played and sung very well by every musician.
In 1998, thanks to pre-production work and recording sessions at Condulmer Studio with producer Ronan Chris Murphy and sound engineer Max Bacchin, their first album “Opium” was brought to life.
After signing with MP Records, Hypnoise flew to Seattle to improve the original master tape with additional performances by special guests such as Trey Gunn from King Crimson and Robert Roth from Truly, remixing almost all the songs there. Five years later, they again hired L.A. based producer Ronan Chris Murphy, also known for collaborations with King Crimson, Steve Morse, Terry Bozzio, Irakere and members of Tool, Ministry and Weezer; the band brought to life its second album: “St. Valentine’s Porno Bar” (reviewed by “PL&M in the August issue). After international presentations in London and Los Angeles last February, the band presented and played some excerpts of the album at the last “River Festival” in the town of Padua.
We’re talking about a concept album recorded in historic Italian places like Venice where the band captured voices and noises of the town with a classic Revox mono reel to reel recorder.
In the songs you can hear many influences of modern rock but with a strong foundation in the origins of rock music like Led Zeppelin and Syd Barret era Pink Floyd. A bluesy Acid Rock that, at the same time, can also be appreciated by many nostalgic fans of psychedelia looking for atmospheres lost in the past.
The interview
Your last album is entirely analog (“St. Valentine’s Porno Bar” presented in our August issue). Did you intend it like a challenge, now that so many people, almost exclusively, use digital technologies?
“Yes you’re right. It’s been a reaction to modern digital recording techniques and I have to say many people in the music business have confirmed our decisions. It was very satisfying during the mastering session to hear the positive comments of Mr. Stephen Marsh of Threshold Sound and Vision in L.A., about the beauty of the sounds and the space between instruments we had been able to obtain.
Recording analog consequently meant you had to record all parts kind of in one shot ‘cause you couldn’t use the common “Cut and Paste”. Without a doubt you had to spend a lot of time in the recording of every part, but fortunately you’re a trio.
Something important must be said about this, just to inform all those musicians who never had a chance to get close to or use analog machines. Recording analog doesn’t mean you can’t record on every single track or part just to make it better, you can do this with both analog or digital. Talking about “St. Valentine’s Porno Bar” we used two or three takes, the sound and good performance aren’t the result of a “Cut and Paste” process or any terrible plug-in used to correct mistakes of - at least sometimes - bad musicians; good bands play tight performances with a cool groove. Unfortunately in these days some people don’t care a lot about the quality of bands or quality of the recording studios.
Don’t make me talk about all those who pretend to be sound engineers, we would run the risk of being too impolite. Talking about our studio work, time was spent to get the right, cool sound in good sounding places to get artistic inspiration. As you can see visiting our web site, part of the recording was made in a 12th century church using a 1949 original Neumann U-47: one of the most beautiful microphones ever made.
How do you feel when you think of having played with such great musicians like Willie Oteri, Cheryl Porter and Tony Levin - must say he’s been bass player for Baglioni and Fossati.
More than John Lennon, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd ... he’s great! It’s a unique experience to share time and emotions with many musicians and of course with Tony, Cheryl, Willie and Trey Gunn. It’s always very important to play with everybody, trying to communicate emotions with music when music is expression of the soul. With Tony I had, (P. Mike III), great moments last April at the 45 Hour non stop Jam session; really great and cool music. Must remember the early morning jam, (3.00 am to 5.30 am), with Tony, Chris (R. Chris Murphy), John (Capobianco), Cookie Marenco and me on stage. They’re amazing producers and musicians, you can play anything you feel in your heart knowing for sure that any single note can let them create unexpected amazing emotions.
What’s the farthest place where you had a gig? Did you have a positive feedback?
We actually played at Rock Uljianik in Pula and in London at Giuseppe Mascoli’s Black Club during the album presentation party. We had a very nice time playing in those countries. Good vibrations! Being appreciated in a different country with a different culture is always amazing, we’re proud to say we’ve been appreciated there. We’ve also been playing in Rome, Milan and other amazing places in our beautiful Italy & we’ve had nice feedback everywhere; Hypnoise is a band with a good live impact and a typical American-like feeling. Thanks to Ronan Chris Murphy’s artistic production!
The Riff
I. Where we can find (and eventually buy), your music.
“As we say on our web site in the distributors page, the easiest way is to go in your favorite record store and ask for it If you can’t find our music there you can buy it from both our American distributor “Discipline Global Mobile” or for Europe, Japan and Canada Ma.Ra.Cash records. You can buy it at our gigs with the exclusive “St. Valentine’s Porno Bar” T-Shirts.
II. Padua, in your opinion, offers cool clubs, musical events or do you think it could be better?
Padua offers various chances even if we think it could offer more in a better way: maybe looking at every different musical style in the same way; helping the organization of spontaneous musical events to let musicians play before an audience more and more interested in original music. I actually can’t understand why for example, alternative rock, heavy metal and reggae bands can’t share the same stage the same evening. All of these limitations are so bad for musicians, music and for the audience ... do you remember what happened some years ago in a place called Woodstock?
III. A provocation: musical piracy. Don’t you think a lower CD price could help it to disappear?
“Yes, you’re right: prices are too high and if they would go down less people would download music illegally ... but we can’t eliminate it! We think we have different kind of listeners, a bad mistake in the music industry has been telling everybody nothing’s better than Compact Disc and digital standard. Nothing’s better than analog tape! I mean “tape reel” then you’ve got vinyl, then CD which to me, substituted the old tape cassette. Now, if you tell people a poor MP3 has the same quality of a CD they consequently would think an MP3’s better than vinyl ... not many people know about “Tape reel”. This is to say that people who’re not interested in quality and art will always download music, people who care about quality of the music, quality of the recording and of the booklet will prefer other kind of supports like Original CDs, Vinyl etc. Did you know for example that a copy of any CD, made with any common computer, reproduces a -3 db in the frequency range around 8/10 khz?”
