The
last local band that excited me this much was probably Confusione.
While they obviously sound different, there's a certain affinity both
musically, aesthetically and lyrically: gloomy and noisy hardcore
played like there's no tomorrow and deeply rooted in the 80s' italian
hardcore tradition. The main thing is that both bands capture
perfectly and consciously the disillusion of living here in this age.
After the very first listening I immediately knew that I have to
interview them. This interview was conducted via email with guitarist
Pio around november '10.
Perro:
Shall we start as gentlemen with the usual introductions? Who are
you? What the hell are you doing? Why?
Pio:First,
thanx for doing this interview! Now we can start...who are we? well,
we're two sicilian guys, Pio (from Siracusa) and Elio (from Mazara
del Vallo). We met at Palermo university around 2004/ 2005 and became
close friends and kept in touch. Now we're both back in each of our
hometowns. Pio is working as a sound technician for a small audio
service and has just started his own little label while waiting to
find the strength to do the last three exams to finish his studies.
Elio is thinking about quitting uni since he needs to find a job
badly! In the meantime, he's writing for a 'zine out of Trieste that
deals with metal and old school stuff...Why we do it? Man, that's too
complicated, next please...
Perro:
You're both coming from a quite isolated area of sicily, where I
suppose there's no punk scene at all. What's it like to be a punk so
far and isolated from the big cities where there actually is a punk
scene? Do you think that such isolation influenced Fogna's sound in
any way?
Pio:
Well, it is true that in our towns there's no punk scene, but in the
end "punk's goal" is something so aboriginal and universal
that it doesn't really need a big city or a certain specific place to
arise. It needs something else. At the end of the 80s' and at the
beginning of the 90s' Siracusa had some kind of scene that gravitated
around two or three bands, but we were too young to know about
it...honestly, we're not that depressed about being isolated from the
scene. Maybe it pushes us to do what we're we're doing and, in the
end, there's always someone we can talk with about certain musical/
non musical subjects. Also we're not the kind of guys that go around
sporting a mohawk or dressing in a way that might attract attention.
To tell the truth we do not give a fuck about being called "punk"
or anything else. We do care about going on with our ideas, with whom
not only punks might agree but also everyone who's a bit open minded.
And obviously if someone agrees with us, well we couldn't be more
happy! Of course if we lived in a place with a scene, that would mean
gigs and more conversation! Yeah, I guess isolation might have
influenced our sound, maybe letting us blend all our different
influences that are not limited to punk-hc only. We're addicted to
music, ahahahah...
Perro:
Fogna started around 2004/05 but the demo came out only in december
2009. So, I guess it's true that you sicilians are all lazy bastards!
Bullshit aside, why did it take so long?
Pio:
The main reason for such a long delay is due to the difficulty we had
in finding the free time in both our schedules to record. And during
the recording the belt of the 4 track we were using
ripped...sometimes we couldn't find a bloody cable or something else
and months went on. The main problem was being able to record but, in
the meantime, we wrote enough material to fill at least two eps,
we've been productive...we just have to hope that recording time gets
shorter and it seems like we've nailed it! Well, I guess there was a
bit of laziness in there too, eheheh
Perro:
Even if it's quite obvious that you're heavily influenced by early
80s' italian hardcore, you've been able to create your own sound
without being a fourth rate clone of this and that band. What were
your main influences? 80s' italian hc top five?
Pio:
We're very into 80s' italian hc so it's obvious that it influenced
us. We're not sure who has had more or less impact on us, all I can
say is that bands like Underage, Wretched, Chain Reaction, Eu's arse,
Uart Punk and Impact have given us goosebumps tons of times!
About
the top five, it's impossible to simply write down a list since every
release came out in different years and contexts, plus each one has
its own peculiarity that makes it unique...so we do prefer to list
them in random order: Underage - Africani marocchini terroni;
Wretched - In nome del loro potere tutto è stato fatto; Chain
Reaction - Gabbie; Impact/ Eu's arse - split; Wretched - La tua morte
non aspetta.
Perro:
I was immediately impressed by your extremely dirty and gloomy guitar
sound. It reminds me of certain dark/ goth sounds, some black metal
bands and also japanese noisy bands like Confuse, Gai, Sieg Heil
ect...did I hit the mark on this one? Punk/ hc aside, what are the
other Fogna influences?
Pio:
Eheheh...you're right about dark/ goth and black metal. Postpunk,
dark and a certain kind of goth are unquestionably a big influence,
along with some kind of black metal as you said before. We don't know
too much about japanese noisecore, we know Confuse but we haven't
known them for very long. But from what we've heard, it's definitely
something worth listening to more. We hope to make up for it pretty
soon! To list all our listenings would take a whole page, so I'll
just say punk, metal, postpunk and all kind of rock subgenres. To
make it even shorter, I'd say anything that can just keep our
attention.
Perro:
Was the choice of using a drum machine a conscious decision or was
more because of a lack of hardcore drummers in your area? A lot of
people are against drum machines in punk/ hardcore, saying that it
has too much of a cold, unnatural sound for this kind of music. How
would you answer to such statement?
