Interview with: Mystical Fullmoon

Hell on Fire: Hello Gnosis and welcome to H.O.F, how are you!

Gnosis: Greetings! I am very busy as usual, too many things to do and so little time. But I’m also excited about the album’s imminent release, and a lot of other stuff that’s band-related, so I can say that this is an interesting and promising moment for MF.

Hell on Fire: Can you say how everyhting started with Mystical Fullmoon since your entrance in the band, i ask you this because i was searching and you made part of the band later on as bass player in the year of 96 under the name of Asaradel being now also the lead vocalist right? How as been the history of M.F since that time until now?

Gnosis: The history of the band has been complex, sometimes difficult, due to the line-up’s instability, caused by unreliable musicians and childish behaviours that often forced us to get rid of those that didn’t deserve to be part of the band. We are very jealous of what MF means to us, not everybody is allowed inside our circle, we have high standards in terms of attitude, experience and dedication, for us music is not a hobby but is the choice of a lifetime, something to approach with professionality and abnegation. At the moment the line-up in embodied by me, Hexe (guitars, sampling, programming) and Arcanus Incubus (keyboards, synths, sampling, programming), the creative alchemy among us is incredible and we don’t need to add another person – except for a session guitarist for live gigs – I suppose there’s a reason why they say that three is the perfect number....
Talking briefly about the band’s history, we published a demotape in 1997 (“Through Somber Passages”) that got excellent reviews everywhere, and lead us to a record deal with Italian label Alkaid records, that in 1998 published the ep “Beyond Somber Passages”, which was basically the reprint of the demotape with the addition of two unreleased tracks, in a limited edition characterized by cool digipack package.
After Alkaid Records closed down, we self-produced a 2-tracks promo cd in 2000 in order to present the band’s new style; then we were forced to slow down our activity for more than two years due to both guitarists suddenly quitting the band, then, with the return of talented guitarist Hexe (who had already collaborated with us on the 1998 ep) we were finally able to focus on the new songs, and on the ambitious project of the album. You’re right, I joined the band in spring of 1996 as bass player, and later in autumn 1998 I also began singing: we were – again – looking for a good singer and we couldn’t find any, being the main writer of the lyrics it was natural to me to try to rehearse as a singer, my bandmates were impressed by my performance, and the rest is history....

Hell on Fire: Why did you change the name from Asaradel to Gnosis? Any special reason for that?

Gnosis: the name Asaradel chose me a long time ago, through means that I cannot explain here. Asaradel was the name of the Nephilim who taught lunar magic to human beings, so it also had a clear connection to the band’s name, though I chose it before joining MF.
Some years ago I just felt the need to rethink the symbolic meaning of my alter ego, due to the philosophical evolution I experienced; Gnosis was perfect, it’s such a strong and meaningful name, I feel it as an excellent manifestation of what I want to comunicate with my music.

Hell on Fire: How do you descrive Mystical Fullmoon style?

Gnosis: At this moment, it’s not easy for me to describe our style with a straight label.... basically, what we want to express is an energy related to dark and mysterious metaphisical subjects and visions, telling these contents through the vibe of black metal, which is a genre that we love, but giving it a unique twist by contaminating it with other sounds deriving from film scores, industrial and progressive rock, just to name the preminent influences. Everything done with an utterly free and eclectic attitude, thinking outside the box.

Hell on Fire: In what do you inspire when you write the lyrics to M.F? You have a great voice for the genre you practice, do you have any kind of preparation before a show and when you enter on studio?

Gnosis: A lot of times, my lyrics just come out by themselves, I don’t even have to think, it’s almost a process of automatic writing. Some other times, on the other hand, they come out in a more intellectual way, as the result of my studies in the field of magick, so the inspiration is always drawn from my personal experiences, since I don’t like to quote books as others do, but rather to stick to what I feel and what I have experienced in first person.
Thanks for the compliments about my voice, I haven’t studied singing but I learnt some professional techniques for working with the voice while attending an acting course. If the situation allows me to, I usually do a quick warm up routine before my performance, and a cool down after it, it’s just a series of simple vocal exercises with vowels, if done properly it can really help you. Anyway, since I sing with my diaphragm and not with my throath, I have never run the risk to damage my voice.

Hell on Fire: For those who don’t know yet, what can you say about your debut album “Scoring A Liminal Phase”?

