### Murder Therapy - Riccardo and Francesco

#### 07/11/08 || Kampfar

I wasn’t exactly left blown away and ejaculating all over myself after listening to this band’s first, and as of now only demo. Read my take on it here. But, as pointed out in the review, this lot holds definite potential. This is not the main reason why this interview exists, though. See, one the guys sent me a mail and thanked me for my effort, and while at it, promised to make a song about me. I sensed both dedication and humor, so I straight away replied the mail and asked if any in the band was up for an interview.

The answer is obvious, so hello and welcome to both Riccardo and Francesco, vocals and guitar, respectively. How many record labels have contacted you guys after my review hit the net? 0,3? On a more serious note, how actively are you seeking out to get a chance to put your names on an abysmal contract?

F: Honestly, after your review nobody wrote us, maybe it’s not taken so much in consideration as you think, eh eh. In the last weeks we’ve been talking with an European label really interested in our work. I would say actually it’s done, we should sign by the half of November, but it’s better to wait before making an “official” statement here. I don’t know what you mean for abysmal (private plane, blank cheques?), but it’s really a good proposal for us. Most of all we found someone interested seriously in our music and it’s exactly what we were looking for.

Haha, I’m too fucking retarded to spell “absymal”. Nice one, fuckface. Am I the only person alive actually looking forward to your next release, or are the other idiots out there able to hear that Murder Therapy is an ensemble with potential? How many reviews have you found so far? 4?

F: Ok man, we’ll keep a copy of our next release for you. We’ve received really good reviews so far (surely multiples of four) and many others (positive I hope) have to come. There are some criticism too, and that’s fine. About our potential, you weren’t the only reviewer to use this word so I start to believe that there’s to be something true about it. I hope to be able to release all this “potential” in our next recording. In the end you’re always the best judge of yourself and who can know your music better than you? But it’s funny to read about your music by people you’ll probably never meet and see what emotions and feelings your songs can give unto others.

R: I hope that there will be many others idiots like you and seeing how things work these days I won’t get surprised if we reach the notoriety of Britney Spears. Britney Spears… I’d like to spear upon her ass with a large drill. Our potential is the consequence of our serial passion, and it makes its way through the music we write. Stay fucking serial!

How long beforehand recording “The therapy” did the unit known as Murder Therapy unite? In the name of retrospect, what is the least and most pleasing aspect of your debut? Did you guys produce it yourselves?

F: I would say we’re a “young” band (at least if you don’t consider our age). We started to play together on September 2007, but we had another drummer at that time. Andrea joined the band on February 2008. Despite of the band short life, we all came from other band experiences so it was really easy to start doing something together. No “cover-period”, neither discussing about what we could have played or not, influences etc… After the first phone call we went directly to play, good 4 hours on Sunday afternoon. It was weird since I didn’t know anyone, I just went there, put on my amp on and started to play with the others. All the first part of Carving Human Sculptures (or at least its basis) came out this way. I think we had a lot of stored energy and that’s why things worked immediately. Well, to be honest, not everything. Because after some month we had problems with our drummer, so we asked Andrea to join. Then we needed a bit of time to rearrange the songs with him…

“The Therapy” is the product of 5 months of intense rehearsing. The recording most pleasing aspect is achieved result: we’re very satisfied and maybe it’s even more than we expected. For sure many things could haven been done better, but it’s a demo and it works, like it or not. For the recording we worked with a guy in his small studio, he’s really into his work. I actually miss that atmosphere… recording is a fucking great experience, I think I’m addicted to it. Anyway, “The Therapy” is still far away from what our sound should be, we want to unleash hell with our next release.

The worst aspect for sure was the number of cigarettes we smoked there. Luca, the studio guy, has been close to put us at the door, in particular Andrea, he’s totally a tobacco addicted. Then, because of Andrea’s work, we had to record the drums with short sessions, and that took us more time than we expected so we had to go fast with other instruments. But, what’s going on Kampfar, this was a really serious question from you!

Tell us, is there more to come from you guys in the near future, any new songs already nailed? And have you made the one about me yet? If not, name it “Kampfar on rampage”. Hmm, who the fuck writes the music in this band, is it a team-effort, or is a relative of Mussolini present?

