this awesome interview is the first one by Marta Rose on these pages! She interviewed a street punk band that I didn't know before she proposed to me this interview. And I have to say she had a very good idea because these Blatoidea are fantastic, so, needless to say, I think I will go into them and into their post-apocalyptic image
à la Mad Max that I love so much. But now let's go live to Marta and her words!
Marta: Parasites, infections, metamorphosis. Here’s Blatoidea’s lens, where they see the reality through. Is it all true or just fantasy? Hard to guess, but one thing is sure, their music and art are a fascinating interpretation of our sick world!
A few months ago, I’ve seen them live in London at the Unicorn in Camden and I’ve been nicely surprised of their gig! It conveyed so much energy and anger. I really enjoyed it and had so much fun that lately I’ve decided to interview them, so that I could get to know their story. Et voilà!
So guys, first of all, I’d like to thank you for accepting his interview!
To start I’d like to ask you to tell me something about the band, why did you choose Blatoidea as the band’s name? What does it mean to you?
Manu: Blattodea is an order of insects that contains cockroaches and termites (Not copied and paisted from wikipedia, I obviously know all these things myself ahah!).
The idea was to how society sees social minorities like bugs they can crush anytime. It’s a strange name but I guess we gonna stick with it ahah!
Are you all Italians? Why did you move to London? Do you find any differences between the Italian scene comparing it to the English one?
Manu: Cause where we come from there’s no much music scene and what we always liked to do is play music.
Carlo: We re all Italians in the band, yes! Punk is punk everywhere, in England the scene is just confronting a different reality.
Jacko: As we said before, we originally come from Sicily. And even go to play in Italy was complicated for us.
So we thought to move to London
Andrea: Yes we are all Italians, me from Sardinia, moved mostly to play more and discover different scenarios. It’s quite an isolated scene where I come from.
Manu: I think there so many bands over here in England compared to Italy as the movement originated here. Italy has had its best and worst times music wise but still good to see there’s bands keeping the underground scene active.
Your sound is a mix of the 80’s punk, rock ‘n’ roll and thrash, and I personally found this mix lethal (in a positive way of course!)!! Which are the bands that have inspired you the most? Have you had the chance to play with them? If so, how was it?Andrea: Our sound is made from a mix of different backgrounds. I seen it impossible to play with all the bands that inspired us. We have a large vision of music, and each component put something different inside our project.
Jacko: Well, we all listen to alot of different bands and style of music. I think we all take influences a bit from every band we have listened to. But even so we are always try to put that Blatoidea touch in every song.
We share the stage with plenty of bands who inspired us alot and most of the times was great!
Carlo: Well, many bands inspired us off course, me personally I have to say 70s bands like Slaughter and the Dogs, and Vibrators but I also love the darker side like Broken Bones, Discharge and heavy metal bands like Angel witch Iron maiden and Demon, we listen a bit of all that's why our sound is so different from song to song. we had the chance to play with lots of bands and when at the end of the gig they shake our hands and congratulate to you, well, that pays off all the hard work we’ve put in the band over the years.
Manu: I think we all listen to different stuff but come from a similar background that now developed and keeps developing into this sound that we can now define as ours.
At the moment you’re on tour! How did it go so far? I’ve read in your biography that you’ve performed many tours all around the globe! Do you have any plans for the future? Is there any part of the world that you would like to explore by playing?
Andrea: It is a great tour, specially the Spanish part, first time in this country. Feedback with the crowd is really good and we will be back in the future.
About the globe, I think there’s not a place I wouldn’t go to play.
Manu: Last tour with Banane Metalik it’s been awesome and first time we ever performed in Spain and that’s definitely a place I personally would include into my favourites.
Not sure where would I go next but theres so many places to explore out there and well do our best to be everywhere ahah!
Carlo: The tour was great! Considering we never played in this part of Europe the support received was amazing! I wanna tour the whole world in the upcoming years, just a matter of time.
Jacko: The tour went pretty well! We had the chance to play in South France and Spain! And it was the first time for us around there! We enjoined every single moment. Plus we had the honor to be on tour with Banane Metalik.
We are always looking to discover new places to go and share our music with new people!
How do you think that your sound has changed comparing all your albums?Andrea: It’s only a matter of growing and evolving, don’t get stuck in the same place. As we said we have a massive music background, which never stops to absorb influences.