Gnosis: “Scoring a Liminal Phase – Ten strategies for postmodern mysticism” is a complex and ambitious work, the product of six years of songwriting, and of thirteen years of restless evolution. It’s a monumental work, with its 74 minutes of music and the extensive leght of the songs, there are strong progressive influences and it’s not something for an average audience; I rather see it as an evolved work for an intelligent and demanding listener, someone who’s in love with the atmospheres of extreme metal but is tired to listen to the same old clichès and is looking for an intense album, from an innovative band that has something to say within the scene. For the best possible results, during the production we’ve enrolled some of the best names we could reach, starting from the album’s producer, Alex Azzali (who has worked with Ancient, Steve di Giorgio, Mortuary Drape, Secret Sphere, Cataract, Abgott etc), who also helped us in organizing the incredible collaboration with the strings of the Bulgarian National Radio Orchestra, which appear on three tracks. For some special background vocals, we were reached in the studio by Aphazel from Ancient and Wildness Perversion from Mortuary Drape, two old friends of ours that were more that glad to be part of this work. The promotional photos have been shot by a well-known fashion photographer (!), and the artwork has been realized by Ministry of The Sign (formerly known as Neon Trinity Kill), already famous for his works with Deathstars, Novembre, Ancient, Aborym, Konkhra, Klimt 1918, Dope Stars Inc etc... As you can see, everything has been arranged in a very accurate and professional way, we had great visions and great expectations about this album and couldn’t stand the risk to waste such good ideas due to inaccurate choices.
In terms of mood, the album has to be lived as a grand soundtrack to the eerie, mysterious and iniziatic visions evoked by the lyrics (the ‘ten strategies for postmodern mysticism’ are indeed the album’s ten tracks), throught the natural evolution of the songs we encounter influences varying from doom to jazz, from ambient to noise rock, from classical music to prog..... we didn’t want to have limitations except those of our creativity, and the final outcome is highly original and fascinating, definitely not your average black metal album.
About its publishing, we have signed a deal with US label Kill Zone Records for the digital distribution of the album, it should be available in august on the biggest online vendors (Itunes, Amazon mp3, E Music, Napster, Rhapsody etc); we are also signing with BlackMetal.com (still from the USA) for the physical print of the cd, whose release should be dated to november.

Hell on Fire: This is a typical question at H.O.F, what do you like to do in your free times?

Gnosis: I definitely like to read (books, essays mainly, or magazines about pro audio and musical instruments), to watch movies (mainly horror and sci-fi), to work out at the gym and simply minding my own business. Anyway I don’t have too much free time since most of it is constantly absorbed by the band’s contacts and public relations, I have to dedicate several hours to this every single day, it’s almost like having two jobs at the same time.

Hell on Fire: Recently you’ve made a partnership with the portuguese booking agency OnStage, what can you say about that? Are you happy? Do you recomend it to other bands as well?

Gnosis: I can say that we’re definitely happy with what Anabela of On Stage Booking is doing for us, she has some big contacts going on, and she keeps me updated on a daily basis about the progresses of her work. I wish all underground agencies we work with were as dedicated as she is! The fundamental difference is that she is a professional, and thinks and works as a pro, while most of the other people in the underground management business are amateurs and can’t provide reliable results. Yes I would definitely recommend On Stage to any underground band interested in working with a serious agency.

Hell on Fire: Indeed is a great agency with Anabela always working a lot! Talking a little about your country Italy, what can you say about supports in there? It’s easy to survive as a band? Which is your best advice for a band in the begining?

Gnosis: Surviving as a band in Italy is a very tough task, the public is mainly concerned with foreign bands and has very little support towards national acts; we basically don’t have managements or booking agencies taking care of extreme metal, and the gigging options are close to zero, considering the chronic lack of decent clubs that has always plagued our country.
In my humble opinion, the best advice I can give is to look abroad, look for management options in other countries, look at how foreign bands work and learn from them, since most of Italian bands within our genre are absolutely unprofessional and can’t keep up with today’s demanding standards: if you can’t speak english, if you don’t know how to write a press release, if you don’t invest time and energy in online networking, you can’t expect anyone to take you seriously. That’s (also) why Italian bands are generally underestimated abroad, no one wants to waste time with amateurs.

Hell on Fire: Which was the best concert you gave so far and why?

