Progarchives.com has always (since 2002) relied on banners ads to cover web hosting fees and all. Please consider supporting us by giving monthly PayPal donations and help keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.
Joined: March 04 2008
Location: Retirement Home
Status: Offline
Points: 3658
Topic: Egonon Posted: October 06 2011 at 13:36
A new band from Venice, EGONON combines the best of the Italian progressive tradition with modern sensibilities and eclectic influences. The band is comprised of Fabio Calo' (songwriter, lyricist, vocals, piano, guitars, oud, sitar, sarangi, mellotron, percussion), Roberto Parolin (drums), Andrea Ghion (bass), David Boato (trumpet, flugelhorn), Luigi Sella (sax, clarinet), and Alvise Stiffoni (cello). Their first album was released in 2011, Risveglio, surprisingly self-produced, partly recorded in Libya. As noted by the variety of the instruments listed above, the band continues in the grand Italian tradition of incorporating Mediterranean (including Middle Eastern) influences, sounds, melodies, and instruments into their songs. The result is a wonderful blend of old and new, exotic and familiar, melodic and jarring--in short an excellent Rock Progressivo Italiano adventure. Fabio Calo' lists musical influences as quite diverse, including Ornette Coleman, Frank Zappa, Igor Stravinsky, King Crimson, and Middle Eastern music.
I got in touch with them and Fabio answered my questions.
The idea of Egonon was
born in my heart. It is a by-product of my spiritual life, of my spiritual
quest. The communicative urge comes from the will of change, the need of
awakening ("risveglio") out of a life which does not belong to man anymore.
Man unconsciously stopped thinking, or rather is thinking with his nervous
system instead of his Self, because of the constant distractions he undergoes
to: all man does prevents his real, pure, intuitive thinking, allowing only his
inferior, logical-rational and sensual thinking. All around, commercials,
movies, politics, religions, dry his ideologies and creeds. There's no movie
anymore which refers to other that fear of death and sex: normally it is all
about a smart blend of them both. Tension of fear and tension of passion
strangle the watcher in a tight grip, convincing him of being an evolved animal
instead of a spiritual entity. Commercials and tv shows create induced wishes
and false needs. Medias depict events (problems) not as chronicle but as a
novel, which has already included all the feelings and the emotions (reactions)
it must stir up. Short after, austere professors appear in tv and talk to
watchers as they spoke to children, depicting a military intervention or a tax
increase (solution) as "painful but necessary", probably to be introduced
gradually, so the sheep can adapt better. This is our daily life: lies
throughout the truth and truth throughout lies. Man doesn't think anymore and
is not even aware that someone else thinks for him, from inside of him.
Therefore, man must raise out of this if he wants to continue his evolution:
"Nessun dorma!" (nobody sleep!). At this time, I am writing a book about
Music as an initiation path towards Knowledge, the listening rather than the
vision, Akròasis rather than Aisthèsis.
Why did you choose that
name?
EGONON means I DON'T, in latin "ego non". It comes from the
Peter's words "etiam si omnes, ego non" (even when all others will…I won't),
Matthew 26:33–34. It was also the german inteligentia's motto from the White
Rose movement during the dissent to nazism and it was written on one of their
major representatives' house, Wehrmacht officer Philipp von Boeselager's. It
also means NO EGO, the Ego's mortification and sublimation as necessary step
towards evolution.
Did any of you, past and present members, play
in any other bands before joining up in your band ?
Yes, of course. Bob
Parolin is currently playing with Pushking, a russian metal band, and, together
with Andrea Ghion, with El Cuento de la Chica y la Tequila, an italian
flamenco-rock band. Myself, I used to play in a jazz band but that was quite a
long time ago and a rap-jazz-metal band when I leved in Miami. Anyway, I am
not a technical musician but mostly an intuitive player, singer and writer. I
believed technique is good but it also limits your creativity: thereby I
developed my own techniques, based on more esoteric parameters rather than
"mechanical" (put your diaphragm like this, your feet like that, use the lydian
scale etc). But it is only my personal opinion. All my life came out of
technique: I studied electronics, then I became an airline pilot. All very
sharp, uncreative, rational and technical jobs. So Music was always "the
bright side of the moon"!
