THY MAJESTIE
DARIO D'ALESSANDRO (BASS)
JANUARY 2001

In 2000 was released "The Lasting Power", the debut album of Thy Majestie...
Coming from Italy, they play Epic Power Metal in the vein of Rhapsody with their own touch.
Read this interview with their bassist Dario to know more about them and their album.


INTERVIEW BY MARINA

First, please, can you make a brief story of the band's beginning?

The band was born in 1998, the initiative of which came from Claudio and Giuseppe. Giuseppe already had some songs, in a very medieval style, and upon showing them to Claudio, the pair decided to mix the melodies with the aggressive rhythm patterns of power metal - a style that they both loved. Actually the first song to ever come up was "Under Siege", which was to become the 4th track of our debut CD "The Lasting Power"... after a few months we had already composed the songs that would have been shortly there after recorded in "Perpetual Glory", our first demo CD, entirely auto-produced, that saw the light at the Circle of Power studios, i.e. Claudio's bedroom!! We just used a PC and some audio-editing software, and the result was pretty decent. At the time I was not still part of the band, I became the bassist just during the recording session, so the bass lines there are mostly played by Michele Cristofalo, the former bassist. The demo was out on march 1998, it got quite enthusiastic reviews from the most known specialised magazines, and got us some visibility among the labels. That way, we came in contact with Stefano Longhi and signed for Scarlet records. After some months we started recording "The Lasting Power" on March 2000 at the GB studios in Milan. It was a great experience, in which, apart from coming up with a product that satisfied us, we had tons of fun between us and with the guys of the studios!! The LP was out october 2000... and now here we are!

Could you tell us more things about your debut album? How long did the writing process take?

"The Lasting Power" was the natural exit of the first demo we released, "Perpetual Glory" in facts, all of the songs of "Perpetual Glory" are present in "The Lasting Power", except "Hywelbane" and "Facing the Beast" which have been released as bonus tracks in the south-american version of TLP. The history of the writing process is a curious one ­ infacts, we recorded the demo at the Circle of Power studios (Claudio's home!!!) and when all the job was already done, just before the final mix, we experienced the most terrible disk crash ever!! So we lost all the material. In the meanwhile, the songs had changed a lot, both in the lyrics and in the arrangements and rythmic patterns, so when we re-recorded them they were quite different from the initial versions. The whole process took us like a full year(!!!), but seen how things went afterwards, we often think that that disk crash was a help from the sky!!!!!

Who is responsible for music and lyrics on "The Lasting Power"?

Unlike many other "studio bands", who basically work around the job of a single person or maybe two to achieve their products, we consider ourselves a band in the full sense of the term. We enjoy a lot working together and finding out new ideas for the material we have, and everyone of us is personally involved in the songwriting and arrangements, though Giuseppe is the more "productive" one and the one who writes the majority of the songs. That basically means that when someone of us comes out with a new song, it's very unlikely that this song is simply presented to the other members of the band and played as it was originally conceived to be played. The song goes under continuous changes and revolutions, until we all are fully satisfied with our work and with the final result. Being things like that, it's unavoidable that each song is affected by the musical style of each of us, and that's why in TLP you can hear so many different influences in style. As for me, this "shared creating process" is way more evident in the songs we are working on for the 2nd CD, in which I will have a chance to participate more actively, given that I entered the band when the whole material for TLP had already been written.

Where do you get inspiration for your lyrics?

The concept story of TLP is about Arter, warrior-king of a small reign called Hataria, and about his struggle against the evil forces of Draita, a demon who breaks free after ages of captivity for taking his vengeance against the elvish people who once condemned him to exile. The story is inserted into a free reinterpretation of a well-known fantasy story, "The saga of Shannara" by Terry Brooks. We, especially Claudio and me, are huge fans of Terry Brooks' books and of fantasy in general, and as the songs that made the cut into TLP were created, it was sort of a natural choice reinterpreting the stories we read and enjoyed with the music we were composing. It's like we wrote a soundtrack to the main scenes of the sagas I think everyone would like to have a real soundtrack playing while he reads his favourite book hehe!!!

What are some of your biggest influences?

I think influences are unavoidable as long as you listen to music other than playing it, but I guess in our case musical influences play a certain role only at an individual level, because the band is trying to develope a "personal" style, and to avoid the schemes that are usual when you listen to an epic power metal band. I guess that shows plainly when you listen to "The Lasting Power"; when we do it we haven't that I've already heard its feeling, it's all quite original and in a personal style. Nevertheless, as i said before, some bands like Blind Guardian, Manowar, Symphony X, Stratovarius and Rhapsody play a certain role in the formation of each of us.

