Interviews: Arya

On this new occasion, we have had the opportunity to interview the  Metal band, Arya, from Italy. Check out the interview and this amazing band!.

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

When we first formed and were looking for a name, we struggled quite a bit to find a simple and effective one that hadn’t been taken by others and wouldn’t be associated with a specific genre of music. I was studying for an Indian philosophy university exam at the time, and I came across the word Arya, which is an adjective that means “noble”, or “aristocratic” in Sanskrit. As it seemed like there were no bands with the same name, the other members at the time accepted it. 

Only later I found out that there used to be a band somewhere in Russia with the same name; however, way more famous is the character with the same name from Game Of Thrones: not being confused with her on search engines is the main reason why we quickly added “Italy” on most of our social media profiles. 

2.Why did you want to play this genre?

Because we like being frustrated people who struggle to play difficult compositions that almost anyone else will enjoy! We also wouldn’t like to be taken seriously and considered as true artists like those who sing love pop songs in Italian.

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

Yes, as a matter of fact Alessandro was the drummer of the very first band for both of us, when we were just teenagers and he hadn’t even started taking drum lessons! I met Simone later, but we had many mutual friends: we live in a city that has always had a rather small music scene, where we more or less all know each other. This has been a problem whenever we had to find new members.

4. Each band member favourite band?

I think no one of us could give a single answer, and we would change our mind something like once a week!

5. Who or what inspires you to write songs?

I often come up with new musical ideas when I’m feeling bad for some reason, and it helps me to feel better. In addition to that, whenever I hear some music of any genre that surprises and hits me in some way, I try to grasp the essence of it in order to try to incorporate it into something mine: it may be a sound, a mood or a harmonic and rhythmic idea. Then, as me and the other members work on the song structure and each one provides new parts, the initial reference to each idea of the song gets lost, and probably the overall end result just ends up sounding like Arya.

When I have to write lyrics, I usually come up with very personal ones; I like when I’m able to put my darkest or most unsettling feelings and ideas into words without any self-censorship. However, literature and cinema have always been important inspirations, I’ve always read a lot of poetry and dramas.

6. Where was your last gig?

We made a special performance at a film festival in Cervia, Italy, where we played a piece we had composed as an accompaniment for a short film by a French director. It was the end of July, and the Covid restrictions had recently been lifted. With the pandemic worsening again, it’s probably going to be the last concert of the year for us.

7. Where would you like to perform?

I used to see a UK tour as a medium-term goal, but with Brexit taking place and making everything more complicated and expensive I’m afraid it has become almost impossible unless we really gained a lot more popularity there and paying an agency would make sense economically. Other than that to me Vienna has always seemed a really good city to perform in: there are many venues and bands, and it’s right in the middle of Central Europe, close to many other countries. We got close to booking a concert there, but never ended up actually going.

8. Whom would you like to perform with?

It would be a pleasure and an honour to open for bands such as Bent Knee, Karnivool, Tesseract or Oathbreaker: even if they’re all much different from each other, our music owes a lot to all of them for various reasons.

9. Whom not?

I wouldn’t exclude anyone a priori: we come from a place where the kind of music we play isn’t common at all, so during the years we’ve shared the stage with artists of any genre. I think the right question to ask would be “Who would actually like to perform with us?”

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

I probably used to suffer from stage fright a lot more when I was a beginner. It’s something that can be beaten carefully rehearsing your parts and with the band, but also with time and experience. If I know very well the people I’m performing with, I will feel more relaxed and confident. The same could be said for the skills you have on your instrument: the more you play it, the more you’re aware of what you can do with it, what’s more difficult to do, what you need to improve.

11. What bands have inspired you the most?

We’ve been inspired by a great number of different artists during the years, our music taste evolved a lot with time and our music changed too. When we started out, the idea was to be a melodic “djent-inspired” metal band in the wake of Tesseract, Skyharbor and Periphery, but we quickly turned into something different, borrowing a lot from artists both inside and outside of metal. I could name Karnivool as a band we’ve been admiring since the beginning; Oathbreaker and Converge have been really influential since Endesires, as well as Bent Knee. 

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

Sometimes we’ve even been asked for an encore, isn’t it surprising? Most of the times we couldn’t even play it because our stage time was over!

13. What do you think of your fans?

If you’re really a fan of a band like us there must be probably something wrong with you and your music taste! Is there anything pleasant in listening to our music? Wouldn’t it be better to consume positive and catchy stuff all the time, stuff that you could easily share with many people around you? For these reasons, we feel immensely grateful to whoever chooses to use a fraction of his or her lifetime to listen to the music we made. When we’re composing, we mainly think about making music that we like, we do it for ourselves rather than to please someone else. This is true especially for our new album For Ever: the fact that what we’ve come up with can make someone’s life better besides ours, is a great honour and responsibility, considering the fact that we make our music, made for ourselves, public and we’re also actively working to find new listeners. I think on future releases I’d like to work on a way less “solipsistic” songwriting, as we sometimes used to do in the past.

14. What do you think of our site?

I think it’s really nice, I had already read some interviews on it, and I’ve seen many bands I follow from all over the world finding a spot there. I can’t wait to be part of the game with mine, it’s a big pleasure and I hope we’ll have more news and content for you to feature in the future.

15. Something to add?

We’ll be releasing a new album on October 20. It’s called For Ever, and it’s the darkest and heaviest music we’ve done so far. It deals with the personal aftermath of the band falling apart after the release of our previous album Endesires. We’re gradually releasing most of the songs on our Youtube channel and at https://werearya.bandcamp.com. However, if you’re a Spotify user, you can pre-save the album here in order to be notified when it’s out: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/aryaitaly/for-ever.