INTERVIEW: Francesco Paoli – Fleshgod Apocalypse
Italy is not a country as widely renowned for it’s contributions to the heavy metal lexicon as, say, Germany, or the Nordic countries. However, that doesn’t mean Italy is lacking in talent. Arguably at the top of the Italian extreme metal scene reigns FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE. Combining brutal, highly technical death metal with soaring orchestration, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE have risen to be one of mainland Europe’s most beloved outfits of the 21st century. 2019 sees the band release their fifth full length album, Veleno (read our review here). Prior to the release of the album, we caught up with frontman and founding member Francesco Paoli to discuss Veleno in depth!
Hello Francesco, thank you for taking the time to talk with us. As we’re getting closer to the release of Veleno, how is everyone in the FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE camp doing?
Francesco: We’re good! We’re touring South America right now. It’s cool, super cool. We have just done a very successful US tour together with HYPOCRISY. We did our first proper headlining – well, that’s actually the second but this one was the biggest and probably one of the best tours we’ve ever done in the United States!
You’ve just started the first leg of the Veleno tour in Latin America with WOLFHEART. How have the first couple of shows been?
Francesco: Very good. We played Sao Paulo first, and then the yesterday we played Curitiba with the guys. This is actually the first time we’ve played play with WOLFHEART, it’s the first tour we’ve done together. They sound amazing live, they have a really cool melodic sound going on. I suggest everybody check them out. They’re super cool dudes, as well, we’re getting along very well. I think it’s going to be better and better. Tonight is the last show we’re playing in Brazil, then we go to Uruguay, Argentina, and then we go up to Mexico and we are expecting big crowds there. Chile is always very good to us. El Salvador was great last time. It’s cool to play here, it’s a little more complicated but in the end the people are amazing here so it’s a real pleasure.
Which of the new songs are proving to be the most fun for you to perform live? How has the response to the new tracks been from the Latin America crowds so far?
Francesco: We just released a video for a song called Sugar so of course we’re playing that song. Also, we’re playing another song, and that is the opening track of Veleno, Fury. Actually, Fury was the first song we ever played live from the new album. So right now, we’re just playing a couple of new songs, because we just don’t want to play too much of the new album right now, even though we have another song, Carnivorous Lamb, out. The two songs would balance much better in the set list, especially for South America. We are playing songs from all our albums, as it’s only the second time we’ve come to South America, we are still building our fan base here. But the reaction is really, really good. People are headbanging during Fury, even though the proper song, is not even released yet. Veleno is very live-show oriented, it’s a little bit more catchy, more moshy than some stuff, we’ve done in the past. This material fits perfectly in the live show. We are going to add another couple of songs like Carnivorous Lamb on the next shows, and then when we release another single for the album. We are very happy right now with what we are doing that with the new songs and the feedback of the people. We were looking forward to releasing it, and to play as much as possible from Veleno in the summer, and then we’ll see.
Are there plans in the works for FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE to tour in Europe and the UK?
Francesco: We are going to do some some festivals in the summer, some big ones in Europe. But this summer we want to take some time to build the new production, and to try to bring the new production to the festivals. Then from the fall, the proper Veleno tour is going to start. It’s going to be a world tour, we’re going to cover all the continents, we’re going to go back to United States come back here to South America, and also go to Australia, Japan, and for sure we’re going to play Europe. And we’re going to play UK for sure, before the end of the year, we’re going to play some shows there.
We have something in the works. I cannot say much right now, because the tour is to be announced very soon so I have to wait a little longer. But things are going to happen. We’re planning to do a proper UK tour, next year maybe. [We want to] try to play as much as possible in in your country because we have a big fan base there, we will try to hit all the corners of the country. I’m pretty sure we are we’re going to end up with some like, between five and ten gigs in your country in the next year. It’s going to be a busy cycle this time.
You have said that Veleno is “the most spontaneous album” the band has ever done. How was it for you to have a more natural writing process than previous albums?
Francesco: I’d say it was a necessity. We’ve been always looking to find a balance sound. Sometimes we’ve done it, and sometimes, we fail. We were looking for years to find that balance, especially when Francesco [Ferrini, piano] joined the band and we started working with more orchestral parts. It was a matter of both writing and production, trying to find this magic balance between all the elements of our sound. With King, which was probably the most successful album we’ve released, we reached some kind of balance in this epic operatic. We were very satisfied with how King came out. But we were a little bit scared that going on with the same method that we were using in the song-writing process would have would have led us to a very similar result, like something very close to King, or a better version of King or something like that. We just didn’t want to emulate ourselves and to make the same album but with a different producer, different songs, but the same vibe.
And also, the spirit in the band changed because we suffered a line-up change. Even emotionally, it was a little bit different: we wanted it to be more in your face, a little bit more straight-forward, and we wanted to rediscover a little bit of our roots as well. So, we opted for this new method, which was not taking a break from touring and writing all of the songs at once, but to collect material during the last three years, then to make an album out of this material, and work on the proper songs and arrangements in the studio. When I say this is spontaneous, it is spontaneous because the songs are born from ideas that have been written in very different time. Some stuff comes from 2016, and some stuff was written last year, and they coexist in the same song. We found a balance between the ideas, but we picked the best. Imagine that we, to have one hour of music, wrote about 100 hours of music!
So, we have all this is material which has been written when your inspiration is at its highest. This is the main difference. For example, when you write the whole album at once, even if you are inspired, after a while the mood is still the same, so you start to, as I said, emulate yourself in the album itself. This time, we find that there’s ten times the variety that we had in previous albums, it’s much more dynamic in the songs. And these elements make Veleno way more spontaneous! And I think it’s great for the fans, because it sounds different to King. You cannot say this is better, or the other is better, the important thing for us was that it will sound different. And it is different.
