Interview Stormlord

An interview I had with Cristiano Borchi (vocalist) and Francesco Bucci (bassplayer) of the Italian Extreme/Folk metal band, Stormlord.

Hi and thank you for your time about this interview. The band was formed around 1991 but why took some years to release the first album (1999)?
Cristiano: We was really young those times, so we needed time to fix the band and develope the sound. It was really hard to be a metal band in Italy in early 90’s: the scene was really young and in an age without internet was really hard to get contacts.

Talk about the latest release, ”Hesperia”.
Francesco: “Hesperia” is a concept album. I found the right topic in the “Aeneid”, the epic poem written by the ancient Roman poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) between 29 and 19 BC. Nowadays, Virgil is still hailed as one of the most important character our culture and his works, especially the “Aeneid”, represent the climax of our classical tradition together with “Iliad” and “Odyssey”, written by Greek poet Homer; I’ve spent years studying Virgil’s poetry while I was in the high school, so it was intriguing to get back on the “Aeneid” in a different perspective and to discover a lot of different sides that, back in the days, I was too young to appreciate. “Hesperia” is a Greek word that means “land of the sunset” or “Western land”, the name whereby ancient Greeks called Italy, and recalls the journey made by Aeneas and his companions from the ruins of Troy to the shores of Latium, to reach the land where, one day, Rome will rise.

Will you release a new album this year?
Cristiano: We are finishing to prepare the songs, it will be released in 2017.

You started as a Death metal band, later and as nowadays you are a Folk/Symphonic Black metal band.
Cristiano: The idea to combine epic and extreme elements in the band was an embryo at the beginning, we chose a name far from splatter/macabre death metal moniker of that years with the idea to expand the range of the band. But we needed time to develope it. The roundpoint arrived in 1996, when we inserted keys and vocal screams in the sound and started to get a more epic look and sound. This idea has been developed in this 20 years bringing the band to the sound of today.

Are you inspired by other metal bands?
Cristiano: We have no specific influences as band because our sound developed personally as no one was doing it. The pagan, viking or folk scenes comes out many years later, but also today I can’t find a band that sounds “like” Stormlord. We borned with the idea to combine epic and extreme, no one was doing it, so we followed our personal and natural evolution, with no reference bands.

Which is your opinion about the Italian’s metal scene and how do you see Stormlord into the metal scene?
Cristiano: The Italian scene has grown the last years and now there are many great bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour Of Penance and may others that goes around the world to spread the Italian metal. Stormlord is considered a hystorical band, but the good is the sound is still fresh. To play your own style let you survive to the cange of trends in music.

Are you going to tour? Getting back in the past, which was the band’s first tour?
Cristiano: We are writing the new album now, we’ll back on tour when it will be released. Our first real tour was in 1999 in Europe with Mystic Cyrcle, Graveworm and Suidakra, to support the release of “Supreme Art Of War”.

Beside the band, as I got informed, are you also writing for a metal/rock magazine?
Cristiano: I have been the chief editor of Rock Hard Italy till 2009, but not now. I have been in the press for 15 years, but the situation was getting worse and worse for all the mags, we was in the middle of an epochal change. So I quitted. I always work in the music today, but not in the press.

What else would you like to add about Stormlord?
Cristiano: To be updated about Stormlord, follow our page!

 

https://www.facebook.com/stormlordband/