Interview Impious

Can you remain to us the story of Impious ?

Impious was formed by me and our singer Martin back in 1994. We’ve released two albums on Black Sun Records, one album and an EP on Hammerheart Records, and finally now we’re about to release Holy Murder Masquerade on Metal Blade Records. So this our 5^th full-length album.

How would you describe your music in your own words ?

Modern death trash with a lot of interesting stuff integrated.

Can you tell us more about your new album called « Holy Murder Masquerade » ?

Holy Murder Masquerade is a concept album, but with a twist. We’ve taken this concept thing a few steps further than any other band has done. We made the booklet like a comic book with 28 (!) pages. So the listener can actually listen to the music and follow the story visually. We hired this Italian horror comic artist who did the illustrations, and all the lyrics were inserted in those speech balloons, just like in a normal comic book. And to make it even more cool, we hired professional voice actors to play some of the characters in the story, which can be heard between some songs. It sounds like we’ve taken samples from real movies, but everything has been written and put together by us. It took us thousands and thousands of hours to create this thing, but I think it was worth it, because everybody tell us all the time how cool it turned out.

Who created the artwork ?

All the interior illustrations belonging to the comic was done by Andrea Cavaletto. He’s a very talented artist who does comics for a living. The cover for the album was done by a guy from the US called Justin Kamerer. He’s really known for making covers, poster and t-shirt designs. He has worked with artists like Black Sabbath, Slayer, Mudvane, Slipknot, etc, etc…

Can you speak to us about the recording sessions ?

The album was recorded at my own studio which is called Studio Deadline. Only the drums were recorded at Studio Mega, simply because the construction of my studio was not finished when it was time to start the recording.

How did you proceed for the composition ?

I normally write most of the music, and I always write it in my house. We are not really a band that writes songs while we rehearse. I usually write a few songs, and then I record them along to programmed drumbeats. These versions are very raw and not so polished. Then every member gets a CD-R with the songs before we start rehearsing on them. When we meet at rehearsal, everybody already knows the song and we save a lot of time and energy by doing it this way. Of course everybody comes with ideas and comments. Sometimes we change quite a lot, and sometimes we change nothing from the original version.

What are the lyrics talking about ? Where do you find inspiration ?

The lyrics are purely fictional and are mostly dealing with the darker side of mankind. Inspiration comes almost exclusively from movies… and of course from our own twisted minds.

What’s your favourite track on « Holy Murder Masquerade » and why ?

I think it’s Bloodcraft. I like it a lot because it’s so damn simple and nevertheless it doesn’t get boring. I think there’s only 3 riffs or something like that.

What are your favourite bands and all times albums ?

I can only speak for myself, and my favorite bands of all times are Metallica (Master Of Puppets), Slayer (Reign In Blood) and Testament (The Gathering). But I also listen to some non metal stuff. For example Frank Sinatra.

What's your opinion about the international metal scene ?

To be honest, I don’t know what to say. But of course the metal scene has grown extremely much the last years. I mean, Iron Maiden sold out an arena here in Sweden in just a few minutes… 50,000 tickets!!! This was for sure not possible 10 years ago.

You played with bands like Amon Amarth, The Black Dahlia Murder … What are your best memories?

We did two tours with Amon Amarth and that was really fun. They are great people and we kind of developed a “little brother/big brother relationship”. The Black Dahlia guys are great too, though a few years younger than us. Best memory would be the last time we went to Japan. It was so much fun, and the gig in Tokyo was totally crazy. The place was packed and the crowd was insane… just the way we love it.

Are there any plans for an upcoming tour ?

Not right now. All that’s planned is a gig at our release party in our hometown, and then in March we’re going to play a small festival in France. We really look forward to that. Recently we turned down a tour offer simply because it didn’t really fit us. So at the moment we’re waiting for the right tour offer to come up. We really can’t wait to hit the roads again, because playing live is what we love to do, and that’s were our music comes alive. After 13 years we’ve got pretty good at it.

Do you have funny or strange stories about the band you can share with us ?

Haha, there are tons of stories. But they are so dirty that I don’t dare to share them here! ;)

What are your projects for the future ?

Play live, live, live… we love it! We also hope to record a new album in the end of this year.

And as a conclusion, can you say some words for my radio show called Metal Choc ?

Thanx a lot for this interview! Keep on spreading metal over the radio to the masses, it’s definitely needed! Cheers, Valle

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