How is going the acceptance of the album among the press?

I must say that, apart from a couple of magazines which has not liked us and our work, the rest of the press has reviewed our debut album in quite an enthusiastic way. Lots of them have based their judgement on the presence in our music of a personal style, or on the quality of the songwriting and of the arrangements ­ anyway, they've treated our work quite well, especially for being a debut album of yet another Italian symphonic power metal band... As for the fans, we've been told that the album sounds really good and that's the best thing really. Also, the number of fans has increased dramatically after the CD release, and seeing how people appreciate your work is an incredible push to go on and work even better. The Guestbook section on our website (www.thymajestie.com) has been filled up by comments of people of all around the world who seem very enthusiastic about the work we've made it's a very special and unique sensation.

Did you play for other bands before Thy Majestie?

Yeah, most of us did, and the peculiar fact is that only 2 of us ­ the guitarists ­ actually played in a metal band (to be precise, Maurizio played in a band which covered hard-rock and metal italian songs, and Giovanni in an Iron Maiden tribute band). Giuseppe was in a melodic italian-rock band, Dario played guitar with Dragon's Breath (which played melodic hard rock) and sung with the Squeezy Boyz, a glam band in which Claudio played the drums. As for me, I played guitars and keyboards with Alessandro Mancuso, a sicilian author who plays a very nice folk rock style. I guess the differences in our musical formation are pretty good for the band as anyone is able to bring its own touch of personality to our music. That's the reason why we tend to dislike to be labeled as just a power metal band, or more in gereral as a one-style band, and that's why you can hear so many different influences in the songs that make up "The Lasting Power".

What are your plans for the future? Will the next album be a follow-up of "The Lasting Power"?

Well, we are working hard in two directions at the moment: we are preparing our italian tour which will take place next march ­ april (the dates will be up soon in our website www.thymajestie.com) and we are recording a pre-production of the songs which will make up our new LP. We must say we are pretty satisfied with what we are coming up with, the songs sound good and a bit harder than the ones you can hear on TLP, which is good for us. And no, the LP will be about a completely different subject. It will still be a concept, but it will be about a historical fact, the Battle of Hastings in England in 1066. We found out that the fantasy environment didn't match exactly the way we felt the new songs, we needed something more "hard" and more dramatic, and a great battle is perfect to underline all the passion that we put in the songwriting of the new material. I guess our fans will like the 2nd LP a lot, because so we do!! :)

Will you play many gigs to support the release of the album?

The first promotional move we made was powering up our website www.thymajestie.com, where people can download samples of all our songs and see some pics and some news about the band. Also, we are planning to tour Italy in the next month of March ­- April; it should be a tour of about 6 or 7 gigs around Italy's biggest cities. Should we realise that the CD is selling well in Europe, the next move would be a European Tour but it's still too soon to talk about that.

What do you think about the Metal scene in Europe today and the new wave of Metal bands?

Well the Italian metal scene is quite healthy right now, particularly the power-metal scene. There's a strong and growing demand for metal; evidences of it are the increasing popularity of the major Italian bands, like Rhapsody or Labyrinth, and the consistently growing number of young bands that are entering the market right now. It's a general fact tho, if you mind to the whole power metal scene world-wide it has been completely revitalised during the last years by the entrance of new great band like Rhapsody themselves, or Blind Guardian or Shadow Gallery or Royal Hunt or Symphony X. In our opinion, the contamination of power metal with different musical stiles, like classical, medieval, folk music or progressive rock, has given to power metal itself a new vitality and originality. The fact that the bands I mentioned have somehow tracked a path may now have the effect to create copycats, and maybe that's what is already happening. We have been hearing lots of stuff lately, most of which good and some of which less original and therefore less good, but in general we believe the quality level is still very good.

Finally, would you like to say something to the readers?

Well, sure!!!! I have a particular LOVE for Spain, my former (sigh!!) girlfriend was from there and I've visited there like 3,000 times, so what i say is: Muchísimas gracias por vuestra afición y vuestro interés, nos ayudáis a trabajar con aún más entusiasmo. Esperamos ir a visitaros pronto con una gira en España. Gracias a todos y un saludo a Sergio y Amaya de Madrid si me oyen :)

Ok, Dario, thank you very much for your time!!

Marina, thanks for your attention, catch you soon somewhere in the net ;-)

Thy Majestie