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Interviews the guilt show
Interviews the guilt show
| Thursday, 28 May 2009 15:33 |
 The Guilt ShowThe Guilt Show released a great record last year, packed with energy, passion and political lyrics... time for an interview www.myspace.com/theguiltshow www.myspace.com/defiantheartsrecords www.refoundation.it First of all, would you please introduce yourself and say some words about “the Guilt Show” and its history? We started the band in spring 2006 when Jean, Fede and Pier decided to start a new band after Summer League (Jean’s band) broke up some months before. Soon after, Andrea, who played bass for Summer League, joined as well. To make a long story short, we had six different bass players and two different drummers playing for the band. Since last october we are a 5-piece and current line-up is: Jean, Pier, Max Power, Profeta and Lorenzo. As for our “discography“, we self-released a demo in fall 2006, two 7“s through Defiant Hearts records from Germany and we have a cd out released by Refoundation records from Italy containing both 7“s.
You released the record “before they know we are all dead” which was a compilation of 6 new songs and an old 4 song EP in 2008. When you set out to make the new songs, was there anything specific you wanted to achieve with the new songs?
Musicwise, we didn’t have anything specific in our minds when we started working on the new songs, except for the fact that we wanted the new songs to sound different from the first 7“. They reflect in some way a progression since the beginning of the band, the songwriting is a little better I guess, and the songs have a better production. The one thing we definitely wanted to do was experimenting with different sounds, and we were lucky enough to find Studio 73 a perfect home for that. Paso, the guy we worked with, is a really talented guy, and he was the perfect person to help us experimenting.
Where do you see the main differences between the old and new songs, both musically and lyrically?
As we said production is better, and that helped us to develop a more aggressive sound. The difference between our early songs and the newest ones is that we focused more on lyrics, so we could express ourselves in a clearer way.
In your booklet you even give explanations to the lyrics, which is pretty uncommon these days. Do you believe this helps or do you think that people still don’t care about what you are saying and only about the music?
We know giving explanations of our lyrics could be pretty unpopular nowadays, some may even say it could sound nostalgic to a certain extent. Anyway, we have some issues we address in our songs we feel are important and we want them to be fully understood by the reader/listener. That’s why we included explanations for each songs. Also, one of the cornerstones of hardcore/punk is communication, so why not starting to communicate with people by giving them issues to think/talk about?
The song “denied land” is about the struggle between Israel and Palestine, which is a topic that is not often touched in hardcore. The conflict has been going on since the creation of Israel in 1948. How in your opinion could a solution for the conflict look like? Do you think you’ll be alive to witness peace in the Middle East?
Which kind of struggle are we talking about? There’s a certain disproportion between the two sides. On one side stands one of the most advanced and powerful armies in the whole world currently responsible for taking illegal posession of Palestinian territories. On the other side lie the Palestinian peole, who are suffering because of both violence and racism perpetrated by the Israelian government. Palestinian violence is a reaction toward the current state of things, even though this is not the sole cause. They’ve always been one of the few laical people in the entire Middle East area, but unfortunately this situation led to the rise of the obscurantist and very religion-based movement sadly known as Hamas. With things going on this way, there’s no upcoming solution for this conflict, and who knows if there will be one someday. Needless to say that our song has nothing to do with anti-semitism, it is more about standing against israelian apartheid towards Palestinian people.
Lets talk about Italy for a bit. Silvio Berlusconi was elected last year for the third time. And in article I just read, it said that some sort of “Berlusconism” has befallen Italy, that an elite is in control even in the regional councils and everything is full of corruption and sleaze. Do you think this is correct and how do you explain this? Which role do the media play in all this?
It’s sad to say, but unfortunately Berlusconi is what Italians deserve. We don’t think Italy has a bigger corruption problem compared to other European countries, but nowadays politics in Italy is no more a noble activity you do for the sake of your community. It has become a mere administration of power. In Italy we have two major parties: the biggest one is Berlusconi’s very own, whose only porpose is to pursue his aims and interests. On the other side there’s the PD (democratic party), which only consists of a group of lobbies that cannot, or worse, do not want to oppose Berlusconi’s policies. Italians do vote for Berlusconi because he embodies the very true spirit of this nation: opportunism and feeling smart when cheating other people. The worst thing is that he founds his power on media control as many other powerful men do, i guess. The only difference is that he owns both the public television (as in Italy public tv is controlled by the national government) and their main “rival“, the biggest italian private broadcasting system. Not to say he also owns many newspapers and publishing houses. So yes, he’s able to basically control any information spread by traditional medias. Of couse despite his total control of all the media system, he’s always complaining about the fact that communists (if there are any left) own the majority of it. He wishes!!
I heard that when Berlusconi became prime minister for the first time in 1994, the heads of state of Greece and Belgium denied him the handshake. Do you think that Europeans have stopped being outraged about Italy and don’t take it serious anymore?
More efforts should be made, especially because “Berlusconism“ is starting to spread all over Europe. (for example Sarkozy shares common ground with Berlusconi). Keeping an eye on Berlusconi and his activities as a politician and/or businessman would be a good thing to do, one reason being he since 15 years joined forces with former fascist parties here in Italy.
Italy’s governments are mostly formed by right-wing parties. What is the status of the left-wing in Italy?
It kinda disappeared. Up until the early 90s Italy had the most important communist party (along with France) of the western world, but now the heirs of the PCI are part of the democratic party, in which coexist former communists, catholics, socialists and the result is a corrupt party which is no more leftist. On the latest parliamentary elections the PD did everything they could to kick all the leftist parties (communists, the green party etc) out of the parliament in order to share power control with Berlusconi’s very own.
Do you have an explanation for the behaviour that many Italians seem to have for their past? Mussolini is still an icon and people like Milan’s goalkeeper can proclaim their admiration for fascism without a public outcry…
We stand against fascism as many people do in our society, but unfortunately Italians tend to forget how much criminal Mussolini was, and how many people suffered because of him. Why is he still an icon? Well, because Italian people like being someone’s subjects, they are small-minded persons and basically ignorant.
What are the future plans for “the guilt show”?
Well, as far as it goes, we really want to play around as much as possible. We really want to test the new line up and what’s better than doing a full length sharing ideas and working together on it? We just started writing new stuff, for now expect the new songs to be a little different but still heavy, maybe a little darker.
Do you have any last words, any recommendations? Any local bands to check out?
Thank you guys for showing interest in our band, we really appreciate it! It’s always a relief finding out that there are people somewhere in the hardcore scene still into politics, expressing ideas, standing up for their own beliefs and trying to keep hardcore alive and dangerous for the status quo in these times of desperation in which people seem to only be concerned about trendy clothes, hairspray (WTF???), fashionable activities and mosh-2step-yo!-heycheckmeouti’mdapitmastha. Check out these amazing italian bands: Alone, Blame It On The Ocean, The Secret, ToKill, Curtain and To The Embers. You all should listen to Roky Erickson and all the musical projects he had throughout the years at least once in your lifetime, worship Unbroken and last but not least animals are not food, go vegetarian!
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