F: Kampfar on rampage? Come on man you can do better than this! Your song will definitively appear on the album, but it’s going to be kind of “disguised” so you’ll have to figure it out by yourself. We’re deep in the writing process at the moment and so it will be for the next months. We want to complete the material for the album before the end of winter to be able to go in studio again during Spring. Or at least this is the plan, then we’ll see. About the new material, there’s a song in particular for the time being called “Staring at the Zodiac” inspired by the written cryptogram left by the serial killer known as the Zodiac. It’s surely the best thing we wrote until now, with interesting tempo changes, moving from a quite classical beginning to an insane ending.

Mussolini has nothing to do with our band at all. Most of the music comes from the guitar at least at the beginning but then the song goes through the band and what you have in the end can be a photocopy of what initially was written on my pc or a completely different work. It’s the fun on being in a band and not just spending your time mixing one thousands recording software at deep night in your room. I know there are a lot of bands with a kind of vegetable attitude where a guy wrote everything for everyone using the band just as human performers, and sometimes works really good for sure, but what’s the point in playing like that? I see a band like a collective alchemy and if the final formula would be the same even without some of its components then something is going wrong.

How many gigs so far? This cunt has exactly one under his non-existing belt, hence now wondering if I beat you? If not, tell me and our readers about your best and worst stage experiences.

F: Not so many of them since we’re a rather young band as I told you before. Our first live appearing was the most chaotic for sure, since the actual drummer joined just two weeks before the show. We didn’t want to cancel our first appearing so we worked out to be able to play something but Andrea was forced to bed because of fever. I did these stupid video clips with me playing the guitar and explaining the songs riff by riff so he could memorize them while he was sick. We had only three short rehearsals and we used most of the show sound check to continue learning the songs. In the end we played for less than 10 minutes and looking back at the clip I took with my camera… well, not all came out so well! But in the end we did it. Some lonely voice from the small crowd asked us to repeat some song, eh eh, but my guitar fucked up after the first bis so we left the place to the following band. I think it was quite funny.

You guys should make an album based on the life of Carl Panzram. It’s not like it would make you fucking unique or anything – “Dahmer” anyone? – but I anyhow think you should read him up and do your best to convey the anger this mean motherfucker harbored. His middle-name should have been ballistic, by the way. While at it, what is the most famous Italian (serial) killer?

R: Surely Donato Bilancia, author of 17 homicides, killing people he owed money to, prostitutes and occasional victims he met along his travels through Liguria. His first murders were characterized by a gaming card he used to leave close to the bodies, that’s because of his intense passion for gambling and of course to have a personal trademark. In one of his last public declarations he asked to be kept in jail (and surely he will since he has to serve for 17 life condemns) since if set free he would kill again. What a temper… But if we go back in time we can find a really interesting woman called Leonarda Cianciulli, also known as “La Saponificatrice di Correggio”. Between late ’30 and ’40 she killed three women with her axe and she made soap out of their bodies’ fat. With their blood she made nice cookies for her neighborhood and familiars. Despite of her requests, she was never considered ill-minded.

The Monster of Florence is surely one the darkest and fascinating episodes of Italian recent crime news. Still considered as an irresolute case despite the jailing of Pacciani, physical executor of some murders, but used by gentry and cultured people known as “Compagni di Merende”. At least 8 double homicides are attributed to them, all at some distance one from the other (the so called “chilling time”), and in some of them body parts were took away to be used in esoteric rituals. It’s a long and complex story, you can look for it on the web, but it’s so typical Italian with its mystery, throwing off tacks, disappeared proofs, a suicide and some stupid scapegoat that pays for everyone. Actually Pacciani is dead, so he brought his secrets in the tomb.

I didn’t know about Carl Panzram, I’ll look for him, for sure he had a really malevolent name.

Why did you become a vocalist, Riccardo? Are you, just as me, a fucking retard at any given instrument other than your cock? And Francesco, please tell me why you are a guitar player. Pronto.

