RAVENSCRY first made a mark on the world in 2011 with their debut album,One Way Out,
Interview conducted on July 13, 2020
By Dan Locke
The female-fronted, melodic metal band is launching back onto the global metal scene with the highly anticipated100. Featuring dramatically soaring vocals, bone-shaking rhythms and dark songwriting, for nearly a decade this fierce group has been hooking millions of listeners worldwide with their infectious anthems. Their first album in three years,100 attests to RAVENSCRY’s bold return. With more energy, more melody and even smarter lyrics,100 stays true to the core of RAVENSCRY’s sound while remaining accessible enough to hook even more new listeners. Sincere, intelligent and brutally honest — the album sums up the human experience to a tee, from epic highs to soul-crushing lows.
RAVENSCRY is:
Giulia Stefani – Vocals
Mauro Paganelli – Guitar
Federico Schiavoni – Guitar
Andrea “Fagio” Fagiuoli – Bass
Simone “Simon” Carminati – Drums
What is your upbringing?
Well, we live in Italy! The educational system here tries to force you to graduate and pursue a job that isn’t related to music. This is quite weird given the fact that Italy has a huge musical heritage from the past: in fact, the only musical career that’s been accepted here is in classical studies… at least when we wanted to become professionals (right now it’s a little easier). So, each one of us had to struggle with these Italian cultural obstacles in order to make a career out of modern music, especially rock and metal.
How did you discover music?
In Italy pop and classical music are rather widespread, so we had contacts with music since we were little kids and also music is part of our educational system until the middle school. The hard thing actually was to discover rock and metal music. When we were teens, we all felt that rock-metal music was a way to express our creativity and inner energy. So, we started to walk alone on this path and started to practice with our instruments. This happened until we found some friends crazy enough to share this passion with us and to deeply believe in it. And that’s how we finally met each other and became bandmates.
How did you start to write music?
After playing covers and music from other bands you just want more from yourself and something inside you needs to express energy, feelings, and emotions into music. Sometimes ideas come out improvising with the instruments, sometimes daily life just gives you thoughts, inspiration, or reasons to write music and lyrics. A certain thing is that once you start writing you never get enough it.
Giulia- How long have you been playing piano? I saw your video from March 17, 2020.
I do not play piano; I pretend to play it! I’m using it as a support instrument when singing and I started using it 5 or 6 years ago, even if you can’t tell since I can only play like basic chords…
How the band did get its name?
Paul, the founder of the band, got this name from a book of Preston Child. He found this name in the middle of the book and he liked it so much that he took it as the perfect cue to start the project.
Giulia- You have a lot of projects going on. What are some of the other projects you are working on right now?
I have no other projects at the moment besides Ravenscry because my daughter is needing all my attention right now! We will see in the future about those!
In 2014, your band spearheaded a campaign to raise awareness about violence against women. How do you feel how it helped the Me-Too Movement?
It was just our humble contribution and attempt to raise awareness about the matter. As a female front metal band, we wanted to get our listeners into the feelings and the emotions that a woman can feel when she has to face this issue. So, we wrote the song “Alive” with the intent that anyone who listens to it could perceive this point of view almost from the inside. We think (and hope) that at least our fans and a good part of the rock-metal community got a glimpse of this feeling and opened a little more their eyes (and mind) about violence against women.
How was the International Women’s Day for you?
The International Women’s Day is always kinda weird for us: we live it as a paradox! It’ s good that at least there is an International Day devoted to this matter, but at the same time, it’s also strange that we all need an international day to think about it. We really hope that we won’t need it anymore as soon as possible, because equality should be normal and not something extraordinary.
Why did you go with the name 100 for your new album?
It’s a secret! We would like that our fans could find it out themselves. 😀
Why did it take you 3 years to make the album?
Because making a good album is not easy, it’s a complex process. We decided to take our time to write new songs that can surprise our fans and get new ones!
If we made an album every year, maybe it wouldn’t have been the same.
What is your favorite track on the album?
Well, we all agree that “Maybe”, the song chosen as the first single, is the more meaningful for us. We like it for the sound but especially for the lyrics: it talks about resilience and we think that is a skill we all need in these crazy times. We wrote it many months before the pandemic crisis and it turned out to be the perfect song to give some hope to our fans and listeners. This coincidence made it even more special to us.
How do you stay healthy while touring?
We usually practice some light workout to keep ourselves in shape, but not too much because we don’t want to get tired before going on the stage. Also, we try to eat as much as possible fresh fruit and vegetables. At the same time, we don’t drink too much beer and alcohol unless we are on a day-off… at least we try, because on tour is always so much easier to find beer and junk food than fresh fruit and vegetables! 😀
What are your feelings about streaming music?
We are not against streaming music: thanks to the digital platforms there’s a way to spread music much more easily than in the past and for every listening, the artist can receive a bit of royalty. It’s much more better than illegal music download or CD burning. On the other hand, the old-fashioned physical copy can give to fans and collectors a totally different experience: you can enjoy the pleasure to hold the package in your hands, read the lyrics from the booklet, and appreciate the artwork. It’s more complete. So probably, due to this fact, streaming services won’t make totally disappear music on physical supports.