Which bands were you influenced by
?
Like already stated, influences run from Stravinsky to Frank Zappa,
from King Crimson to the italian Area, from Middle Eastern to Indian music, from
Ornette Coleman to Ennio Morricone. We all have different lives, therefore
tastes and ways to see music: this, I believe, is essential for the result.
It was well understood by Miles Davis, which always wanted interracial
bands, to infuse more "feelings" into his music.
Over to your
only album so far. Please tell us more about your Risveglio album from earlier
this year.
First of all, I want to specify that the cd was not merely a
self-production, but rather a shared, financially and artistically, target
accomplished together by myself and Andrea Valfrè, the italian sound engineer
pluri-nominated at Latin Grammy Award. Thereby the great sound you hear in the
cd is the result of such cooperation: an absolutely professional and hard-worked
achievement. Also the non-technical sound and the arrangements style came from
our choices and mutual considerations. Finally, also the great Simon Heyworth
contributed to the sound as well, since the mastering was done in his Devon
studio. He did great albums as Gong's Angel's Egg, all King Crimson's remasters
and Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.
The music is traditional
Italian prog. But how would you describe your music and which bands would you
compare yourself to ?
It is actually not very traditional, either italian
or else. The usage of electric guitars riffs together with saxophones has been
heard in Area, King Crimson etc. But the target here was to reach a musical
syncretism, a convergence of west and east, north and south. For this research
of crossing styles, you can see this as crossover or progressive music. Though,
we didn't want to stick in any specific style, but only to make music with
feelings and Light, speaking of highest form of Love rather the usual,
passional, pleasant one. The way was to use hard guitars and drums to stir up
the "belly response", the energy of rage, to be afterwards transformed in the
heart, through strings instruments, into pure light to illuminate the mind,
where the winds as flute had to intervene. The approach is more esoteric. In my
opinion, spiritual music can not just stimulate the solar part of soul and
ignore the lunar, darker ones. Instead, it must really dig into the darkness
within each and then to elevate this energy up to hypophysis and
epiphysis. Same as it must be done in a spiritual journey: today one cannot
retire on a mountain and live as a monk, because all the darkness remains, it is
put to sleep only. But then, when one does not sense it anymore, the lethargic
forces manifest and the Self is overwhelmed. The Hermes words "Know your
Self" call for a TOTAL conscience of Real Self, normally named as Superior Self,
which since the Golgotha Event contain the Christic Spark. So the "musical
language" draws from everything we have listened.
Risveglio is
part one of a trilogy of albums. What can we expect from # 2 and # 3
?
Yes, Risveglio is part 1 of a quadrilogy. Number 2, named "7 Exusiai",
is obviously aiming to a different target. We are working on it now: after
the Awakening, the Rebirth. You can expect a more direct album, more
immediate rock, simpler in a way, but still in pure Egonon style. It is more
about volitive Action, about pulling out the Michael's Sort against the
Dragon.
What have you been up to since the release of this album
?
We actually didn't stop playing and recording since Risveglio's
release. We have so many ideas, of which only few were selected to become the
new songs. Interestingly, it seems that Risveglio was appreciated abroad
despite it is sung in italian. It seems that the "message" passes through
anyway..
What are your plans for this year and beyond ?
To go on this way, regardless whether our music will be appreciated,
bought or accepted. It is some kind of a mission rather than an
interest. Of course the goal is to reach everyone on the planet, but I
believe that Risveglio and the next works will have to find their own way to
reach people's heart: we have only made ourselves "instruments".
To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ?
I want to tell everyone to never have fears, to deepen up rather than
lighten up, despite life is already heavy enough. Knowledge is the greatest
defensive weapon, Truth is the only freedom. Have doubts on what you read,
hear and see, trust your intuition rather than your animal instinct. Be much
more than yourself: be your Real Self! We all developed our Self, our
individuality today, thus lost all the Other's conscience to conquer the
possibility of Freedom. Today it is the time of the free Choice, between
light and darkness. It is up to each one of us, to be the Raven or the Solar
Hero. Love to you all!
Thank you to Fabio for this interview
Their PA profile is here and their homepage's here
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.195 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.