Atlas Pain Interview

MM: Can You give us a brief history about the band and your inspirations.

 

Atlas Pain:First of all hello to everyone and thanks for the space given, it’s such an honor! We’re Atlas Pain from Italy and we play Epic/Pagan Metal since 2013, taking inspiration not only from all the pagan metal gods such as Ensiferum, Wintersun or Equilibrium but also from all those composers that wrote great cinematic score music, like Hans Zimmer or John Williams as well!

 

MM:who came up with the Name Atlas Pain and its meaning

 

Atlas Pain:Talking about greek mythology, Atlas was the ancient titan forced to carry the Earth and the Sky on his back forever. Since our very first Demo, released at the beginning of 2014, we like telling stories about the world and find every difference or common things between completely distant zones of the planet. But we also play fuckin’ metal, so we needed a figure that could represent us at its best. So it came to our mind this ancient epic story! MM :For anyone who isn't familiar with your music, how would you best describe your songs to a newbie As said before, we play pagan metal, but not in the usual way. It’s full of bands that talk about vikings or battles, wearing armors on stage and so on. We do that, but in our way. So you won’t find too many aggressive songs in our works, but sometimes you will notice happy bridges or funny melodies along with growls and screams. We’re having fun playing our own music, and this is the perfect result!

 

MM: Which is your fave song on the Album today ??

Atlas Pain:Personally speaking I loved and still loving every song of the album just because every one of them has its own story, about its composing process or arrangement. But if I’d choose a song that could be the sum of all the aspects you’ll find in Atlas Pain, probably I’d go for “To The Moon”. It’s fast, aggressive but not brutal, full of speed rhythms and pretty difficult guitar parts, starting with a blast beat and going on with a very heterogeneous bridge. I love it!

 

MM:And which two songs from the Album would you play me to introduce me to the band

Atlas Pain: Good question! I can answer as a continuation of the question you’ve asked me before. So my first choice will be “To The Moon”, for the same exact reasons I’ve told you. But as a second choice I’m gonna choose one of our “weird” songs of the album, “White Overcast Line”. It’s a long instrumental suite, 12 minutes long, more or less, without any kind of vocal track. And I’ll tell you why: we compose music at 90% focusing on the harmonies and on all the images that the song itself creates in our mind, so composing a song that is only made by instruments was such a big challenge for us. It’s like a painter that want to communicate his dream on a white canvas, so you can enter in our world without any kind of rule.

 

MM: The Album cover is interesting, can you explain its meaning?

Atlas Pain:As you may notice by our photos and stage clothes, we’d like to give a break from all the pagan metal scene, talking about visual approach. We play extreme metal, but with happy riffs, we headbang like all the other metal bands, but we wear steampunk clothes. So the idea of the artcover came from this concept, trying to create a passage between past and future, honoring the old and wise ones but succeed in capturing the elements just to put our own style and modernization. That’s what the oak left to us, like the night and the day, we move into different areas. And we cannot choose a better artist as Jan from Darkgrove to represent this concept. He made an outstanding job!

 

MM: Will you be having a release party and what does 2017 hold in store for u guys

Atlas Pain:We’ll play a release party show in our hometown, here in Milan, the next April 7th with lots of friends and great musician we shared the stage with so many times before. It will pass more or less a month from the release date just to let the people listen to our album as well as they can, so the show won’t be a completely surprise for anyone. Then it comes the summer and we’re planning few festivals just to promote our music at the best. And for the next years we’re thinking about travelling and touring abroad, but that’s something under contruction right now...

 

MM: Whats the ultimate goal for Atlas Pain?

Atlas Pain:I can talk for my mates as well if I’d say that travelling the world with our music and being a referring point in our genre would be our dream. But, you know, the things that we are doing right now are part of this dream, and that’s something that only the time could decide for us. Let’s see! MM: Whats the Metal scene like in Italy and any other bands we should be keeping an eye out for. We have plenty of good bands here in Italy, from the new ones to the old ones. That’s surely not a problem in our country. The problem concerns the live situation. People doesn’t listen to live music anymore, you’d always find reason to make them attending you’re concert. It’s such a pity that we have so many fans all over Italy but it’s always hard to find a place to promote your music. It’s a battle between among many but with few winners.

 

MM: Can you tell me a song written by someone else that you wish you had written or been or been part off.

Atlas Pain:That’s easy! “Blut Im Auge” by Equilibrium. I love them (and you can notice it easily from our songs, ah ah ah!). MM: If you could spend just one day with anyone in the world (past or present) who would it be and why Wow, that’s a hard question! Probably Mozart (I know, that’s trivial, but so it is!), just to understand and see how has it been possible for a man to create something like what he did. And if I’d choose someone more “actual” (in a way), I’d say Gershwin for the same reason!

 

MM: What's the most memorable concert you've been to.

Atlas Pain:I’ve attended so many concerts in my life that this should be impossible to answer, but, if I consider the last concerts I’ve been to, probably I’d go for Hans Zimmer in Krakow. Listening to songs which I grew up with was more than an experience, it was amazing.

 

MM: What do you think is the biggest challenge for bands starting out now as opposed to in the past?

Atlas Pain:Well, probably to be noticed. The big difference between past and present is that years ago if you’d had the chance to record an album, it meant that you know very well how to do it and which step to tread. Now we have the opposite problem, so many bands that push you thinking about what you can offer to the audience to be noticed in such a crowded scene. We have internet, socials, digital recordings, but that’s not enough... MM: Tell Me Why we should buy your Album If you like the pagan metal scene of the last years and if you wanna have fun, well, just give us a chance. We can make you dance while you’re driving to the office in the morning as never before, trust us! Ah ah ah!

 

MM:Four words to describe

Atlas Pain: Epic – Happy – Metal - Pizza

 

Five Quick fire questions:

1.Live Gig or Festival  

AP: Festival

2.Vinyl or digital

AP:Mmmh. Nowdays, digital.

3.Juventus or Newcastle Utd

AP:New York Mets

4.Peroni or Pizza

AP:Pizza, of course!

5. Trump or Putin

AP:Next one?

 

MM :Final words for your fans and our readers

AP:So, thank you so much for the space given to us, it was such a pleasure to share our thoughts about our works and have the chance to have this kind talk. Follow us on our social media channels, there will be so many good news in the future. Cheers!!! :)