R: Probably I started singing because murder is considered a crime. And just to fuck and do nothing else in the end bores you. I started singing along Morbid Angel and Obituary songs and I realized that I was good to growl. I used this stupid looking paperboard tube so I could amplify my voice and I knew that it was my way. I’m not able to play any other instrument and I don’t feel like doing it. About my cock, I’m able to play it well, when I put the jack in right amp I obtain really good sounding choirs.

F: I used to sing when I was 17 in what could be called in a very generous way a cover band. But something was not working with my throat since I got sick every time we had a rehearsal. I think we were truly shameful, but it was so much time ago… I wanted to write and play my music without dying from my insignificant vocal effort so it was time to get a guitar. A guy lent me for one year a dark appearing old guitar, but it had damaged mechanics so there was no way to tune it. Even a song from Slayer would have sounded dissonant like Gorguts, but it was just the beginning so I didn’t realize that. After one year I gave back that piece of crap back and I bought my first guitar. I think I was 19 or 20, so you could see I started quite late. But, I had a guitar man, my guitar. That was fucking satisfying.

What is the best 2008 release you have heard so far? Mine is Phazm’s “Cornerstone of the macabre”, one most likely ending up as the best. So, how much of your life’s do you spend listening to music and seeking out new shit?

R: In spite of many comments I’ve read I really liked the new Cryptopsy, even if there’s a lot of “core” in it and they don’t play anymore as in their past albums. Another great album is for sure Origin “Anthisesis”, what can I say, there’s not much to say about a band like Origin able to bring death metal in a even more extreme direction. Work takes away from me a lot of time but when I’m free I put on at the loudest volume some (in)sane death metal for my neighborhood joy. Sooner or later I’ll kill them. I like to find new bands I never listened to but most of times I get disappointed by them.

F: Let me check them on MySpace. Uhm… there’s a bit of Tarantino in their first song. They sound good but it’s not my stuff. Coming back to the question, until two weeks ago I would had certainly answered Meshuggah “Obzen” but I’ve spent the last days listening all the time to Gojira “The Way Of All Flesh” so my prize goes to them: great music, massive production and strong personality, what a band! Their clip for Vacuity is so good too. Unluckily they’re on tour with In Flames now so I’ll regret to see them on stage this year. Music is always played on in my room, even because I live just upon a crazy crossroad and you have to defend yourself from the permanent cacophony of horns and motors. Music becomes a kind of sanity protection tool here. Looking for new music? Definitely, always. And metal is just a part of it, the biggest for sure but not the only one. I would call it MySpace surfing, every 10-20 bands or more you get something interesting, eh eh. Then you give a second listening and a new selection comes, so I would say the percentage of liking is not so high but still worthy. I came to know about Gojira in this way.

Phazm is a French band, and the French scene is fucking awesome. The Italian isn’t. Still, the last couple of years has thought me you aren’t entirely rubbish at making metal down in shoe-land. Congrats. Now give me the names of at least 2 new and upcoming extreme acts from Italy worth checking out. Apart from Murder Therapy, of course. My favorite Italian band is Hour of Penance, by the way. Almost, forget Aborym there for a sec. And yours would be?

F: You always align yourself with the strongest side, don’t you? We have mirror answer here, my choice goes to Hour of Penance too, I bought their last album and it’s fucking brutal. I love that stuff and their precedent album is killer too. Another good band is Septycal Gorge from Turin, I look forward hearing their new album. But both above HOP and SG I love Cryptic Theory, it’s the other band I’m playing with, eh eh. We did only a recording with really poor sound and we’d many line-up problems, but actually everything seems to work again so you’ll hear about them in the next year for sure. I really don’t know that much about French metal scene apart from few bands so it’s hard for me to give a judgment here. Italy has a good death metal scene, there are a lot of active bands. There’s a good studio in Rome that is giving us the chance to have good sounds and I think in the near future something good will come out to the surface like HOP did. Death metal is still so underground here, but it’s getting more foreign attention lately.

R: I don’t know so much about French scene, but from what I’ve heard I have to disagree with your “fucking awesome”. Francesco here is laughing and he’s telling me to name Gojira, surely a good band, but a band doesn’t make the whole scene. Maybe there are really good bands but I don’t know anything about them. Surely Hour of Penance are the prominent band of Italian death metal scene.