Gnosis: We definitely have great memories of the tour with Dismember of june 2007, not all gigs were perfect but on the whole it had been an amazing experience. The ‘Metal Disorder Festival’ in 2008 was also a great concert, the feedback from the audience was strong and the event was organized in a very neat and professional way. On the whole, I feel that we haven’t found the context to fully express our potential yet, in particular now that we have a new line-up and a new stage appearance that needs to be unleashed... let’s hope that the future will bring us something good!

Hell on Fire: Talking again about “Scoring A Liminal Phase” for you which song from this record gives you more pleasure to perform?

Gnosis: I’d mention “May Wisdom bless my path” and “Omen (Capricorn vibe)”. The first has been one of our ‘classics’ for the last ten years, we just love its atmospheres and its melodies, the orchestral passages are so powerful and epic, it’s a very special track for us. The latter, “Omen”, is a complex song with a lot of different atmospheres and changes of pace, I think its arrangement is brilliant, and some riffs really stand out. When we play the last part of it, with that long and obsessive noise/doom closing litany, I can feel a really strong energy invading the stage.

Hell on Fire: I’ve notest that even if you have a drummer name in your current line-up that you use samples, does the sampling it’s used live to replace the drums and can you reveal which programs / software do you use for the sampling?

Gnosis: We’ve finally understood that nobody would ever be able to replace our previous drummer Equinoxe, who was a great musician and a very talented composer, so we’ve chosen to go on with a drum machine, thus emphasizing the industrial influences that already were an important element of our background. From now on, we’ll have drum machine both on our studio works and during live gigs. As far as gear is concerned, all drum parts are composed with the program Ez Drummer by Toontracks (lately we’ve also begun working with Superior Drummer, still from the same brand), we use an Imac laptop with a Presonus Firestudio Project audio interface. The stereo output that manages the rhythmic tracks (drum machine and percussions) passes through a Behringer Tube Composer 1952, a tube-driven stereo compressor/expander that we use to pump the rhythmic section and to give it some more harmonic depht. Just for the record, from the audio interface we also have another stereo output conveying all the tracks of synths, effects and samples, and a mono output with the metronome, that goes into a earphone amplifier by Behringer where the signal is divided among our earphones – most of us use in-ear monitors during live gigs in order to perfectly follow the metronome.

Hell on Fire: Your new logo is really well achieved, who is the responsible behind the creation of this logo?

Gnosis: The person responsible for our new logo is a friend of ours, known online as Skeletro379, who’s a very talented designer and comic illustrator; he is also the creator of our new stage costumes. He listens to extreme metal and industrial so he had the perfect background to capture our visions. We wanted our new logo to be a clear statement of the band’s identity, it had to look modern, with an almost martial feeling, but at the same time to resemble a sigil, and to contain some traditional symbolism. I think he did a great job, we’re absolutely in love with this logo, and everybody seems to be impressed by it.

Hell on Fire: How as been the reaction of the crowd so far about this new album? Do you have any concert(s) scheduled in your agenda? Can you reveal some dates?

Gnosis: At the moment we have nothing scheduled exactly, there’s the chance to take part in un underground festival in Italy at the end of october, but official news about it haven’t been spread yet. I think we’ll start arranging a serious gigging routine after the publishing of the album in order to support it, we have some good contacts abroad so I am confident that we’ll sort out something cool.

Hell on Fire: Do you have any plans to perform in Portugal?

Gnosis: We are absolutely interested in performing in your country, On Stage Booking has been working on this for some time so I’m confident that something good will come up soon. Keep your fingers crossed for us and stay tuned for further news on this!

Hell on Fire: Do you wanna leave any message for those who always support Mystical Fullmoon since the begining?

Gnosis: I’d simply like to thank them; since we started our own My Space we’ve been almost shocked by the amount of people from all over the world contacting us saying that they were long time fans of the band and they were thrilled to know that we were working on new stuff, so I can say that all this support has had an impact on us. The cool thing about Mystical Fullmoon is that the best is still to come!

Hell on Fire: Thank you for your time and H.O.F wish you all lots of success and really good luck with this new realease and hope one day to see you in Portugal!

Gnosis: Thanks a lot for this interesting interview and for the support shown, we too hope to come to Portugal soon!
Hail Wisdom!




By: Nightshade

Mystical Fullmoon Myspace
www.myspace.com/mysticalfullmoon