A few days ago you could read about the new Richard Von Sabeth album on this webzine. After that review, I had some questions so I did an interview with the kind man behind all this.
Hi, can you tell us about the merge from Spiral69 (please tell the readers who don’t know Spiral69 what the band is about) to your solo project? It feels like a great switch, right?
Spiral69 is a band that plays New Wave, active since 2007, with which I published 4 albums, 1 EP and made hundreds of concerts throughout Europe and the East, attended the most important Dark-Wave festivals around and collected a lot. You could say, they are my second family!
The choice to face a solo adventure was born simply to test my limits and express what I had inside differently ... a sort of session by a psychologist in music.
Why especially this name Richard Von Sabeth, what’s the story behind the name?
It's actually a funny story ...I've always enjoyed traveling and I've found a second home in Berlin ...my friends nicknamed me "Richard Von Sabeth" just for joking with me because it sounded like a German name ...and I decided to adopt it for my solo project.
Funeral Party reminded me a bit of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal and the perfectfuneral track for Marilyn Manson, what do you think of this? Somehow I thought it was time for Manson to leave the music scene and leave it up for other and more inspired people.
There is lot of drama in "Funeral Party", Brecht might be one of my inspirations definitely ... regarding Manson, I think it's gone down by a lot…I think its peak was when he had Trent Reznor behind him ... there was something good even in "Mechanical Animals" ... but I think they were excerpts of the previous work ... I liked him as an artist, but now he seems a little too much his own parody.
Petrichor is my favorite track on the album, what’s the story behind the track and the real content of the song?
It's an autobiographical song, almost three years ago I came out of a relationship that left me devastated in every aspect. This compromised everything in my life and the path to recovery was very long. The hymn "Love, Die, Reborn" I think is a perfect synthesis of this whole story and also a mantra to be repeated in these cases.
Could it be that Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio, The Cure, Nince Inch Nails, David Bowie and Silke Bisschof inspired you (the biggest artist within their musical reach)? Who are your musical heroes?
You have fully hit my references, Nince Inch Nails and David Bowie on everyone. These two artists are definitely my "heroes" .. they have put my life in their own way and taught a lot with their music. I love them totally.
Your voice mixes in a very intriguing way sweetness and bitterness: what is your most loved part?
I have the syndrome that John Lennon had on his voice, in the past I absolutely did not like it, nor did I listen to the idea of having to sing ...then over time I learned to love it and use it to express myself…I can’t choose between my "bright" or "dark" side.
Why only 9 tracks? I would love to hear more tracks (I say this in a positive way)? Why wasn’t Sweet Harmony on the album?
As you know, "Sweet Harmony" is a cover of The Beloved, I enjoyed the idea of playing that song of my adolescence (in fact we have included in the live set list) but it is very far from the general concept of the album .. .
The fact that there are only 9 tracks, is because I preferred to include the best of what I've scripted in recent years ... but I'm already working on some other songs, so in a few months I could decide to publish new single.
How was it to work on the video of The Taste? Where was it shot? It looks a bit like Berlin?
It was filmed in Berlin, primarily because as I said before, it is a second home, second because the video is a tribute to "Der Himmel über Berlin" by Wim Wenders ... so it was the only place where I could shoot it.
Is directing a video something you really love? How did you do the trick of the colors falling down during the Agony clip?
I love cinema, it's my second passion in fact I attended the university of cinema ... I like to give an image to my music that reflects what I have inside. The video of Agony was an experiment, I tried to create an increasingly growing climax only with visual effects… is a sort of visual art performance
inspired by the works of Bill Viola and David Lynch, and I wanted to convey the listener to enter the inner mood of self-awareness through the overlapping of images, colors and visual ghosts.
The effect of the color that falls is simple post production, it was all shot on green screen
What will the future bring? A new release? More gigs?
Now I will focus on the promotion of the album and on the upcoming gigs, I hope I can play his work live as much as possible, also because I have an incredible band formed by Andrea Freda and Daniele Raggi of the Spiritual Front.
How big is the Italian Gothic-Rock scene?
There are many artists but few supporters ... the Goth scene is slowly disappearing unfortunately and the concerts are less and less crowded.
What’s on your bucket list for the near future?
I want to make this album known to as many people as possible, I've worked on this for over two years and I think deserves a chance.
Thank you for the interview and we do our best to pass the message!
