HOLY MARTYR - Nicola

\r\nOn the event of the release their new album, Metalzone.gr had the chance to interview the italian epic metallers Holy Martyr.They talk about the experience they had this summer in Greece their new album their inspiration and more.
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\r\nMetalzone: Welcome in www.metalzone.gr  Can you please give us a brief bio of the band for those of our readers who haven’t heard your music yet?
\r\nNicola:
Holy Martyr is a classic heavy band that started to compose songs during the 90’s. After some line up changes, the band finally found good members in 2000, then suddenly started to do serious works. After three self financed demos they released the first album Still at War under Dragonheart records, followed just after one year from Hellenic Warrior Spirit.
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\r\nMetalzone: Now what about a few background information on your latest release Hellenic Warrior Spirit. Recordings, production, mixing process etc.
\r\nNicola:
We recorded at Newsin studio in March 2008. The whole process lasted about for 25 days, from recording to final mastering. We recorded our lines separated, in this order: drums, guitars, bass and voices.  Listening to the works of  Luigi( Domine, Labyrinth and so on) we were sure that he was the right man for our new work. His hospitality and kindness, made us get relaxed after the initial anxiety. Luigi worked as sound engineer and as a producer.  I mean that during the recordings, the songs needed some more arrangements, and we worked on them with the help of Luigi. He told us his ideas, and we received most of them. The more strange thing that Luigi proposed,  in my opinion is the guitar played by Eros. It’s called “gatto”, when I saw it I said:” Fuck! The bass of Joey De Maio!”. Well, it was a baritone guitar, with heavy strings, an octave low than a normal guitar. If you pay attention you can hear it in the right channel, when you listen to our songs!  It was very tiring for Eros to play that guitar. At the beginning I was a little astonished and I wondered if that guitar could steal some space to the bass.  After that, everyone joked with me saying that there was no more need to record the bass line ahahah! But as you can hear, the bass is very loud in this album!
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\r\nMetalzone: And a few words about the theme that inspired you- is it a concept? The movie 300 maybe?
\r\nNicola:
The album it’s not inspired by the recent movie”300”. We have recorded  the songs before the movie was out, and part of those songs were in the EP “Hail to Hellas” and the others were anyway in the mind of Ivano for many years. It’s not a concept album, but a tribute to the valor of the Hellenic warriors, to the Spartan attitude, and in part, to Leonida and his crew.
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\r\nMetalzone: Holy Martyr have recently had an adventure in Greece concerning the festival Metal Healing – please tell us exactly what happened?
\r\nNicola:
What happened there is a lesson for us, a bad experience to remember. We were invited to play as headliner, and we got a contract too. We were in contact with somebody called Matt, but it was very hard to communicate with him. In the contract, there was written that the organization should have provided to the transport of the band.  Although the difficulty to find Matt, we decided to pay the flight tickets and maybe ask for that charge when we should have arrived. When we arrived, we didn’t find Matt, he was in holiday –I don’t remember where. Can you believe? You are in the organization of a live event and that day you are in holiday! We try to speak with some other guy there, but we felt fucked around. We called two taxis and went back to Thessaloniki, where we spent the weekend. The more, I want to thanks the metalheads we met in Thessaloniki! We had a very good time with them, thanks!
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\r\nMetalzone: Do you have any touring plans at the moment?
\r\nNicola:
No, we can’t call it tour… We have few dates at the moment. The label doesn’t take care of live show, only promotion, and we still don’t have a manager. We’d like to play more, but we have our own works too.
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\r\nMetalzone:  What have the responses been on Hellenic Warrior Spirit and what is your favorite track on the record and why?
\r\nNicola:
I like very much “the call to arms”. Alternation of powerful guitars, measured rhythms, and melodies conjugations give the sense of a real battle: calm before the chaos, death, blood, swords!! As you know, this song was included in the EP “Hail to Hellas”, but this remake is louder in my opinion. Another song I like is “Lakedaimon”, very funny to play!
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\r\nMetalzone: Do you get influenced by other bands you listen to and if yes which?
\r\nNicola:
The bands I usually listen to, are very different. The most I usually listen is classic metal of course. Recently, I like very much listening to classical music. The big names of the heavy metal of course inspired me, and also many underground bands.
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\r\nMetalzone: Do you idolize any particular artist and hope to work with?
\r\nNicola:
When I started to listen to heavy metal, I started listening to “No prayer for the dying” of Iron Maiden. Since that time, Iron Maiden is my favorite band, and as you can imagine my hero is Steve Harris. I can’t hope to work with him, even if some jam session with more than one bass player can be done ahahah! But shake his hands and say him “thanks”, it should be great!
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\r\nMetalzone: Do you feel your style is old fashion for today’s metal scene? And would you change it if your label wanted you to?
\r\nNicola:
I don’t mind if our music is old. I like old style heavy metal, I play it and I don’t mind if it’s out of time. Don’t you like my music? Ok, listen to other things and don’t break me the balls!!! Heavy metal is not a fucking fashion! Holy Martyr bore just to play that kind of music. If you mean a deep change of style, it should be a betrayal for all the guys that are supporting us.  On the other side, you can appreciate the difference between “still at war” and “Hellenic warrior spirit” sound, a change that didn’t change our style.
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\r\nMetalzone: Thank you very much for your time and I wish you all the best in your upcoming plans and hope to see you in Greece soon.
\r\nNicola:
Thank you for interesting in our music, and thanks to the Hellenic metalheads!!!! \r\n

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\r\nElena Mihailidou \r\n

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