Ex Deo: The Cycle Of History
History comes in cycles. Empires rise and fall, leaders rise to power and experience it slip from their clutches, wars are won and lost and pandemics come and go. The last point in particular is especially appropriate in today’s climate of COVID-19. Since the virus emerged last year, life as we know it has been turned upside down. For Maurizio Iacono of Ancient Roman-themed EX DEO, despite the turbulence we’ve experienced for the past 16 months, he sees this being just yet another parallel to events of centuries prior.
“I never went into complete panic, because I’m a history buff. And I really believe history has all the answers, right? History has the answers to who we are on everything. So basically, this happened in 1918-1919. It was a pandemic that lasted how long? Two years. And then it slowly got away by itself without having all of the vaccines,” Maurizio explains. “We have those things now. The difference now is that back in those times, we didn’t have aeroplanes, we didn’t have mass movement around the world like we have now. So COVID spread way quicker, way faster now, and it’s everywhere. And every time we try to fix it, it comes back quicker. I was looking at the stuff, they were wearing masks, they isolated themselves, they’re doing the same things. History repeats itself and viruses don’t last forever, and some of them that do, we end up living with it. So I never really panicked about it. What I panic about is all the misinformation that’s out there. And then that was the same thing in Rome. The misinformation got senators killed, it got emperors killed. It’s the same. It’s all the power, greed and money.”
It’s inevitable that COVID-19 would be discussed given the virus’ enormous impact worldwide, particularly on live music, but for Maurizio, the focus gears back towards EX DEO‘s forthcoming record; The Thirteen Years Of Nero. This time around, Maurizio and his fellow gladiators focus their attention to one of Rome’s most infamous leaders; Nero. Chronicling his life, the record is twists and turns from monumental epics to sinister passages that reflect the emperor’s cruelty. For Maurizio, as much as the record is very much a chronological tale of Nero‘s time as the figurehead to the empire, on a deeper level, The Thirteen Years Of Nero is very much a dive into the mental state of the man himself.
“It’s a very dark, very twisted record. I think that it’s got that paranoia feel in it that represents Nero in all aspects. And it’s violent, but it’s also it’s a journey. It starts as a chronological record that starts with the end of Claudius‘ reign, and it goes into Nero and it just has all the crazy stuff that happened,” he explains. “Every song every song is going into his mental state. You can tell, there’s a song called The Head Of The Snake, which is talking about his mum, you know, and his mother Agrippina was the focal point of the entire thing, because she’s the one that seduced Claudius and then killed him because her whole goal the whole time was to put Nero in power. So she got rid of everybody around, so that he could be in power, and she could rule. So he is realising that his mum is crazy and the paranoia starts setting up and he ends up killing his mum and becomes exactly like her. So you’ve got all this twists and turns going on in the album, which is all about the mental state of Nero. He just wants to be a musician or an actor, and does not want to do anything to do with being an emperor. So he turns on the Senate, and starts killing off the senators, because they’re all greedy, and he hates them all. It’s a crazy eventful era.”
As much as the record is a deep dive into the unhinged mental state of Nero, the record divulges into key events from his reign also and perhaps most famous of all is that of the revolt in Britain by Iceni tribal Queen Boudica. The song, Boudicca (Queen Of The Iceni), is arguably one of the finest songs penned by EX DEO to date, helped largely by the phenomenal guest appearance from UNLEASH THE ARCHERS‘ Brittney Slayes, a collaboration Maurizio relishes. “I’m a huge fan of Brittney, I think that she’s a rebel and she’s probably one of the toughest frontwomen out there. I needed somebody that could play Boudica in this song and I said I think you’re the perfect candidate. As soon as her voice comes in, it’s like majestic. I thought she represented Boudica perfectly. So it was perfect match my first duet!”
With The Thirteen Years Of Nero, EX DEO come forth with yet another bombastic foray into the annals of history. Times maybe turbulent now, just as they were in the latter days of Ancient Rome, but the cycle will refresh, just as it has time and time again.
The Thirteen Years Of Nero is out now via Napalm Records.
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