...::: Some questions from 2005 :::...

 

* What's the stupidest question ever asked to you?

It was "what's the heaviest between 100Kg of stones and 100Kg of flour?"

 

* Who do you think is the most beautiful woman on Earth?

Monica Bellucci

 

* I love your calendar. When did you start being a model?

My calendar started as a joke and is still there because we like it as much as many of you do. I cannot see myself as a model There are in fact times when I can't be bothered to be photographed and that's when the pics appear later :) I feel ok with myself, but I think that everybody should do his/her job and I am not a model.

 

* I saw that there are some nude pics in your calendar, so why is it that there's always something to stop the nude be nude?

It's called artistical nude, which is different from the anatomy manuals;)

 

* Are you uptight before gigging?

Just a little. Thank Rah the times when I was surrounded by the wrong people are far behind. I'm ok now.

 

* 5 names of your favorite actors and actresses.

Uhm... John Cleese, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, Giovanni Ribisi, Alan Rickman. I also like Holly Hunter, Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, the actress who plays the role of the second woman sentenced to death in Equilibrium (can't think of her name but she's great!), Rachel Weisz.

 

* Is there an hystorical person you wish you could go back in time to know?

Ramses the great, Akhenaten, Tuthmosis 3, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mozart... Oh I could go on for ages... I'd better stop!

 

* What's "Lylium" about?

It's been composed a long time ago, roundabout in 1994, but what it says really happened... The main refrain says "What's that noise trying to say?", and it's about a noise... a sort of background sound that you can hear if you pay the right attention. The Earth is not just ground, but an ALIVE planet, and it pulses and breathes. Unfortunately we are not doing a great job as human beings, and new eruptions, accidents, earthquakes, and most of all "sickness and aggressiveness" will keep coming over... Lylium is a sort of hymn of the Earth, and a way to say, "please don't keep on abusing  me this way because enough is enough!"

 

* I know it's a long question, but can you give me a good advice to improve my voice?

It's definitely a delicate question, but I can give you some good suggestions: first of all, always keep in mind that the way you breathe is at the basis of how long you'll be able to sing, how good you will be and how safe it is. Imagine your body as a piano keyboard: basically, when you sing low tones, you have to breath with your belly and the only way to do is to start concentrating on that area, by breathing with a hand on it, to feel when it's working properly. When you sing medium tones (like most commercial songs), you need to breath with your diaphragm (same test to be applied), and the higher you sing, the upper areas are interested; then you will breath concentrating on your lungs when the tones are very high. PLEASE DO NOT USE YOUR THROAT!!! It must always be soft and exclusively used to let the air blow to your head. The real secret is in the facial cavities use, to give the right power to your voice with the minimum efford. If you use your throath, it's strenuous and most of all dangerous because it can very often damage your vocal strings and you might be operated in a few years. Your facial cavities need to be trained instead and most of all your mouth: if you train yourself in breathing with the right area and singing with your mouth closed, you'll play sounds like a mosquito, but it will open your facial cavities; this should be the start to all your lessons; when you really sing your mouth should be like a big O, where the sides should never open like in a smile and look like trying to join themselves horizontally instead. Self confidence and will power make all the rest. A good teacher is always useful, especially when coming from the classical education because he can understand what kind of breathing you need, depending on your own voice, and help you to improve.

 

* What are the five  most useless things and the most useful?

I think that the first group is easier and  represented by the menstrual periods, cloning, war, Pop idols and rubbish like that, and some current videogames. The second group... mind, computers, CDs, obviously money and a comfortable bed.

 

* Why don't you agree with the cloning?

Because I think that the money given for research purposes should be spent better... I personally think that the cloning is a bullshit because it's useless, other than the personal earnings of the people directly involved. There are still so many serious sicknesses in need of a cure... that's more important for me. I agree with a famous quotation from the "Matrix" movie when one of the men in black says that human beings are like parassites, because they keep multiplying and once they've been squeezing the resources where they live, they just move and start doing the same again without respecting the Earth and themselves. There are already too many human beings on this planet and new lives are coming, but at the very least we might suppose that they all were born because wanted (I hope for most them anyway), and what do they want? To create even some more people, and even without considering eventual problems or malfunctions they might have in the future... The real contact with nature is extinguishing... as far as I'm concerned, cloning is against nature and represents a real evil.

Besides, we spent years and years to study the best and safest way to contraception, to be able to make love with no children being involved afterwards, and what do they want now? To have babies without sexual intercourses, (the best bit) ... isn't this a bullshit then?

 

* The worst invention of the millennium is...

The last 90's and 2000's pop music, because it's music for non musicians, songs for non singers. There are too many syliconized teenagers everywhere on the tv and they can't really work out their natural need to grow up at the pop or rock stars level. A child can drive a toy, not a car, and I confess that beyond every moralism, I find most music vidos or transmissions just look like stuff for pedofiles... is it possile to wish to watch live gigs with people that can't play, only because the TV says they're number one? (supposing that the charts are genuine and not simple adverts...). Once upon a time, the soubrettes used to be soubrettes, the deejays used to be deejays and musicians used to be musicians... now what's called singers are soubrettes or deejays. The current songs are no longer well arranged. The 80's still kick because at the time, pop music was arranged and performed by musicians and you could hear it. What was at the time the percentage of bad songs, is now the one of the good ones... minimal. Now, you can hear loads of crap on the radio just made with samples and no arrangements at all, nasal voices of chickens, and only rarely some well done ones, and they even use the same sounds!!! And then, all those dance covers... what a crap! Not enough creativity to make new hits? Deejays should be deejays again... Even Madonna studied to improve her singing skills after she became a star, to do a good job... this should be an example to turn the current rabbish into new good commercial stuff. Despite all this, I still know that people are not so stupid as the TV tries to display them. Even the demos we receive show that there are good and creative bands around... and THAT makes me very happy!

 

* Who are the artists you'd love to work with?

Apart from my musicians, that I really adore, there are some several artist I'd like to compose a song with... but certainly David Bowie and Trent Reznor are the first names I can think straight about!

Peter Gabriel I wouldn't mind... he also lives half an hour driving from my place... I might just  pop in there with a cup of tea to corrupt him ;-) !

 

* Do you think that "Perverse Spring" may have a bad effect on the teenagers, and maybe encourage them to use drugs or commit murders like in the story?"

Apart from the fact that it's displaid that it's an adult story, I absolutely don't! We always display that this is a sarcastic comment to the bad sides of lives, and if you carefully read the story, you understand it's a warning, more than an encouragement. Second, because I've been a teenager and the fact that I knew a lot of people who died from drugs at the time, didn't kill me but opened my eyes instead. I don't think that teenagers are stupid and repression never brought anything good. Everybody know the drugs effects, like smoke and alcohol, but if they do it's for their own choice and not because they saw Christiane F or because they listen to some heavy metal songs... Actually, if you don't want to use any drug, then don't even go to the dentist... People that don't know the difference between use and abuse, and most of all that don't know how far they can go, normally have some more serious problems behind, problems that are too easily connected to bad novels or films or songs. I'd rather check in their family first... Actually, it's even well known that the more you apply censorships to something, then the more that something is wanted. We applied the parental advisory for a purely legal warning, because there are explicit lyrics that might be offensive for someone (with obvious reasons to feel offended which is supposed to be his own problem). Besides... before someone says that my story is insane, please check films like Shining, Clockwork Orange, and things like that... maybe "Perverse Spring" will look like Alice in Wonderland afterwords... Alice Cooper, maybe ;-)