Ephel Duath pour l'album "Pain Necessary To Know"

1. At first, I always wondered what means "Ephel Duath"?

Ephel Duath is taken from the Tolkien’s mithology and it means “mountains of shadows”.


2. Before talking about the present, I would like to come back a few years ago. At the beginning, your music was affiliate to black metal. Do you appreciate this kind of metal? Can you tell us more about this period of your carrier?

I’ve be always fascinated by the Black Metal’s elitary attitude. A band like Emperor could be consider a source of inspiration also today. What I remember with more pleasure regarding the band’s first years were the everyday hours of promotional work in the underground. I was an hardened tape trader, and I was enthusiast to be in contact with people from all over the world thanks to my band. I was particularly ambitious and sure to have great potentialities in our hands.


3. Why did you radicaly change your style after "Phormula" (or "Rephormula")?

We born as a duo. Giuliano at guitars, vocals, synths and programming and me, Davide at guitars and synths. During the promotion of our first album “Phormula”, Giuliano left the band. After some mounths I’ve sign the deal with Elitist/Earache. In that period I’ve start to compose The Painter’s Palette thinking to create a full line up: this choice have offered me the possibility to open to all the way possible the Ephel Duath influences, also thanks to the will to collaborate with musicians with no-metal backgrounds.


4. How is born the "Ephel Duath" style? How would you define it?

Our style born from a great will to experiment, a strong use of musical contrasts and the mix between the spontaneus and no-theorical way of composing through my guitar and the high technical level of our rythmic section.


5. What were (or are) your influences?

The demo tape and the first album probably was influenced by extreme acts like Emperor and Limbonic Art. After this period I’ve start to listen other kind of bands like Opeth, Neurosis, Isis, David S.Ware, Ulver, Manes, Aborym, Dillinger Escape Plan, Locust, Fantomas. Now I’m very interested in the rooster of Jester Records, Neurot Recordings, Ipecac and Southern Lord.


6. What happen to the band during these past 3 years, after the release of "The Painter's Palette"? Was it hard to produce the new album "Pain Necessary To Know"?

We have tried to play as much as possible, we have done two important uk tours supporting Dillinger Escape Plan and The Locust. We have taken part to summer festivals like Quart, Headway, Brutal Assault, Motstoy. Parallely we have continue to compose the material to Pain Necessary to Know: this process covered two years. Finally, in the february 2005 we entered in studio and the final master was in our hands around August.
Pain Necessary to Know has been a particularly difficult album to compose: the material is very complex and it has been arranged with all the attention possible. This have comport a lot of tension during the rehersal room days but the result have payed us. We have try to offer to the band the freedom of contemporary music, destroing the cyclical repetition of riffs and this have shows me a way for our future evolution.


7. "The Painter's Palette" was already very complex but the new one is it much more. How do you compose such pieces?

Everything starts from a guitar scheleton. In a second time I present my lines to our rythmic section. They start to compose their parts following my directions. After this we rearrange everything and we value if it’s necessary to change something of the whole structure. After this I compose the lyrics and I discuss with Lucio the best way possible to use the voice.


8. Can you tell us more about the lyrics? What is the concept of "Pain Necessary To Know" and where do you find your inspiration?

"Pain Necessary to Know" focus the attention to all the mask that we have to put on our faces to live without problem in this society. I feel three masks on me and unique rusty arm to defend me.
The album has been influenced also by my new city, Venice, and by its dirty water and its strange temporal density. I fell to float and not to live here..
On the artwork you can find tentacles of medusas, the animal that I’ve used to simbolize the title of the album: you can’t say to know a medusa if you haven’t around your body a sign of its touch. You can’t say to have a distant idea of what is the better life for you if you don’t have around your thoughts the signs of pain. In my opinion pain, in every form, is necessary to know something more about our inner sides.
I find inspiration in the every day life trying to offering to my thought a poetical dress that contributes to open my lyrics to all the possible interpretation.


9. Like on "The Painter's Palette", the voice of Luciano is really particular and fuckin' crazy! Is he really a sane guy? (:D) What do you like in his voice?

Ah, ah, ah, yes, Lucio is a sane guy. Well probably not the typical sane one that a mother would love to see near her daughter..What I particularly love in the Lucio’s voice are its desperate aspects that I consider really perfect to cry out my lyrics.


10. To continue on the vocals, what represent his voice in your music? And why did you decide not to include clean vocals this time?

Vocals, today, contribute to push our aggressive side to the limit. On "Pain Necessary to Know" vocals have been considered like an additional instrument. It appears and hides itself like a wolf in the forest.
During the "Pain Necessary to Know" compositons the clean vocals have been unconsciously subsitituted by my guitars line, nothing was planned in this way, but I’m sure that it would be stupid to try to add something that would subtract something to the final result.


11. Is there a tour planned to promote your album?

In the March 2006 we’ll take part to our first European tour. More details will be reveal soon on www.ephelduath.net and www.loudnoise.com . In January we’ll play a couples of shows in Germany and Holland, in May we’ll be in Switzerland, in the meantime during the spring we’ll play here in Italy. During the summer we’ll try to take part to as many festivals as possible. The first booked is the Norvegian Motstoy festival.


12. What are you listening to these days? Any good metal (or not metal) albums to recommend?

In this period I’m listening old vinils of Pink Floyd and Brian Eno.
I reccomend the works of the punk jazz Zu from Rome and of the free jazz guru David S.Ware from New York. Morover the works of labels like Neurot Recordings, Ipecac, Jester Records and Southern Lord.


13. With such a style, Elitist Records is of course THE good label :) Do you listen to other excellent bands of this label like Frantic Bleep, Carnival In Coal or Biomechanical?

I like Carnival in Coal, they are really interesting. I’m not so much into the other Elitist bands.


14. What is your position about downloading? Do you download music sometimes, to discover new bands for example?

I’ve never download music in all my life. When I want to know something more about a band I search for their website and I go to its free dowload page to listen the mp3s that the band want to share with the internet public. If I like what I’ve heard I buy the cd.
I consider this the only intelligent way to approach to the dowloading.
Who download letterally kills the bands, especially the underground ones.


15. Thank you very much for your time and I wish you the best for the future. The last words are yours!

For more information feel free to write to davide@ephelduath.net, a reply is sure. To download ”Vector Third movement” or ”Pleonasm” from the Pain Necessary to Know, go to the new website www.ephelduath.net or to the page www.myspace.com/ephelduath.
Thanks for the support, see you on tour.