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RIVER OF CHANGE

A few months ago I reviewed the fantastic CD of the Italian Progressive Metal band RIVER OF CHANGE. This awesome band is playing very impressive melodic prog metal a la VANDENPLAS, ARTENSION, BALANCE OF POWER... They released this CD in 2000, and since then a lot happened. This interview will inform you about it...

Please introduce us your band, when did you form RIVER OF CHANGE and did any of you played in bands before RIVER OF CHANGE?

River Of Change were born in 1998 when we recorded our first and only demo “On the seven seas” but the band played since 1994 with an other name. “On the seven seas” was very important for us because it was appreciated a lot by magazines but also by some important labels as Noise Records or Transmission Records for example. We realized the cd on summer of 1999 for the german label B.O. Records because it didn’t give us any kind of limit about music. And so on february 2000 “Where realty cannot enter” appeared in musicstores and gained very good reviews in Europe and in U.S.A. , but we never know how much it sold (the only things we know is that for the first two months, our album sold 3000 copies; but is this true?) because B.O. records boss Karsten
Jakob disappeared leaving us and all the other bands (Graveworm, Stormlord, Mystic Circle, Tarot’s Myst, Brainstorm, etc…) in the shit. But problems were not finished. Claudio (the singer) left the band for playing more commercial music, and also Andrea did for personal reasons. Me, Fabio and Luca listened to a lot of people for substitute them, but nobody was good and for this Reason we began to write other songs that will be played by some friends. However I only played in other bands (also non-metal) but the really heavy was Enemynside (ex Scapegoat)

Can you tell us all about your debut CD 'Where reality...?

“Where reality cannot enter” is the product of people who love all kind of music. Heavy metal is obviously our common point, but as you can understand listening cd, our music is very eterogeneous and rich of different cues. You can find fast songs, acoustic moments, progressive elements, also a ballad, thrash shots, etc…; this is the reason because I am proud of this full-lenght album. “Where reality …” was produced by Harald Spengler and Uwe Hormann for B.O. Records at Sound Traxx Studios in Tannheim (D)


Are there any stories behind your songs?

If you talk about lyrics, I can tell you that every song is a story. Sometimes personal stories like “Memories”, “Gleams in the dark”, or “Time you loose”, sometimes stories inspired by great litterature artists like Poe or Barker; I mean songs like “Midian”, or “The old boatswain”. However I will put soon on internet our texts, so everyone will be able to read them.

You're playing progressive rock/metal with a lot of excellent melodies, who influenced you?

Thank you for the greetings. As I told you before the band has lots of influences, but we are influenced by everyone who make good music. I think that the real force and quality of this band consists to make own all kind of musical experience; so I can say that an influence can be Iron Maiden as Vangelis, Atheist as Tori Amos, Fates Warning as Led Zeppelin and so go on. I believe that not many bands can boast a so rich musical proposition.

There are many bands in Italy playing your musicstyle, are you popular in your area and do you also feel there's a lot of competition?

Unfortunately it isn’t true. In Italy there are a lot of bands, but they play (often copy) without any Scruples german power metal bands as Gamma Ray or Helloween. This happens because of music “business”. For example, when our cd was out, our label presented us like a mixture between Gamma Ray and Rhapsody! It’s incredible! About the second question I can tell you that there is not competition but a real jackal behaviour. Bands like us should help each other but it seems impossible. If you think that the great part of these bands, after making cd, they don’t see not even the shadow of money; if you consider that the average of budget for make cd is about 4.000 or 5.000 Euro, you realize that it’s a war between poor people.

What are the plans for the next coming months?

I’ve got 3 killer tracks for a promo cd for labels and magazines only; I hope to record soon this promo and afterwards make the second full-lenght album (obviously with an other label) and play live.

Finally, do you have anything to add to our readers? (you can mention your website for example, touring plans etc.)

I salute all Strutter Magazine’s readers and I say that I’m really happy to make an interview for an English written magazine because it seems that in England nobody listen more heavy metal. I hope that You find my record and you like it.


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