Interview

With the release of the new Trick or Treat album 'Rabbit's Hill', and having Ale Conti touring with Rhapsody, it was unacceptable for me to meet him (again) for a brand new interview.

First of all, welcome and thank you for this interview.

Welcome to you, nice to meet you again.

The first question is not about Trick or Treat (ndlr: ToT) but about Rhapsody. So, how’s your life since they announced you are the singer of Rhapsody. Have you been contacted by more people, do you have more opportunities for some things…?

Yes, it’s quite different with Rhapsody than with Trick or Treat of course. The music of Rhapsody is more serious and epic than ToT of course, but also the live show and its approach. The people will be different because you know, with ToT the shows will be funny and we put a lot of energy in that way. For Rhapsody, I have to think more about the lyrics, the atmosphere, we have a set list to follow and respect. And it’s really different with ToT, because sometimes we just change the set list and play what we want to.

Are you scared about the reaction of the fans? I mean, singing one stage songs like ‘Emerald Sword’ or even Luca Turilli’s songs like ‘The Ancient Forest of Elves’.

I know that Fabio (Lione) and Olaf (Hayer) have a lot of fans and probably someone will be disappointed by my performance. It could happened but I’m not afraid about it, but I hope that a lot of people will be happy my performance. We had two weeks of rehearsals, here in Annecy, and try again and again. And I think that the show will be pretty good; we have a lot of great songs taken from the first Rhapsody album (ndlr: Legendary Tales) and from the first Luca’s solo album (ndlr: King of the Nordic Twilight). I’m really happy to sing these songs, because you know it, I’m a big fan of Rhapsody from the first album in 1997.

So how does it feel to be on stage, playing with Luca?

It’s great because Luca is really kind and we have a good feeling, a good energy on stage. And also as a newcomer, like Alex Landenburg and Mikko (Harkin) for this tour; it’s crazy to play with him ‘coz I was a fan of Sonata Arctica ten years ago. And now I’m playing with him, that’s just incredible for me.

So, now we gonna talk about the new ToT album ‘Rabbit’s Hill’ which was released a few weeks ago in Japan and gonna be released on November 26th in Europe. This is a concept album which is divided in two parts, and you said that you were working on this album for a while. So why have you choose to release it now and not later or so.

The idea of the album is really old, and we wanna wrote something about the book ‘Rabbit’s Hill’. We thought about it even before the two albums. We are really fan of the book and the movie, especially me and Cabri (ndlr: the guitar player). That’s a book we do like a lot and we were saying that one day we will record something about it but we were not ready. So we released ‘Evil needs candy too’ which was funny, and with a lot of energy inside. After, ‘Tin Soldiers’ was more mature I think, and then we played kind of hundred concerts in Europe; opening for Stratovarius and Helloween. Then we came back home we thought it was the right time to record the ‘Rabbit’s Hill’ album. At the beginning we were thinking about one album, and we started to write the songs. On and on, we understood we had too many songs and we had to divide it in two parts like the Helloween’s Keepers (laughs). The second part is already written, some stuff is already recorded. Doing a double album would be insane for us: too much stuff to record, too much money, too much time in the studio etc. So we split the album in two parts. The second part is almost ready and we are very proud of what we’ve done. That’s the album we wanted to record since the beginning of the idea.

Once again, you draw the cover of the album. And we still have this central part with a kind of good guy / animal and all around we have bad guys / animals with red eyes. Can you tell us why?

Well, I don’t know, that’s a good question. I didn’t think about it. But for the cover I was of course inspired by the movie. And you have to watch the movie when you have time and it’s a fantastic one for us. The movie came out in 1978, in the Walt Disney era. Looks like a Disney movie but the author put inside a lot of scary, psychedelic stuff. I took the inspiration from and painted the cover and the booklet layout as well, using photoshop / tablets and new stuff like that; but I was also inspired from Tim Burton and Del Toro’s movies with these mysterious worlds. The cover for the second part is already done and when it’s gonna be released, you’ll be able to join the two covers together.

Two days ago, you put online the first single ‘False Paradise’, with a song close to the old ToT’ style but also putting some new and mature stuff. But you have done it as a video clip like you did with the previous albums.

No, we’ll do a video next year for another song. About the song, we wrote it Cabri and I. I had the vocal lines and Cabri bring the melodies and the arrangements, not forgetting Leo and Luca of course. Cabri worked a lot on the atmosphere and on that acoustic part. The song is about the Mother Rabbit inside her warren and she’s trapped. The song is pretty cool ‘coz we have a typical power metal mid tempo, with a lot of choirs and I like these choirs. For ‘Evil needs candy too’ and ‘Tin soldiers’, I’ve sang all the choirs by myself and it’s not the best thing for me and for the album. This time we had Damnagoras from Elvenking, Fabio Dessi from Arthemis and Sonia Pessentini, a nice singer from our town and it’s much better than before. And the beginning of the song is a bit different than some other power metal songs. We put more arrangements as an example that remembers me Cinderella or the Foo Fighters.

The album is also really different than the two previous ones. I mean, the first five or six songs are evolving each time in a different style. We’re starting with the intro, then a speed metal song, followed by a folk one, a heavy one, an aggressive one and then a power one with ‘False Paradise’. And that always changing, far away from the first albums which were more straight like speed happy metal with a one or two ballads.

That’s what we wanted to do for this album. It’s easier because the album is a concept and we have to respect the atmosphere. For ‘Premonition’ as an example, in the movie or the book and because of the fever, the Rabbit sees a hill covered by blood on his dream and he’s understanding that something is happening. The song is also inspired by Ronnie James Dio and Black Sabbath’s atmosphere. Then we used some other kinds of music for ‘Wrong turn’, ‘Prince with a 1000 enemies’ as an example to follow the concept. We made what we had in our mind and we’re totally happy about what we’ve done. Without forgetting the ballad in the end which is cover taken from the original movie.

Now you have Andre Matos as a guest on ‘Prince with a 1000 enemies’. How does it feel do get him. I mean that’s one of your idols. Not speaking of Michael Kiske and Michele Luppi you had for ‘Tin Soldiers’. How the contact was?

It was easy because Andre played with Clairvoyants in Italy for a couple of gigs two years ago I think. So we met him and he is really kind and nice person. We contacted him directly and we send the song by e-mail, like we did with Michael Kiske. I hope one day we’ll play some gigs with him in Italy or somewhere in Europe.

What about this song ‘SassoSpasso’ which is just miles away from the others but just so good, mixing this jazzy and bluesy feeling?!

That’s Leo’s idea. Is playing some funny and good bass solo during our gigs, with tapings etc. So we thought that could be great to have that kind of music in the story. And ‘SassoSpasso’ represents the part of the book where the rabbit is playing with a stone (Sasso in Italian) hidden by a cup, you know the one where you have to find where the stone is between the three glasses (laughs). So we were like, ok, put something crazy and I think he will play it on stage.

For ‘Tin Soldiers’ you toured with Helloween. Are you planning a big new tour to promote this album?

We hope. We’re not sure about how long I’ll be on the road with Rhapsody, which is the priority now, but after we do hope and we’ll plan some gigs in Europe with a super band hopefully.

Well, we reached the end of the interview. Feel free to conclude and to say whatever you want to the fans.

I hope to see you during the Rhapsody tour, thank you for being here again and see you soon. Stay happy!