Interviews: Tragodia

In this new occassion we have had the opportunity to interview the Progressive Metal/Groove Metal band Tragodia  from Italy. Check out the interview and this band on their FACEBOOK PAGE.

1.Where did you get the idea for the band name, you planned it or came out just like that? 

The band’s name was born in a natural way many years ago when the founders band’s members attended the high school. The studies were focused on the classical and Greek literature and so the name came out from the most important page of the Greek art. The name had that gothic sound that featured our sound at that time.

2.Why did you want to play this genre? 

When we started to play together, the first idea was to create and play only original music. Usually we did not play covers. In the 90’s our best influences were in the upcoming, often successful, goth and doom metal scene. At that time, our music was focused on the keyboards; it was the baseline of the songs, but this, during the years, has assumed less and less presence to give space to the other instruments. The band stile became more dry, heavy, with more rhythm presence. We don’t know exactly which kind of metal we play, it’s a sort of progressive and heavy sound with some epic openings. The gothic origin remains like an echo in some soft arrangement.

3. Did you know each other before the band was formed? 

At the beginning, the founding members were all classmates. In today's lineup, there’s only the drummer left, but one of the former guitarist continues to help the band to write the lyrics and build some arrangements. The band, during the time, has had various lineup changes and this was a problem in terms of spending time to reorganize the stuff, but new members has given a steady stream of ideas and influences too. So, the current lineup was built brick by brick but now the core of the band is solid from many years.

4. Each band member favorite band? 

Nowadays the influences of each member are in all kinds of music. A metal band that has pleasantly surprised all the members is the solo project of James Labrie.

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs? 

The songs born from a guitar riff or from a rhythm part around which we build the song. But there is not a cliché. For example, the song “Veils of Grey” you can find in our last album ‘Before the Fall’, was built on the melodic parts of the chorus. There is not something specific that inspires our way to write, only the idea that we must do what we like but in a coherent frame. 

6. Where was your last gig? 

Our last gig was some months ago because we take some time to write and record the new album, but it was in a city near Brescia after some short touring around Germany and Austria.

7. Where would you like to act? 

Our first desire is to play around Italy and Europe and try to reach every country we can get... One of our dream is to play in Japan and USA.

8. Whom would you like to feature with? 

We would like to play with bands like Evergrey that we think are close enough to our music genre, so it could be fun.

9. Whom not? 

We are quite open to work with every artist, because we think that music has no straight boundaries.

10. Any of you has ever suffered from stage fright? Any tip for beginners on how to beat that? 

Maybe when we were at the beginning, the fright of new experiences was very real; of course, nowadays the excitement before the show is always present, but is more controlled… the desire to play and stay on a stage now is more powerful than the fright! We think there is no better formula to grow up than follow what you like to do… if you like the stage, make it yours and your fears will become your energy.

11. What bands have inspired you the most? 

Many and many bands. We don’t know exactly…We really like band like Ark (Lande project), James Labrie, Sentenced, to make a few names, but also Meshuggah, Katatonia and many others also in the extreme scene.

12. What's the weirdest thing a fan has ever asked you for? 

We like to talk about a great fan; is more a nice thing than weird; a fan from Mexico City was traveling in Europe for vacation and he would like to meet us in Italy; when we met, he brings to us a lot of presents and gifts; was a very nice day and now he is the admin of the Facebook page ‘Tragodia MX’ (Mexico). We take the opportunity to say hello: Hi Felipe!

13. What do you think of your fans? 

Our fans had supported us during the years, often really hard for the changes in the lineup. They really appreciate our music stile and our energy on the stage. We hope to have gigs asap and meet them soon! Every time we receive a comment, message, post on our pages, it’s like to have the fuel to keep going on on what we do.

14. What do you think of our site?

It’s like we think a site must to be; clear and straight to the content; we don’t like sites with lots of pages, links, etc… you have a site that fits perfectly to the subject.

15. Something add?

We’d like to add that the artwork of the new album was made by Costin Chioreanu, that in our opinion has done a supreme job; he’s a very talented and great artist, growing up in the international metal artwork scene. The cover represents the lyrics from the song “Before The Fall” that is the title track of the album, we leave to the fans to discover the meaning of the lyrics!