Digital vs. Vinyl?
For audio quality? …absolutely Vinyl! However, digital is very comfortable for listening to anything you want wherever you are with your phone.
Any plans to tour after the lockdown?
Yes, right now we’re working with a booking agency to plan a European tour for the next spring. The intent is to promote our new album “100”, but we haven’t anything confirmed yet. We need to be sure that there won’t be another global lockdown. We hope to get back on the road soon!
Giulia- how is your new baby doing? And how many bodyguards (dogs) do you have?
Oh, she is extremely good thank you! Also, she is very safe with her bodyguards Ettore and Pachino, two dogs that are extremely jealous and do not permit to anyone to go near her. Lucky her!
What song from the past is in your mind right now? And what is the meaning that song means to you?
Mm, good question! At this very moment for sure we are all thinking about “Hypermnesia” from our third album “The Invisible”. This because is the first song that we used to play during our last tours. The intro of “Hypermnesia” meant showtime for us and since we really miss the stage right now thinking of that song is almost like coming back on it. At least with our imagination and memory.
How bad has Covid-19 been for you?
We think that the Covid-19 has been bad for every musician, band, and artist all over the world.
As a band with a new album coming out, we had to make choices about whether if actually releasing it or not.
We also knew very well that the pandemic was (and still is) really tough for our fans as well. So, we decided to release the album anyway, in order to relieve their boredom or even the pain (for what is possible).
Of course, we had to postpone our promoting tour, and we had a lot of issues as musicians: that was bad, but we tried to get the best that we can from the situation and do at least something good for our followers.
So, we gave our people more material to enjoy and we also increased our interaction: for example, we are releasing all the “Making Of” videos of our latest songs and we are doing some live chats and interviews via Facebook. Since everybody gave us very good feedback, probably we got on the right path.
Our will is to keep going on in this way.
How do you feel the Covid-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
Probably it will affect live shows. Maybe there will be more checking and fewer people to live shows to prevent a new pandemic of course.
Anyway, once all this crisis ends, there will be more hunger for live music: the audience will have to choose between a lot of concerts to which attend.
At the same time, lot of artists and bands took advantage of the quarantine to improve their media skills and to work on the communication side: probably these artists will have more chances and opportunities than others working with the old offline style.
What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?
As just said, basically we focused on promoting the album online. But we also practiced a lot with our instruments and we did some music lessons via skype for our students (we are all teachers). We also had the chance to get in touch with some old friends, and especially some people that worked with us in the past. Actually, we also took this as an occasion to involve them in some live chats on our Facebook page and Youtube channel. We had a lot of special guests such as Timo Somers (Delain), Justine Daaè (Elyose), Kieran Robertson (Operation: Mindcrime), Dan Baune (Monument), Jasio Kulakowski (Kobra And The Lotus), our graphic designer Mario Nevado (Aegis-Strife), our video director Salvatore Perrone, and so on. This was really fun and by the way, we are still planning these kinds of live chats. Stay tuned because we will have more interesting guests to come!
Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?
Due to this intense promotion activity we didn’t have so much time to discover new hobbies. Anyway some of us got the chance to read more than the usual, to improve some cooking skills, to do some home workout, to meditate or to write some new music. And of course we all discovered some new tv series.
Lots of people are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In April you did a self-quarantine video for the song “Maybe”, which was for the United Nations Foundation. Are you planning to do it again?
It was something that we did specifically to raise money for the people who fought against the Ccoronavirus situation during the early months of the pandemic. Probably we’ll do it again if that will be necessary to help someone.
Do you think it will be possible to make a living doing concerts this way?
Uhm, probably no. Right now, in a lockdown situation, somebody could raise some funds to help his/her music activity, but nothing more. Once all this will be ended, people will totally prefer to watch shows live than behind a screen. Anyway, live shows could also be supported more and more by a streaming service, so probably this solution will give an extra option to reinforce the traditional way of performing. Who knows? We’ll see.
First it was an article in the New York Times, then Rolling Stones talked about it and finally Live Nation CEO said that concerts may not start again until fall of 2021. Do you think this could happen?
We hope not, but this could happen if there won’t be a cure for the virus. As we just did, we’ll find out another way to make the music going on.
What about Holographic concerts in our living room?
It sounds like something from “Back to the Future”, isn’t it? It could be interesting, but we prefer real concerts! We want a human, warm interaction with our fans and friends.
How do you see yourself in the next five years?
In the next five years, we see ourselves on the road, playing our music for our amazing fans, and having good moments with good people around the world! And maybe we will release a new album… who knows?
Anything you would like to say in closing?
Thank you so much for having us and we hope this situation will end as soon as possible. Meanwhile, take care of yourself and listen to the music, which it’s the best thing right now! Stay home, stay strong, and stay Raven!
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