Check out Sublime Cadaveric Decomposistion, fuckwits. What is your take on the Norwegian scene, any bands of interest to be found in this shithole the UN claim to be paradise on earth?

F: You got the oil in Norway, don’t you? That’s for sure one of keys to heaven actually. It’s a long time since I have a Norwegian band in my list I suppose. But I gave my contribution to your economy buying Emperor, Satyricon and Burzum stuff ages ago, before you became non-UE. I didn’t play them in the past 10 years anyway, but I used to like them. Then everything became rather ridiculous, or maybe I was too young to realize it was from the beginning. Black metal circles and church burning, face painting and spikes, I never got fascinated with them, I’m very suspicious when I see the word “TRUE” close to something. Still it produced good music in the 90’s.

R: I don’t have much to say about Norwegian scene. Asides from some good black album from the first ’90 it’s not a scene I feel fascinated with.

What is the single most disappointing album of all time? My pick is Metallica’s “Black album”.

F: I’ve never been so much into Metallica, so I was secured from the “Black Album” brutal disappointing many people undergone. Do you still need any psychological support for that? Disappointment is the natural consequence of buying and since I only buy stuff I’ve already listened to that’s kind of difficult to happen. I think Carcass “Swansong” Carcass was a big shot at first, but I’ve found something good there too.

R: I never liked Metallica, so who the fuck cares? Deicide “Scars of the Crucifix”, this is an album that really I’m not able to put on in my stereo. Its first listening was a great delusion from a band I’ve always considered “big”. I hoped it was going to be something better of their latest album but I was disappointed.

Rate these bands on a scale from 1-10.

Metallica R: 2 – F: 5 Slayer R: 6 – F: 8 Judas Priest R: 3 – F: 1 Six Feet Under R: 7 – F: 6 Manowar R: 1 – F: Minus Cannibal Corpse R: 8 – F: 8 Mayhem R: 5 – F: 4 Obituary R: 6 – F: 6 Dimmu Borgir R: 2 – F: 2 Autopsy R: 8 (genius) – F: 7

I just thought of a funny name for your country, namely Clitalia. I don’t know if it rings true, you tell me, but due to extreme feminism, Norway should from now on only be referred to as Whoreway. Capice?

F: You’ve a natural skill for creating neologisms, you should try to get a work off it besides making metal reviews. Anyway Clitalia sounds like a place where women are really emancipated and dissolute, and surely Italy it’s not like that. Whoreway corresponds to reality?

On a scale from 1-10, no elaboration needed, how bad is the idea of a future Eurabia?

R: 10

F: Come on, it needs to be elaborated. Arabian culture is not something new in Europe and vice versa. Everything depends by cultural integration. It’s a thin balance, and many European political parties use them to their purpose and create this twisted fear of eastern people that makes everything more difficult. So on a rational side I would say there’s nothing so bad with the idea of a future Eurabia, but going deeper in it for sure it will a problem since that is going to be exploited to create hatred and confuse people so can’t be able to gaze reality anymore.

I claim 94% of all metal ensembles to be a waste of time, space and what little effort put into them. Do you guys think it would be a fair policy to force them superfluous bands to either hand over their instruments or face limb removal done the chainsaw way? I would be the judge, of course. Judge Inbred.

F: Well you’re already a kind of judge with your reviews, don’t you? Most of bands won’t go anywhere, but that’s not the point of playing, it’s about having fun so if you’re enjoying your music that’s good for me, even if playing old school post trash death core glam metal. We all have ears to choose what’s worthy. I feel just a bit disappointed when you get that “Sunday” bands with their “we have a new song” every 2 years. I could never fit in projects like that.

Do you support the idea of public executions? I of course do, mass public executions in fact. What about a giant blender specifically made for the purpose of mashing and grinding humans into paste, eh? I envision one fitted with blades sharp enough to cut through bone, so to ensure every cunt and cock gets sliced into at least 50 slices before dying. A great idea on my behalf, bravo for me, so do you guys have a suggestion to make public executions TV-friendly and entertaining?

