Hey brutal bangers and punk rockers,
it's time to read this interview that I did to Milksnake after reviewing their "The Real Eye of God", an excellent debut album showing an energetic punk rock style mixed with some hardcore punk and rock'n'roll influences! The interview was answered by the entire band, even though their singer/bassist Giulia aka "Giuzu" answered to some questions for herself. Ha, speaking about the "entire band", now they are finally a quartet after a lot of time thanks to the addition of Alessandro, their new guitarist, and this is a very good news for a band living this absurd 2020!
Hey! How are you? So, let's start with your story: yours is quite tormented because not only you suffered many line-up changes throughout the years but you also lived a long period of inactivity. Do you want to tell more precisely about your story? And what was the reason for that inactivity?
First of all, we'd like to thank you for this interview. Honestly an entire day wouldn't be enough to tell all of our story! All in all, during these 10 years we changed at least seven guitar players and eight bassists. The first thing to keep in mind is that we are some sort of magnet for. This is probably related to the fact that all musicians are mad, but we most likely have set a record for madness. Among the stupidest excuses we heard we count a guitarist who told us he broke an arm but it wasn't true, a bassist who escaped from Italy never to come back, another one who hated our singer because he didn't know how to sing and still wanted to sing the choruses in our songs... A guitarist who decided to leave us (after coming with us on tour in Germany) showing up to rehearsals late, drunk and without his guitar. These are painful stories that are quite difficult for us to tell, our last bassist left the band because he broke up with his girlfriend and, obviously, what better way to make her pay than to leave our band? After this last let-down and because of some problems that our singer had we decided to stop for almost 3 years.
Please introduce us "The Real Eye of God" with your own words.
This album has been recorded by three assholes singing about drugs, depression, shitty situations, but with a smile. We recorded it with Davide, our current guitarist. We met in July 2019 and we recorded the album in September 2019.
Recording has been a breeze, doing it only took a day and a half.
It seems that the comparison with The Distillers is inevitable in many reviews about you. But are you tired about this? Are there other bands that influenced you?
Yeah, we are fed up with it ahahah! All jokes aside this comparison is inevitable because of Giulia's voice, nevertheless even if we admire this band we think that upon a more "active" listening to the record you could find multiple styles and influences. This is because we all listen to different kinds of music and when we are composing we like to mix up our influences, but still keeping our feet well planted in our hardcore punk roots. Between our most influencial bands (for the sound as well as attitude and intensity) we count Cancer Bats and Gallows.
Was it difficult the rearrangement of "R U Ready" and "Young Generation", both already featured in your EP? And why did you recover those songs instead of others like "My Boyfriend is Dead"?
It has not been difficult to arrange these songs in a new way since we have been playing these songs the way they are right now, which is completely different from the first album, for a long time. Our goal was to move towards HC Punk, while still keeping some rock'n'roll characteristics. Both "My boyfriend is Dead" and "Anti-sex" were discarded because their ballad-like structure was not fit for this change. Plus, there's nothing you can do, somewhere along 10 years of career your playing inevitably changes. It's quite normal.
The cover artwork of the album is quite particular. Why did you use none other than Mickey Mouse to represent "the real eye of God"?
Our album cover represents something completely different: it's a congregation of mice worshipping a bigger mouse, who they think is special because he has a third eye. Truth is that behind this mask there's nothing else than a cat, which you can see not only by its shapes behind the mask, but from his evil eyes too, that are hiding right behind the mask he uses to trick the mice.
Inside the album you can find other graphics like a Christ-Mouse, the real victim, that is nothing but a simple mouse: this means that the only one suffering in the end is the individual, the simple person, the real one, and that the real eye of God nothing is than a lie and a travesty. A filter through which we only see human misery.
Between our graphics you will also find a mouse eating that mask, symbolizing rebellion and discovery, which we hope will happen as soon as possible to destroy false idols.
What are exactly the lyrical themes? Personally, I would be curious to know the themes of the songs "Freaks", "Kelevra" and "No Regrets".
