Hi Marco, I’m glad to have you on Grande Rock webzine. Just before the London show you released a new song titled “Set Yourself Free”, taken from the Digital Deluxe Version of “Diamanti”. Did you plan to release it just before the show or what?
M: Honestly this song was only set for the Japanese version of the album, but of course when we were forced to postpone all the gigs, we said okay we have to do something in the middle, doing something new and we decided to put “Set Yourself Free” also on Spotify and YouTube and other music.
What do you think of “Set Yourself Free” and why did you put it as a bonus on the Digital Deluxe Version of the album only?
M: Honestly because for “Diamanti”, for the last one I think we wrote something like 16 songs, but of course 3 songs were delayed and we put “Set Yourself Free” as bonus because the mood is very different from the album so is more metal and more similar, in my opinion, to the old stuff we did before. It’s very strange because in this period of time this title “Set Yourself Free” is perfect in my opinion. But we wrote this song more than a year ago so.
By the way what does the album title “Diamanti” declare?
M: Good question! When we began to work in the new album I wrote this track with chorus in Italian because I had in mind something like… it’s a good story, because a friend of mine told me that on Jupiter the planet, there is a sort of diamonds raining, no in theory but the metal. The metal on the planet is like diamonds so that we decided to put some stuff with diamonds and the planet for sure because of the connection of the new album and “Of Jupiters and Moons” and I really love the artwork. We decided to create something a little bit different than before with this guy Yann Souetre from France and usually in the other albums we put modern and futuristic stuff and sci-fi stuff, but for this one we decided to do something more artistic, and the diamonds are a little bit inspired by an amazing artist called Mohavious (i.n.: not sure about the name) that he used to do some stuff for magazines and other stuff like this during the 60s/70s and I really like his stuff. And also on the artwork you can see six different diamonds, of course we are 5 people but you have to figure out who is the six one like friends and fans.
How’ the feedback for “Diamanti” so far?
M: Right now? So cool, honestly so cool, unfortunately we have not got the chance to play a lot of shows because after the release of the party we played only one show in Italy for the release party and this will be the second show. So pretty bad honestly, but since the fans are in love for the album. And honestly this is our best album so far because the sound is a little bit more metal than before and also step by step we are trying to put more stuff and more different influences there and it’s doing good.
Which are the main differences among your latest album and your previous ones according to you?
M: Sure, I think the big difference is about the electronic and orchestra stuff, because in the previous album “Veridian”; also with Napalm Records, there was more electronic stuff, a lot and some fans were a little bit disappointed about that but honestly, we are not focusing on that. And we tried to release an album that we love so much. But for this album was a little bit different because we put different feelings in it and maybe we delayed the electronic stuff and instead of the orchestra stuff we put a lot of different arrangements, we had more time to work on it and it’s very satisfying about it.
“Diamanti” was released only a year after the previous one “Viridian”. How about that? Did the whole lockdown situation play a major role for that?
M: The thing is that after the release of “Veridian”, which was released at the end of January 2020, so we had a chance only to play 8 shows to support the album before Covid, so from March 2020 we had a lot of time to work on something new. But I think for sure as anyone I was alone in my flat and during March and April, I had a lot of time to work on some new tracks and basically, we wrote the entire album in one month. And after that we worked hard on some of the details, the lyrics, the arrangements. The situation about Covid in Italy was crazy, especially in the North, especially during the first month. But also, a year ago, in 2021, was still a little bit crazy in the first few months, but it seems like it’s getting better.
Once again you worked with the famed producer Jacob Hansen (Volbeat, Epica, Amaranthe). How important is Jacob’s work for the band’s sound in general?
M: In all conscience, we have a very good relationship with him but for us it’s not our producer because he only put the stuff together, so basically for Temperance, Michele, the singer and I we are the producers of the band but it’s always so cool to work with him. Unfortunately for “Diamanti” we didn’t have the chance to go to Denmark to record the drums as we usually spend a week in Denmark to record the drums, to fix some details before the mix but of course it was impossible.
How do you feel being on the road again after quite some time?
M: Weird, but also because we did not have the chance. Also, now we are playing only tonight as the rest of the tour has been postponed, so it’s crazy but seems like we are coming back and probably especially from the next November we will be on the road for six months for a lot of gigs.
Are you working on new material as we speak? Do you plan to release any singles or a full album anytime soon?
M: To be honest, I think that right now we will try to push and promote “Diamanti”, also on the radio, as we did not have the chance to promote the album. So, I don’t think we will release any single, maybe at the beginning of next year when we will tour with Tarja Turunen and maybe we will do something, but I have no clue right now.
2023 will mark the bands 10th Anniversary. How do you feel about it?
M: 9th, because… okay the band was created in December, so you are right but basically, we released the first album on December 14th, so almost there. We are getting older!
What do you think about this corona-virus thing? How much has it affected the music business and people’s lives so far?
M: Sure, difficult a very difficult situation especially not only for music, but for the artists in general. Also, for example I’ve always thought of traveling all over the world, but in the last two years that was not possible. But for musicians and artists in general was a pain in the ass. Honestly during the first lockdown we were forced to postpone the tours and a lot of gigs everywhere in Europe, so it was a sort of economically disaster for us, but luckily we had a lot of amazing support from our fans as they supported us very hard and bought a lot of stuff from our website, so it was fantastic. The situation in general was and it’s so bad still.
How did you come up with the name Temperance initially?
M: When we created the band, we spent a lot of time to find a very cool name and back then I was reading a sort of representation of the “Divine Commedy” (Divina Commedia) and in this book there was something about “temperance” for Dante (the author) and I was very attracted by this stuff and said “oh okay it’s a cool thing, it sounds cool, it’s from Italy so we have to use this one”. And the sound of the name is very modern, strong and it’s not only a name, but there is something more.