F: That’s a pointless effort since public executions are already part or our media culture. And they’re already TV-friendly, like a soft porn movie where you see people having sex without really seeing them fucking. Media are overloaded with executions and mass murdering, but there’s no agony and the formula is no agony=no compassion, mainly when the dying is ethnically different from you. Death just happens so fast you can’t realize what’s going wrong and suddenly you’re looking at weather forecast or a grotesque dog squeezing out “mama” from his mouth. I thrown away my last TV on 1999 so sometimes I meet a turned on TV elsewhere and I have the “that can’t be real!” reaction. And if really you want to make executions entertaining the solution would be the same as for all the crap coming from TV: stripped girls, freakish individuals, a nice looking studio, a pin striped chat show host, columnists and a lot of advertising. That’s will work for sure. And don’t forget about SMS voting.

By the way, your torture machine reminds me of Kafka “In the penal colony”, you should read it. And to be clear about it, I’m against death penalty, executions and torture. Violence and pain make something good only when they finds expression in some art form, besides that they’re pure shit.

R: I approve public executions, everyone should pay for his mistakes. There are so many ways to torture a torturer, making them feel pain (or pleasure) the same as they inflicted upon their victims. TV is so full of shit now: reality, stupid shows, manipulated news and so many “good” people telling you the right way to live on when they just built their lives speculating on others.

On the usual scale from 1-10, rate these methods:

Guillotine: R: 6 – F: 7 Good ‘ole hanging: R: 9 – F: 9 Firing squad: R: 2 – F: 3 Torture then death: R: 10 – F: 1 Torn asunder by horses: R: 7 – F: 10 (P.S: you should read something about Ezzelino da Romano) Run over by a tank: R: 5 – F: 1 Slowly dissolved in acid: R: 6 – F: 8 Sandblasted into mush: R: 3 – F: 4 Hammer blow to the temples: R: 7 – F: 2 Skrewdriver through the head: R: 3 – F: 3

What would you prefer dealing, carpets or carpetbombings? And, who in the band owns the heftiest weapon?

R: Neither of them. Let’s fuck them up. Of course I own the heftiest weapon. I love blades and I’ve a good collection of knives, machetes and hatchets. But it’s better to end here the list or I’ll seriously risk jail.

While writing this review, it seems as if the global economy is going down the shitter. And fast. Do you guys take part in my prayer and wish further A.I.D.S upon our shit system(s)? I would like to add that I think global depression and general despair is a bit too good to be fucking true, so I’m prepared to be disappointed yet again. I can’t help it, I just love the idea of smug cunts suddenly unable to pay their mortgage and rents, perhaps killing off their entire family because they no longer can afford a more expensive car than their neighbors. I fucking hate humans, how ‘bout you guys?

R: I don’t hate someone in particular. What I hate is our race congenital stupidity. It’s like a disease spreading and you can’t stop the virus. Or maybe you could stop it, but actually it seems impossible to me. I don’t know how things are going in Norway, but here in Italy they always get worst. As said in the movie “In the Mouth of Madness”, every species can smell its own extinction.

F: Capitalism gurus have been telling us in the last decades that everything get solved by itself in the world market, what a foolish statement. Look what’s going on now, Governments are trying to save the savable with their monetary interventions. The gap between poor and rich people even in Italy has become a chasm and as you said in the next years we will see all these happy families crumbling down with their load of debts, but still trying to appear as nothing went wrong in their life. It already happened in the past, and it could come back again. I would not fall with them that’s for sure. Western capitalism keeps an abyss hidden inside, and it can open wide easier than most of us think.

I have a quote here too… do you remember the final statement from the French movie La Haine? “Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good… so far so good… so far so good. How you fall doesn’t matter. It’s how you land!” I think this reflects well what’s going on now.

One bullet, one kill, then free to go. Who would it be spent on?

R: You, bastard!

F: That’s a too easy one. I’m just too narcissist to give my last bullet to someone different from myself.

Enough already, thanks as fuck for your effort and dedication.

Thanks to your for this sick interview! FREE YOUR NEED THROUGH THE THERAPY!