Jacko: I think our sound haven't changed that much. We always keep the same style more or less. Of course our last release is definitely more aggressive! But you can still find the old style’s Blatoidea song on it.
We definitely get better at playing our instruments too and to be honest Andrea gives us that extra kick we need.
Carlo: As we grow as a band the sound grows with us, surely 10 years ago I couldn't play none of those stuff ahah! But also we re not giving ourselves any limit, we just follow the idea that if you wanna do something just do it, no matter how crazy could be... like for example the “Quarantine” intro.
Manu: I see loads of differences from album to album apart from Andrea joining the band, I think that “Quarantine” compared to the other albums has a wider influence and I think songs are way more structured and mature in comparison.
Talking about your albums, tell me something about your last one, “Quarantine”. I personally love the intro, I find it very intense, the sad tranquillity before the storm of all the songs! How have you conceived it?
Andrea: Manu is the one who write songs, it’s on him!
Jacko: That was all the idea to start the album with a quiet intro. Manu made this beautiful riff on guitar and said imagine this played by a violin. And that is how all started hehe!
Manu: I don’t know I usually don’t think too much about it when I do these things. My original idea was to make it start with something reflecting like a dark moment and then evolve into this burst of hardcore thrash punk.
I’m quite lucky my band mates were cool enough about me proposing “let’s put a violin in one of our songs” . Not sure that happens often in punk bands ahah!
Who does the artwork of the album? What are your inspirations for your artwork? They’re so original that you could create a graphic novel or fanzine on them!
Andrea: Always Manu.... golden hand! Ahaha!Jacko: Well, the artist behind all is Manu!
We are very lucky to have in a band as he always come out with new graphics and logos or album covers. I think he create a very strong image related to the band!
Hopefully he will make something in the future!
Manu: I mainly I got inspired by old school punk and thrash metal album covers. I always been fascinated by bands that have their own visual side beside the music.
Regarding a graphic zine it’s actually a very cool idea, would be very interesting for the future!! :D
Tell me something about the lyrics. Do most of them have a main theme? Do you write them all together or is it something more individualistic?
Jacko: Hehe! All the lyrics are made from Manu. He is the man!
I’m personally horrible on writing lyrics hehe!
All the lyrics are about different concepts or personal experiences.
Andrea: Like the artwork, Manu is the one who brings more ideas in our rehearsals. We obviously have the chance to collaborate with him, but honestly we never have, and want , to modify anything. We are in the same page, another great point of our band.
Manu: Most of the songs are about personal experiences of the band as also Jacko said. In this latest album in particular we tend to focus on how world is changing and becoming more and more superficial, how humans live more controlled, manipulated by technology and controlled by the media.
All translated into this metaphoric “kafkian post apocalyptic world” surrounding the band.
Is there a song that was conceived after a “particular situation”?
Manu: I think all songs are, as already explained, they mostly spin around all experiences the band lived and anyone can reflect themselves in them really.
I think “Break Them” is one of my favourite as it’s a strong encouragement to anyone who’s going through a dark time to fight to get through it even when it seems very hard. And that’s something everyone could have experienced.
To conclude, I’d like you to tell me some funny anecdotes about the band or something that has happened during a gig!
Andrea: Our story is made by funny things. Every concert, touring day, rehearsals, meeting… that shows how tight this band is, not only on stage!Carlo: There's so many I cant choose ahahah! We always had so much fun and all sort of crazy shit always happens to us, sometimes it make me wanna put the fake recorded laugh on the background!
Jacko: We have huge amount of funny stories. We will stay here all day if I start to talk about it hehe! We could talk about a burning van, hundred of missed transports, been called to play festivals without being given proper equipment. Breaking down everywhere etc etc. We have all sort of stories to tell hehe!
But the best thing is that we are always sort things out together as a band and good mates. That's what is making us strong!
Manu: Yeah I think we dealt and we deal with all sort of stuff but we know how to have a laugh about it, I mean what else can you do? Ahaha!
Thank you very much guys, it was a pleasure and I hope to see you soon!
Speak soon and thanks :)
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/blatoideapunxlondon/
BandCamp: https://blatoidea.bandcamp.com/
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