- Let's begin this interview by telling Metallus readers about the band's origins and your musical background.
Stranger: Bloody Mary were born in Milan in 2000 with the absolute will to play excellent gothic rock in total freedom of expression. Thanks to our first EPs, which were very well received by both the public and the press, and to Aldebran's charisma, we began playing all over Italy. A demo of ours reached the hands of Dave Pybus, then bass player of Cradle Of Filth, who decided to produce our first album in 2005 on his English label, Six Six Six. Just think, "Blood N'Roll" was the very first album Dave ever released — he must have really liked us, I reckon. So we began playing and becoming known abroad too, above all in England and Germany. After five long years of work, our second album "Party Music For Graveyards" has come out just these days with Valery Records, which we consider one of the most valuable independent rock labels today.
- In the past you have been called a dark band: do you recognise yourselves in that definition today, or does the label feel a little tight? How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard of Bloody Mary?
Aldebran: We define our music as Blood N'Roll, but honestly we're not interested in being catalogued or put on a particular shelf; we simply express our feelings, our innermost essences, and let others make the bureaucratic definition. Our job is to create, and we don't want to take anyone else's job away.
- "Party Music For Graveyards" is your second official record: conceptually speaking, where does your latest work stand?
Juerghen: PMFG is a didactic concept. The setting is 1930s Germany, and indeed we used musical instruments of the period, like the theremin, to recreate its atmosphere. In the background is the love story of a scientist who goes mad at the loss of his beloved wife and tries to recreate her by digging in cemeteries and collecting the corpses of young women, from which he takes, to reassemble them, the various parts of the brain, the glands, the heart… and carries out very empirical electrical experiments. It's a steampunk atmosphere, but far more macabre and sick, grotesque. The songwriting is extremely complex: Aldebran, the main author on this album, took the vocal orchestrations, the counter-melodies and the vocal arrangements to extreme levels… in some places he harmonised more than fifteen voices together. All to create the density of atmosphere the concept demanded, sensations at once Wagnerianly "colossal" and rich in nuances and different "colours". Naturally all this took a great deal of time at the mixing and mastering stage. That's why we turned to Mikka Jussila of Finnvox Studios in Helsinki, whom we consider a master and a great professional… and in fact he managed to understand exactly the "voice" of this album and how it had to sound. He did a great job.
- How did the idea of calling the album "Party Music For Graveyards" come about, and how did you choose the cover image?
La Mountain: A few years ago an English journalist from Kerrang, reviewing our previous album "Blood N'Roll" (he gave us 4K), exclaimed enthusiastically "This is Party Music For Graveyards!!", and that phrase matched perfectly the atmospheres we were building with the new album; it seemed spot-on as a title, and we chose it. The phrase perfectly expresses the grotesque, necro-humorous mood that "PMFG" represents and tells.
- In my opinion your winning card is the ability, not so common, to write spot-on, easily assimilated refrains: how are Bloody Mary songs born?
Aldebran: Often it's the fruit of compositional research, but most of the time everything is born very instinctively, and we often do the arm test: if the hairs stand up, the melody is on the right track. Then we also listen a lot to the girls' opinion. If they feel pleasantly confused or excited listening to a particular song, it means we have managed to make the senses speak through the language of music. It's very important for us to strike something more than the mind or mere imagination; for us music is born from emotions and must necessarily create other, perhaps different, emotions in whoever listens. For the rest we're very prolific: just think, we already have enough material for at least one more album.
- Which songs do you consider most representative of the album, and why?
Aldebran: You can't ask a mother to choose one child, can you? Every track on "PMFG" is a puzzle piece inseparable from the album itself. Like a single brick in a building, every track holds up the whole; you can't take one out or the whole structure falls.
- And which artists, musical and otherwise, do you most admire and draw inspiration from?
Aldebran: The musical tastes of the band members are extremely varied, ranging from classical music all the way to AC/DC; it's precisely the synergy of different musical backgrounds that has allowed us to create a style of our own. When we write, we write what we have deep inside, which, like magma, fuses with the inner self of each member of the band and lets what Bloody Mary are germinate.
Stranger: I'll tell you, I think there are loads of interesting acts around; it's all about knowing how to discover them. I really like listening to the soundtracks of the various films that come out, and sometimes these records contain really interesting unknown bands. If I have to name a particular band, besides my eternal love for The Cure and Guns n'Roses, I really liked the last two records by Three Days Grace.
La Mountain: At the beginning I listened a lot to Anathema and Paradise Lost; for some years now I've shared with Juerghen a great admiration for Interpol.- How important is the visual side for a band like Bloody Mary?
Aldebran: The visual side is as important as the musical one, because we consider it an integral part of what we want to express. After all, why would anyone go to a concert if not to satisfy their eyes too? They could simply stay in the dark in their room listening to their iPod. And it is precisely through visual expression that we try to complete and bring out what we want to tell.
- What are your biggest ambitions now that you have released a brand-new album?
Stranger: Let's say that the first ambition we had in life was certainly to release "Party Music For Graveyards"; for the rest we certainly hope to let as many people as possible hear it at our concerts. It would be nice if one day we could stage a sort of musical on the new record's concept, complete with a staging of the artwork.
- In the past you have had the chance to tour abroad, both in England and in Germany: how are you moving now in terms of touring, and will it be possible to see you on Italian stages soon too?
Juerghen: We're planning the dates for 2011 carefully, partly because in this last part of the year, besides a couple of dates — Milan at Halloween and London in November — we're concentrating on promoting the album. Anyway, we're considering a possible European tour with a well-known band. But it's still early to talk about it. We'll spread dates and news in due time if all goes well.
- Do you also plan to make videos to promote "Party Music For Graveyards"?
Aldebran: Yes, absolutely! You'll like it, I'm sure.
- Well, now the space is yours: greet our readers as you prefer, and thanks for your time.
Aldebran: Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.
First published in Italian; in English here. Where it appeared ↗