We did not publish our lyrics simply because we were in a rush. We didn't want to lose too much time on this thing because we wanted to publish the record as soon as possible, in fact we were punished by Covid right after. "Freak" was supposed to be the opening credits song for a DVD series treated by our singer and her boyfriend Andrea, FREAK VIDEOS, published by HOME MOVIES. In a nutshell it speaks about horror movies and the fear of being left alone in the dark. It's a song that speaks about idols like Vincent Price, but also about movies that Giulia and Andrea talked about in their DVD series.
Unluckily HOME MOVIES died, and the project was abandoned; the specials where our singer presents the movies remain in the DVDs, though, for another series that was published for Mondadori and Feltrinelli too.
“Kelevra” on the other hand talks about a love gone wrong, it is dedicated to a person that used this alias. It is filled up with sorrow for the end of this love story. “No Regrets" is about not wanting to live our life following parameters stated by other people, not getting influenced by expectations of others. It quotes “you can kill my mother, you can kill my father, you can kill my soul ... And no respect... NOTHING TO REGRET FOR US”. It's quite explicit.
Do you think to play in a more hardcore way in the vein of "No Regrets" in the future to come? Or do you want to surprise us with more particular solutions?
That's right, our goal is to completely move over to HC Punk.
What it was like filming "R U Ready"? And where did you shoot the video?
That video was shot by us many years ago, it was a true nightmare because our singer was having a bad cold turkey from Cocaine. It was shot in a bar owned by a friend of ours, THE VOX.
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| Here you are Alessandro, their new guitarist! |
That's right, it's her! It was great fun to shoot this promo, because as you may have noticed the main characters were three friends of ours and they are quite important people in the scene. They are Ancé, drummer from No White Rag and Madre de Dios, Erny (formerly Call the Cops, actual singer from Madre de Dios and current guitar for Intothebaobab).
They both are our faithful tattoo artist from Old Bones Tattoo in Bologna.
The girl, Darya Idili, is a professional actress that you have surely seen in other videos. We will never stop thanking her for shooting this promo and our upcoming video with us.
Giuzu, was it difficult for you to switch from the guitar to the bass?
It was a bit traumatic for me because all my life I wanted to play guitar, but sadly things have gone differently.
After rehearsing with an enormous quantity of guitarplayers that left you, what made you realize that Davide was the right one?
Thing is, we understood that in life you must not take anything for granted. We don't know if Davide is the right one, but he surely is the best. Same goes with Alessandro. They are real, honest, authentic people. People with a good heart that speak with truthful eyes. We will never stop thanking destiny for letting us meet them, they are incredibly important people for us. Even though our ways may split up someday, we are certain it will be done with respect and honesty.
From 2010 to the present day, how has it changed, in your opinion, the international (and Italian) punk scene?
Do you would like to tell us something about your EP released in the now far 2011? How was different from the album?
Problem is that the EP has never been followed by an album. Another funny joke done by line-up changes.
Do you have other musical projects, in addition to Milksnake? Please introduce them.
At the moment me and Alessandro, our new guitarist, have started a stoner/Doom project called Kobra Trip. It's just me and him, and we are about to close the writing process for our first EP, which we intend to record between December and January.
Did you come back on stage after the lockdown? If yes, how did you fell coming finally back to play live?
We came back on stage, but it was a short joy. We have only played two concerts, which means we have played more than Iron Maiden did after the lockdown! One of those was organized by our label Rumori in Cantina, then we played in Modena, at the "Scintilla" community centre: both have been great situations, always respecting Anti-Covid measures, naturally.
Speaking about the gig at the Scintilla on 17th October, what did you expect from that gig?
Future plans?
Hopefully drugs. Oh, and to be back on stage soon.
Ok, the interview is ending. Now feel free to say everything you want and many thanks to answering to this interview... and also for your compliments for my review about the album hehe!
ACAB!
FaceBook: https://it-it.facebook.com/milksnakeband/
BandCamp: https://milksnakebloodypunkrock.bandcamp.com/releases
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