Given how strong Veleno is, are you likely to continue this more free-flowing style of writing on future albums, or do you see FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE returning to the more meticulous writing of past albums?
Francesco: I don’t know. We took this decision [to write Veleno is this way] after a brainstorm that lasted a long time. Maybe we will find another way, a better way, to use this new kind of song writing. Most of the album has started from my ideas, maybe next time we’ll start much more from Francesco Ferrini‘s ideas. As long as it represents the spirit and the feeling of the band in that certain moment, stays true to the reality of things and how we sound live. As long as there is this artistic value going on and the continuous research and experimentation and trying to find new ideas, then it’s going to be good for us. As long as it sounds different and sounds fresh, and not a copy of something we’ve already done, then that is good to us.
FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE has always had an affinity for writing concept albums. Does Veleno continue this trend, and if so, what is the concept running through the album?
Francesco: It has a concept in a different way. We always go with a concept in our albums, so we are technically like a concept band. We never try to write an album where all the songs stand alone, we always try to have a theme and have the songs connected to that theme. Sometimes is more narrative like King, which is a story, or sometimes it’s more mythological research and we read and reinterpret a myth, like what we did with Labyrinth. This time, it is more similar to Oracles, or Agony, where all the songs are a metaphor of a certain subject, but all of them are, reunited under the same concept that is all over the album. It’s very philosophical, but pretty cool to us. In my opinion, Veleno is very cool for the lyrics. We made an analysis of the relationship between men and nature. The word nature is intended as a natural environment, for example, so what’s around us, but also the internet or human nature. And we treat it in different ways.
Why veleno? Veleno is the Italian word for poisoning, for venom. This word was perfect to connect all the songs, because every subject we were writing about in each song, every time we were writing lyrics, we noticed that this poisoning theme was always popping up, it was always there. It’s the perfect metaphor for the self-destruction that men operate with, the self-sabotage that we that we do. Sometimes [it is related to] what surrounds us, for example, the way we exploit natural resources without thinking about the consequences of what we’re doing. Or when we face who we are, for example, we have to face our fragility, and we try to escape this, and we try to fix that using drugs or alcohol. Some other lyrics are even more philosophical, [relating to] when we don’t understand what’s going on and we try to create structures like religions, or philosophies. It’s a pretty freaky and cool concept we developed into the songs. That’s why we called it Veleno, because it has metaphorical and non-metaphorical meaning, and multiple meanings. It was a nice word to define the topics of the album. It’s pretty nerdy, I know!
And how does the stunning artwork from Travis Smith link into the concept?
Francesco: The album cover art is themed. Travis Smith did a great job! We started from this idea, and then we developed it. We wanted something like a progressive rock cover, where you have a lot of images related to all the songs, and where the listener can watch and ask themselves, start to think to try to figure out what image is related to what. It’s a little bit of a more interactive cover art!
But it’s the same thing, there is there is an overall concept – which is this venom idea, which is the burden that we carry no. This self-created burden is represented by the elephant which was crushing the man. The other images all around it that are related to the lyrics or specific songs. When you read the lyrics, or you read the titles of the songs, then you can connect them and have a better idea of what’s going on in the artwork. The main thing is, we wanted to describe it in a classy way and in a metaphorical way this weight that we carry, this unending burden that we have to survive. There’s nothing in nature that gives you a better idea of happiness than an elephant, I think. They’re just majestic. It’s a very, very dark and very, very sick cover art. The elephant, the eye of the elephant, the way he turns into blades and pierces the man, all the horror thing makes this it even better, it fits even better for the music.
FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE are one of the titans of the Italian extreme metal scene. Are there any up-and-coming bands, either in your local scene in Perugia or elsewhere in Italy, that you are particularly impressed by?
Francesco: Well, there are a lot of bands going on from Italy right now. Some are way more melodic than us, way more Gothic or thrash metal oriented, which is great, and some others are more extreme. From Perugia, there is another band called BLOODTRUTH, they play really extreme metal and they are saying to Unique Leader Records. They just released a new album. Then there’s some older stuff like HOUR OF PENANCE doing another album this year. And other bands, like DESTRAGE , they’re killing it. They play like the super technical stuff, weird stuff. Those guys are super talented, probably the best musicians around in Italy. And then we also have LACUNA COIL doing another album, RHAPSODY doing another album. There’s a lot of good things, a lot of bands going on. I’m proud to be part of this scene.
It’s a shame, I think that there’s a little bit of prejudice against Italians, because we never had very big bands. So, people think that we are as good as others at making metal. But actually, we have we have some bands that really deserve to be in the spotlight, for at least a while, and to have the opportunity to show who they are and what they can do. But I think things are changing. And I’m really happy to contribute somehow with FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE to put a little bit of light on a scene which has been underrated for years. I’m really happy. And things are getting better in Italy as well. I think metal is getting better everywhere in the world.
[The internet] was the beginning of a revolution. For very big bands it was a big issue, because the rules changed all of a sudden. But for other bands, especially new bands, the internet is such a blessing because they have the opportunity to expose themselves, to have a little bit of spotlight, even for once, to show who they are, what they can do, and to demonstrate that there’s a lot of things going on in the underground. For example, in the Middle East this cultural revolution goes through this kind of thing as well. So, it’s amazing how music can you know take humanity, that far, much more than words.
Thank you once again for talking with us today Francesco. Finally, do you have any parting messages for Distorted Sound Magazine’s readers?
Francesco: First of all, thank you for the interview and for supporting us. Reading interviews is another way to support us, to spread the word and give us a little bit more exposure. I really hope to see you all really soon; I really hope we can come play some FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE music for you all really soon. See you all on the road, take care!
Veleno is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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