Pio:
The choice of using a drum machine wasn't immediate. When we started
we were looking for a drummer but, considering all the trouble we had
just being the two of us, we finally opted for it and we enjoyed the
final result. I must say that it has been programmed in way that
sounds quite similar to drum played by a human being. About having
critics for using it, we really didn't get any real complaints. A lot
of people didn't even notice it. All we got was just some comments
like "yeah man...but with a real drum, it would have been way
better". On the other hand, someone else said that it was an
interesting choice. If we'll ever get real critics...well, of course
eveybody is free to say whatever they want. But since "punk"
is supposed to be rules/ stereotypes free and everyone should be free
to express in their own way, I wouldn't understand why the hell we
shouldn't be free to use a drum machine...
Perro:
The demo has just been repressed onto vinyl for Bat Shit Records. Has
something being changed (remix, graphics ect...) or basically is it
the same thing? Why did they press only 300 copies?
Pio:
About the graphics, the inserts of 7" and cd are almost the
same, they are just put together in a different way. About the sound,
we didn't change anything, obviously vinyl sounds a bit different but
I guess it has to do with the format. About the pressing of only 300
copies, we don't know what to say, eheheh. We did 300 on cd, maybe
Blaise of BatShit wanted to keep it like that, who knows...
Perro:
There's also a new ep in the works titled "specchio della
morte". This time you recorded with a real drummer. How has the
new member influenced Fogna sound? What can we expect from the new
material?
Pio:
Lo specchio della morte...eheheh most likely we will change the title
and it's gonna be named after one of the tracks, "Paura nella
città dei morti viventi" (yeah, exactly like the movie). Yeah,
this time there's gonna be a drummer (well, except for a last minute
unexpected accident!). His arrival didn't change our sound that much,
I can say for sure that he's very good at d-beats and correlated
beats. What can you expect? Well, we'd like to know as well, 'coz
till it's done anything could happen! I'm just sure that it's gonna
be 4 or 5 tunes and that we haven't finished recording it yet,
ehehehe
Perro:
Your lyrics exude happiness and joy of living from every single
letter! In short, they describe perfectly the decay of the boot
shaped penisula in the last years. While they do deal with the
tipical punk/ hc topics, they're written in an original way and they
are free of the usual boring slogans already used a billion times...
Pio:
Thanx, we've really appreciated what you just said 'coz we do care a
lot about lyrics. We like to use a lot metaphors and allegories since
they often are the best way to deal with extensive topics with just
few words. The only question is if people get them in the right way
or not, but from what you're saying I guess that the messages are
arriving at their destination, ehehehe. Great!
Perro:
Where does the artwork came from? The booklet is very well done and
the graphics taken from a certain medieval iconography fit perfect
for Fogna, both musically and lyrically...
Pio:
The artwork is a detail of a painting from 1503/ 1504 by artist
Hieronymus Bosch, "the Garden of Earthly Delights". The
painting is divided into three parts that describe the history of
humanity in a provocative way, through the medieval christian
doctrine. The image of the artwork is a detail of the lower right
side of the the third part of the picture, that should represent
hell. About the back cover, the part with the statue (Mazara's satyr)
on the cross with some definitions taken out of a dictionary it's a
cut'n'paste done by Elio. The skeletons were added later. The inside
artwork is a picture that Elio did.
Perro:
Have you ever played live as a duo? Now that you have a drummer, are
you planning any gigs?
Pio:
Eheheheh, you hit a nerve here! We've never played live, we wanted to
do a gig as a duo with the drum machine but nothing has happened yet.
We're thinking about the possibility of doing some gigs and we'll
probably be on stage in four; drum, bass, guitar and vocals. We hope
so...we know we'd love it!
Perro:
I don't know a lot about sicilian hardcore exept for some recent
bands. Some well hidden obscure treasures from the past worth
mentioning?
Pio:
There were two (sadly) defunct bands out of Messina that kill, one
it's well known "Uart Punk" that, if I'm not wrong, should
be the only sicilan band that has ever played at Virus squat in
Milano. The other band is "Convulsed" that played some kind
of thrash/ hardcore. Too bad that they're not active anymore. Still
active from the past are Alter-azione from Messina, a great band too!
There are many more from the past that unfortunately we only know by
name, we'd kill to hear their recorded material but it seems pretty
hard to get it...I hope we'll be able to find it someday!!
Perro:
I know Fogna is not your only musical project....
Pio:
Yes, we're involved in other projects, two of them are still just
Elio and Pio. The first is "Vermaio", a very recent project
that's still punk hc, but with sounds that are different from Fogna,
more raw and crude. A kind of tributo to all the 80s' punkhc. The
other is "Jealousy for the Dead", something between Dark
Throne and postpunk.
Elio
also plays in "Psycopath Witch", something between black
and death metal, where he sings and plays bass. "Mercy for the
Living" and "June Kills" are two onemanband Pio's
projects, the first one is postpunk while the other is some mix of
postpunk, rock and noise.
Perro:
Thanx for your time! If you want to say something, do it now or shut
up forever!!
Pio:
Thanx again from the interview! Greetings to: Blaise.B, Skidt Hjerne,
The Krushers, Bunker66, Peppino, Filippo, Dario.M, Jen, Antonio.I,
Verbero, Leonardo, Suzanne Silver, Religio Mortis, Riccardo,
Giammaria and all the PM readers!
