written by Marko Jakob
Pix666: Hello Alessia, hello Michele. Thanks for your time. How are you doing these days, are you alive and well? How are the other guys of Temperance?
Alessia: Hi! First of all, thank you very much for inviting us here. Luckily we’re all fine, even if the situation here in Italy is pretty the same of one year ago. Everyone of us is working on their own at home and still we don’t know when we’ll be able to meet each other and spend some day all together. Let’s hope for the best!
Michele: Hey Pix! Thanks for hosting us here. We’re fine, despite the worldwide situation we’re quite busy and with a lot of commitments during these days. We’re preparing a lot of stuff with Temperance and in my case I also have my studio (The Groove Factory) that is pretty busy so I definitely can’t complain. Marco, Luca and Alfonso, as far as I know, are in the same situation…we’re all waiting for this pandemic to lose hold to finally get back on the road!
Pix666: Please introduce your band to the readers in a few short sentences. You both joined the band later, how did the contact to the guys come about?what was your inspiration to become musicians? What kind of music does Temperance make?
Alessia: Temperance is an italian melodic metal band born in 2014: I knew them as a band since the very beginning, but we became friend a couple of years later, when we both shared the stage here and there (at that time I was collaborating with Overtures as backing vocalist). The last time me and Michele played with them was in 2017, as backing vocalists in occasion of the recording of the Live DVD “Maschere”: a special night to remember!
The split with Chiara Tricarico a couple of months later was a terrible blow for everyone involved. In their heads the only way to go on in the best way possible for the band itself was to give it a fresh new sound, but without losing the Temperance’s original “trademark” made of melodies, catchy choruses and powerful riffs: the guys talked about the possibility to add two new singers instead only one, so the final result would have been a line-up consisted of three lead singers, two male and one female vocalist. The idea sounded great to everybody, so they started to contact some potential “candidate”, and one day me and Michele literally “received the call”: they asked us to sing a couple of their songs as demo in our own styles and techniques, then a month later, ready to enter the studio to start the recordings of Öf Jupiter and Moons”, they offered us both to join the band permanently. As they say, the rest is history!
Michele: To me Temperance means melody, choirs, harmonies and fun! This is how I’d describe our sound, together with happiness, joy and positive vibes. I personally knew Marco since quite a lot. I toured with him in 2013 when I was playing with my previous band, Overtures, and he was playing in the Italian power-metal and Secret Sphere. We immediately got along and Overtures and Temperance started to get on the road together quite often. It’s our friendship that brought us together. When it comes to answering “what inspired me to become a musician”, well, I have to admit that to me it felt more like a vocation than anything else. I can’t say I decided to become a singer. I just felt the need to express myself singing and I followed my instinct.
Pix666: On February 19th your new acoustic EP “Melodies of Green and Blue” was released. How did the work on the EP go – how satisfied are you with the result?
Alessia: We’re all very satisfied of the final result, and of course it has been one of the highlights of 2020: finally we were having a (great) chance to meet us again since months and to spend some quality band-time, so there are a lot of nice memories of this experience. Just for saying, all the black & white clips appeared in the video of the acoustic version of “Start Another Round” are real candid-clips taken from a one-take video bloopers!
Michele: I’m super glad of what we have in our hands. I’ve been recording, mixing, mastering, shooting the videos and of course singing and playing the piano on this EP so on my personal side this has been a huge effort and a huge success, also considering the extremely particular conditions and the short time we had to record everything. When I press “play” and listen to the final result I hear a sincere, honest, intimate and delicate band performing extremely melodic tracks with an organic, natural and defined sound. Could I ask for more?
Pix666: In which versions can the fans buy your EP, and above all, where?
Alessia: At the moment, people can listen to and purchase our acoustic EP on every digital platform, since “Melodies of Green and Blue” is available only as digital version.
Michele: For now the physical CDs and Vinyl are the only formats that we won’t provide, as defined with Napalm Records…but never say never, quite a lot of people wrote us asking for a physical copy…
Pix666: A few days before the release of the EP, the video clip ‘Paint The World’ was released. Where did you shoot the clip? Who was part of the team and were there any complications during the shoot due to certain Corona restrictions?
Alessia: For the making-of of “Paint the World” we’ve been forced to work on our own, due to the pandemic restrictions, so every member of the band has shooted himself at home, except for me and Michele who live together. Michele also took care of the video editing.
Michele: Everything was complicated during this pandemic. I don’t want to sound as a complainer, but things were quite difficult here in Italy. It’s still forbidden to cross from a region to another and for a band like ours, in which only Alessia and I live in the same region, this is really hard. Marco filmed his parts at his place, Luca did the same, Alfonso did the same and I had to find a way to make everything work. Luckily the track is called “PAINT THE WORLD” and this triggered in Alessia the idea of developing the graphic style that you can see in the videoclip, so I tried to do my best and I edited the video as you can see it online.
Pix666: On the day of the release of the EP you played a live stream concert. How was this experience for you and can the fans still watch the concert somewhere later on?
