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Lots of bands have a leader who can also be the main spokesman of the ideas and thoughts of the band. Has Oblivion999 a sort of global identity?
DIE: Having a global identity for a group of musicians is very hard. Being Oblivion999 not our main occupation, I'm satisfied just if we can stay together and enjoy creating and playing music. We're different from each other, believing in different things, with different thoughts and ideas. This is our richness, together with the common love for music and with the will to share our different points of view.
STE: Even if we have very different points of view, we have a great unity in a basic and solid Socratic approach to life. We bother lots of whys and are very slow to give answers. Often we do not have answers.
Has "999" a mystic/religious/satanic/occult or any sort of other kind of meaning?
DIE: It may seem so but no, it's just the year of foundation of the band. Anyway it's nice because it sounds kinda apocalyptic, combined with the rest of the name.
Which bands inspire you the most?
DIE: I'm inspired by a great number of bands, whose works I have listened to and appreciated all over the years. Surely Dark Tranquillity and At The Gates are a basic influence, but I always try to put also other elements, most of all my personal style, in the music I write.
STE: there are lot of bands I like very much, but most of them play a totally different music style, just like Metallica, Sentenced, Blind Guardian, Manowar, Dimmu Borgir, Dissection, Ulver. I don't have an ideal band to follow, a sort of idol group lighting my music research: I take from every one of them different aspects of the sound and the "taste" of their music, such as melancholy, coldness, anger, introspection. In my composing sessions I feel very free. Generally I work on arpeggios or melodies, it is very difficult for me to work on good rhythm parts because I feel them too cold.
How would you define Oblivion999's sound?
DIE: Sombre and heavy, a blend of aggression and intimacy.
STE: to define a music style is always a problem, because the more you specify the more you leave behind: every sort of definition is also the negation of something else, don't you agree? I totally agree with Die, so I would consider it as a Progressive Melodic Death Metal, "sombre and heavy, a blend of aggression and intimacy".
Lots of bands, especially in the northern scene, have a political concept behind their music, often tied with (un)religious statements. Do you have any sort of political message to spread? Will you ever try to impress your political ideals on a song? What do you think about political involvement in music?
DIE: Basically, it's music for the sake of it. My aim is to transmit feelings to the listener, through this universal language that is music. I don't think I'll ever try to spread any political message with my music and lyrics, I just want to share my personal vision of life and everything it goes through. And if we go to the aspects of society and together life I could write of in my lyrics, well, it could certainly be labelled as "political" in it's original meaning, but it remains just an opinion from a thinking being, or an expression of values, but not a direct message.
Anyway, I conceive music for music's sake, I'm not very confident in political involvement in music.
STE: no, we absolutely do not have. Every lyric is based on personal feelings and leaves no room for political meanings. I think the involvement of political ideals on music can be both positive or negative, and we should not forget that lots of modern music genres were born as a form of popular protest against the dominion of particular social mechanisms or in support of politic waves.
The problem is not about the involvement of some ethic statements, but in general is about the passive influence those ideals have on young listeners. Obviously this is not a problem concerning and spread by the single artist, but it regards the listeners, especially the young ones: lot of those are not able to distinguish the message from the music, so, if they like music, they think they have to follow the actions and the thoughts of the artists to be worthy of the fame of a loyal fan, or they passively follow his behaviour. A part from that, I can say I listen to both politically involved groups (also of opposite ideals, such as Burzum and Sepultura) and groups which are not involved in a political message to spread, even if in general I do not like politic involvement a lot: I prefer much more the interior feelings concerning life the artist is able to spread, even if sometimes they can be related to a political point of view.
Oblivion999 lyrics can be defined as a sort of existential research or expression. Do you agree with this definition?
DIE: As for the previous answer, I totally agree.
STE: I totally do. I think in our lyrics there are no solutions to life basic questions (Who I am? Where am I heading? Is there a sense for this all? ecc...), just feelings concerning this approach to life. We talk about feelings and interior dramas, some of them strictly related to us and some no, but obviously if you look deep into our words you will always find something of us.
Even if lyrics do not have a direct political involvement, they can generally transmit a particular way for social or even personal research and also for personal values and moral laws. What kind of message would you like to be the carrier of? Which are the basic values you would like to exhort the people to follow or not to follow?
DIE: I'd like to stimulate people to think before acting and constantly reflect upon their personal meaning of life, to try acting in harmony with the environment they live in and to respect each other, no matter what the personal beliefs or convictions are, to be constantly in search of intellectual honesty.
STE: the political message is something very particular and ambiguous which is difficult to express in few sentences. You risk banalizing and transforming it in a sort of fairy tale, an empty slogan or something ery ambiguous. However, I think that beyond our music there is a clean message: eviscerating the human being in his nature and his contradictions we try to give a sense of dignity to all the misery we have inside. And I also think that the best way to build something together is just to comprehend what each other feels and thinks. I think human nature is something empty, false, awful and bestial and we cannot do anything to change it's essence. Though we can find a way to survive and respect each other.
In the Metal scene a very odd thing happens: lots of bands are accused of changing their music style during their career and other bands are accused of never changing their style. The question is obvious: will Oblivion999 ever change its music style?
DIE: Our style is ever evolving, and that's the thing I'm mostly proud of aboutO999!
STE: for sure. You are talking to someone who changes his ideas and projects three or four times a day! I respect bands like Manowar, who decided to never change its style, and are able after 25 years of career to always release valid records, but it is not my way. Some of us already have new ideas for the new demo, and they sound quite different from what we have recorded in those years. I also think that between our first two efforts the distance is evident, don't you? So, hear for the last time a "death melodic" demo released by us! ;) (Latin dance music, I'm coming!)
Does Oblivion999 just have a professional unity or do the band members also have a common life beyond their music project?
DIE: Most of our common time is used for band activities, but it's fundamental for us to have good interpersonal relationships. It's necessary to be at least compatible with the others to be an O999 member! We like talking about everything, not just about music, and that's very constructive and strengthening.
STE: even if most of the time we spend together is dedicated to music, there's a very cool intellectual unity between us. We do not have a common identity or life, we are all walking different paths, but in the end we all know that we are all following the paths of denial.