RAVENWORD: Italy’s symphonic power metal band

25 Shares

Ravenword: Power Symphonic Metal

Interview conducted on March 15, 2020

by Dan Locke

Symphonic power metal band RavenWord has signed a worldwide deal with Rockshots Records to release their one-time studio album, «Transcendence», on January 31.Inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe’s novel «The Raven», the Milan, Italy, based band was originally formed in 2007 by the mind of keyboardist and composer Davide Scuteri – Artist Page (Choirs Of Veritas). After several years of activity, which included a self-titled demo, the band went on a brief hiatus, re-grouping in 2016 when singer Chiara Tricarico (Sound Storm, Moonlight Haze), drummer Michele MikyMetal Olmi (Chronosfear, Skeleeton) and bass/guitar player Cesare Ferrari (Choirs Of Veritas) joined the band, in order to create a one-time studio album that embodies the whole history of the band.

Dan Locke: How did you get the band together?

Davide: The current lineup includes Chiara Tricarico (Moonlight Haze, Sound Storm) on vocals (and she also wrote all the lyrics), Cesare Ferrari on guitar and bass, Michele Olmi (Chronosfear, SkeleToon) on drums and me on keyboards.
I already had the pleasure to work with Chiara during the most active years (in terms of live shows) of RavenWord (from 2012 to 2014) and to collaborate with Cesare during the recordings of my other project Choirs of Veritas.

Why was your name inspired by the novel “The Raven”?

D: I formed the band Ravenword when I was 19 and then I also wrote most of the songs, and in those years I was a great fan of Edgar Allan Poe and in general, I liked a lot of romantic and decadent poetries of that time. I liked a lot his concept about the inner fight to reach a love condition with a consequent state of eternal joy. A lot of poets wrote about this topic, like for example Novalis, Leopardi, Dante and so on, but the style of Poe was like an arrow that directly hit my heart.
For this reason, the name Ravenword is inspired by his famous novel “The Raven”. My aim was to establish a cross-reference to the typical poetic themes of his works and, from this, a further cross-reference to the style of our music.

Have you ever heard Alan Parson Project version of The Raven?

D: Never listened to that song before, sorry… But I will check it out for sure!

Since your band is from Milan Italy, I am going to ask you about some other bands from the area. I would like you to say something about each if possible.

Lacuna Coil, Crookers, Gala, Elis, Jacula, Stormy Six, Macbeth

D: I think they are old bands from Milan, and in fact, I know only Lacuna Coil who is maybe the most famous Italian metal band.
Instead, it’s funny because Stormy Six are the band of my teacher of literature when I studied at High School: Prof. Umberto Fiori, who was also the singer of that band, but they didn’t play metal for sure (haha)

You just release the single “No More”, the first single from your upcoming album “Transcendence”. Coming out on Jan. 31, 2020 on Rockshots Records. Why did you release that track first?

D: We both (I mean, both the band and the Record Company) thought it was a very good track as the first single because No More is a mix of Symphonic Metal and Power metal, it highlights Chiara’s voice and also to our instrumental sections.

I saw a version of Lullaby of the Last Petal on line. How will the final version different from the one online?

D: Yeah, the version you’ve seen online was a home-made video in 2014 where I played the very first piano parts of the song, which was just a piano song.
This is the way I usually compose: first I write the piano parts, and then the vocal melodies and orchestrations. In this way, the song is changed from 2014.

The album was years (over 6) in the making. Why so long?

D: We worked for the making of the album from 2016 to 2020. I guess the reason is that we actually had no rush: our aim was to create a good album and to obtain the best possible result. And I really think we succeeded in that!

Chiara- How did you get into the band? You have been in so many bands before Ravenword?

C: not so many bands, actually!

About the way, I joined RavenWord…I don’t remember exactly how that happened, but I think that it was Davide to contact me. I joined the band for a couple of rehearsals and then I was asked to join them permanently.

Are you planning a tour behind the album?

D: We don’t have plans to tour yet, because every member of this project is already involved in tours with their other bands, but I’d like a lot to travel the whole world to spread my music.

What would be your dream tour?