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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
» LIVE REVIEWS
» SPECIALS
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DYNAMIC LIGHTS
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Marco, Giovanni & Matteo
December 2005
http://www.dynamiclights.net
Dynamic Lights from Italy are a band you have to check out if you like bands like Wolverine, Pain Of Salvation and Fates Warning. I loved their debut album "Shape" (DVS records) and I had high expectations seeing them at ProgPower, which were totally fullfilled - and more! I talked to the guys on the festival, but we did this interview a bit later, because I still had to review the album and wanted to do that first. Singer Matteo Infante, keyboardplayer Giovanni Bedetti and guitarist Marco Poderi answered all my questions.
Hello guys, your performance at ProgPower recently was my favorite! How was the festival for you? Did you see many other bands, what else did you do on your trip to Holland?
Marco: ProgPower Festival was really fantastic for us...the atmosphere was perfect and I think we had a great performance, thanks to the great support we received from the people during the show. They helped us and all was easy for us, we only had to play and have fun. I'm sure it has been the best live gig since the beginning of our career. This was not our first trip to Holland, but this time we didn't travel all together because we had different projects for that week and we had some problems with our jobs, but we had beautiful days in Baarlo all together and after the show we (except Matt) spent some nice days in Amsterdam.
You had already played here earlier this year, with Nightingale. How was that tour?
Marco: It was a fantastic experience for the band and we had the opportunity to meet Nightingale and Tomorros' Eve which are really nice people. We had fantastic days across Germany, Denmark and Holland with our white tank, while the other guys had beautiful cars! It was too funny and we met a lot of people, so it was great. It was really important to promote "Shape" too, and to take our music to the people. We have a lot of good memories about that tour and I hope we will do something like that soon again! We played in Baarlo too, so it was different to play there again for ProgPower and a lot of people remembered Dynamic Lights, so we felt like we were in Italy.
I have also just reviewed your album "Shape" (sorry I'm a bit late ;)). How has "Shape" been received by the media?
Marco: We have read a lot of really good reviews and we are really satisfied with it, because we know "Shape" is a particular album, with particular sounds and melodies, so it needs to be listened to a lot of times to be understood. We had a lot of interviews too, especially with web-magazines and we are happy for these opportunities.
How do you feel has Dynamic Lights evolved since your previous EP "Resurrection"?
Giovanni: When I started playing with Dynamic Lights they had already started composing the two suites of "Resurrection", so I wasn't totally involved with their compositions. I just tried to do my best and to add my ideas over their work. It was so difficult to understand what the others wanted me to do in those songs. It was my first experience with prog and I didn't have any idea about how to use a keyboard. So, even if I was very happy with the final result, I cannot deny that "Shape" has an higher composition quality. That's because we all improved our skills and overall because we worked together on every aspect of the music we were creating. We always say: "5 brains work better than 4 brains"!!!
The wonderful Jamina Jansson is joining Matteo at the microphone in "In The Hands Of A Siren". How did that come about?
Matteo: I had this idea: during the writing of the lyrics and while listening to the song's melodies, I thought that a female vocal part would fit perfectly in this song. I was impressed by the performance of Jamina who also sang on a Wolverine song. Speaking with Stefan Zell (Wolverine's singer and my friend, but overall Jamina's boyfriend!) we realised that this guest participation could be done. So "In The Hands Of A Siren" was born as you can hear it now. And it was fantastic to perform this song live with Jamina at ProgPower 2005.
That was a big highlight for me, also because I'm friends with Jamina and Stefan :)
Who writes the lyrics and what sources you do you draw your inspiration from?
Marco: Usually Matt writes the lyrics for our songs, but there is not any rule about this... I don't write them, because I'm not able to or maybe because I prefer to use my inspiration for my guitar, but if any Dynamic would want to write a lyric he can do it. Matt takes care of this and as you may have noticed there is not a special topic in our lyrics or any political message that we want to send, but who knows, maybe in the future we could write also about social or political topics. Music, life, friendship and dreams usually guide us during the writing process.
What is your usual way of writing songs?
Giovanni: We usually start from a riff someone of us suggests and we go on from there, adding other riffs before or after it. This is just to have an idea of what the song will be like. Then we start planning the choruses and the other sections of the song. After that Matteo tries to fit the lyrics in the song. Last but not least we try to arrange our parts to have a good final hearing result.
Giovanni, can you tell me more about your obviously classical training in music?
Giovanni: I began studying the piano when I was five years old, and in September 2002 I got degrees at the Conservatorio "G. Rossini" of Pesaro, under the guidance of maestro Giovanni Valentini. My favourite composers are A.Skrijabin, L.v.Beethoven, F.Chopin and F.Liszt. In the same institute I actually attend to the last year of Electronical Music with maestro Eugenio Giordani and in the past I made other related studies to the main activities and also Music Composition, but I had to leave because of University....
I hear influences like Wolverine, Pain Of Salvation and Fates Warning - what do you think, who (else) influenced you?
Marco: I think you named three great bands and we are really lucky, because we have played with two of them and we had a great collaboration with Daniel Gildenlow: when we played with them (POS) in Milan he sang "Inside" from "One Hour By The Concrete Lake" with us and it was fantastic. You can download a video of this event on the Dynamic Lights' web-site. But I can not say there are bands that influenced Dynamic Lights or me because we always listen a lot of different music and we try to take inspiration only from our life and mind.
What can you tell me about "Barracuda", the project some of you have previously been involved in?
Marco: I was involved in Barracuda with Raffa and Simone and it was a beautiful experience where we could play jazz and fusion music and we could improvise a lot of music without writing it...but at least we can do the same with Dynamic Lights and we are totally free with this band, so we prefer to work only with one band and we officially stopped Barracuda and now it's only a nice memory. But I can tell you a secret! Raffa was not the first bass player of Barracuda: the first one was Matteo, Dynamic Lights singer!!!! And he was a good bass player!
Giovanni, tell me something about the hard rock band Crowned and the theater company "Gruppo Insieme" you're involved in?
Giovanni: I am not involved anymore in other projects, because I have no time by now. So I had to stop with those bands. But I still have a hard rock cover (just for now, we are writing some stuff...) band called W.A.I.T. where I am the singer and the second guitar player. We play songs of Guns 'N' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Bon Jovi and some other great songs of the past. Maybe in the future I'll want a review from you!
Haha, well, you know where to find me :)
What or who made you pick up an instrument and want to play in a band?
Giovanni: I started to play the piano when I was really young, but only when I was 16 I started to play with Crowned. It was a great experience for me. I don't know why I wanted a rock band.... well.... I have always dreamed to be with Freddie at Wembley!!!!
I started to play at the age of twelve because I was impressed by a friend that played guitar... it was cool so I asked him to teach me and sometime later I found my way.
What kind of music do you all listen to, anything your fans might be surprised about?
Giovanni: I think Elio e le Storie Tese is the best Italian band by now :-D I often listen to a band called GemBoy that play something like stupid rock but I'm sure you can not know them outside of Italy! But you can be sure we listen to any kind of music.
What are your plans for 2006?
Marco: We will try to play a lot of gigs, and we will continue to write new music... if we will have much music we will record another album but it's not sure. We want to write good music and so we need the right time to compose.
Anything else you'd like our readers to know?
Marco: thank you all, visit our website at www.dynamiclights.net and download our mp3s in the media section... we hope you will like them! Thank you Marlies too for you words and for this interview and thanks to Nico. Hope to see you soon!
submitted by Marlies 06.01.2006
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