Alessia: Well, I would say “definitely odd”! You feel like being in a television studio, performing your show surrounded by lights and cameras! Despite this weird feeling, we were really excited to finally play together for almost an hour, even if the absence of a real audience, and its warmth, has been felt very much.
The show is still available to purchase on www.rockifi.com!
Michele: Weird, but beautiful. Weird as performing on our own with just cameras surrounding us really felt like something extremely important was missing, and I mean the crowd of course…human contact is such an important thing when it comes to live music. But on the other hand, performing a show after such a long time without playing music on a “stage” was just amazing…
Pix666: Can you actually remember your last live performance with an audience? In January 2020 your last album was released – was there a tour or was the pandemic faster?
Alessia: Damn yes, I remember it very well! It happened on the first days of March 2020, we were in Bilbao playing our fourth gig as special guest for the Tarja Turunen’s Raw Tour: after that gig we’ve been forced to cancel the following 19 shows, and of course the second leg of April. A year is already passed, I can’t believe it…
Michele: I’ve been one of the lucky musicians who could peform a show during the corona-crisis. Visions of Atlantis played in Germany last summer, in a small but nice summer festival. I really feel lucky and grateful for this, as otherwise it would be one year without concerts…as sadly is for everyone else in Temperance…
Pix666: The pandemic unfortunately still has us in its grip, in Germany we are even in a lockdown again. Nevertheless, is Temperance already planning some 2021 concerts or festivals?
Alessia and Michele: With fingers crossed, we’ll be on the road this fall in a tour with Leaves’ Eyes, mainly in Germany but also in many other countries. We both personally believe that with the ongoing vaccine, summer weakening the virus and everything, this fall shows within a specific attendance will be allowed. We don’t really see bigger shows ( over 1000 people) happening yet, or at least not as we knew them (maybe social distancing, seated ecc. ecc.?)..but when it comes to shows with 400-500 people, well, I think this will be possibile.
Pix666: What is the current situation in Italy and especially the mood among the people?
Alessia: After one year, the current situation in Italy is still tough: day by day we receive news about the raising of the numbers of infections, a conspicuous number of hospitals report that their intensive care units are almost full and some activities are still closed since last year (like gyms, swimming-pools, sport-centers and, of course, music venues). Many schools and universities, including the kindergarten (!!), stay close, so their students are forced to study and follow the lessons sitting at the desk in front of a screen for hours. Most of the people are stressed, angry and depressed, and they find hard to face the situation with calm and resilience…
Michele: Every country is split with people accepting the situation and understanding the limitations and people pissed and tired of everything. Italy is no exception to this. We have a lot of people that are demotivated but accepting that the only way to fight the virus is keep on being strong and fight against it with all the needed measures. On the other hand we have quite a lot of people that are stressed, nervous and tired of all the restrictions. Right now we have this system in which we don’t put under a lockdown every part of the country in the same way.
Every region has a weekly report of the situation and basing on the datas provided, it might happen that some regions fall into the “red zone”, that means complete lockdown, or into the “orange zone”, in which you have a bit less restrictions than the red, but still a quite almost-lockdown situation, or into the “yellow zone”, where there are even less restrictions but for example gyms, swimming pools, restaurants at dinner & many other facilities are still closed…and since a few weeks we introduced a white zone too (only one region, Sardegna, is into it right now), where basically, besides wearing the mask, almost everything is allowed.
Pix666: As a musician, you certainly spend most of your time creating music – but what else do you do in your free time when you want to get your mind off things – are there any interesting hobbies that you pursue?
Alessia: Of course I have hobbies, and I’m so glad to have them: they literally save my mind-health duriing this year! I love drawing and watching TV series/movies, also sometimes I read comics, books and articles concerning mindfulness, astronomy, nature or japanese culture.
Michele: With the first lockdown I started for the first time to do something else rather than music. One year ago I would have told you that my hobby IS music anyways. When I don’t compose I play guitars, or piano, or work with audio files as I’m also a computer-nerd in the music field. But in the last year I’ve also started to put myself into photography, I bought a camera and developed some skills. I’m absolutely an amateur, but I really have fun. In the very rare occasions in which I find some free time, I also like to play some videogames, but I’m a retro-gamer.
Pix666: Do you have any other news, that you would like to share with the fans?
Alessia and Michele: Quite a lot is happening right now, but everything is on hold in terms of “news release” due to the situation. We hope in the tour with Leaves’ Eyes to happen, we have the tour with Tarja that has been re-scheduled for February and March 2022 and with some hope it will finally happen…and of course, we’re working on new material, but it’s quite crazy to talk about a new album right now, when we just released a new EP and we just lost the live promotion for Viridian due to the pandemic…we want to release the next record when we know we’ll be able to promote it live, in the mean time…we’ll make it the best Temperance record ever!
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers – Good luck with the EP and stay healthy!!!
Alessia: Thanks a lot! Hails to all the readers out there, I hope to meet you all soon on the road and under the stage!
Michele: Thank you and thanks to all the readers who gave us some of their time! Go catch your dream!
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photos © Temperance & Dario De Marco
