Interview With Domina Noctis

Domina Noctis is an Italian gothic metal band that has been creating music for a few years now. With "Second Rose" they achieved a very mature album that will surely get them noticed in the metal world.

Infernal Masquerade: Hello and thanks for the interview, let’s get started with the questions, shall we?

Your last album “Second rose” was released in December 2008, can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Domina Noctis: “Second Rose” is a melodic rock cd with a twist of electronic sound… It collects 10 songs, and we feel like they’re all petals of a rose, shades of of the same color. Since it’s our second work, it’s our “Second Rose”, our second precious thing. These songs are about passion and dreams, suggestions from fairytales, mermaids, myths… I tried to express these concepts from my lyrics to the visual artwork of the cd. As you can see, blue is “our” color…

I.M: How is the promotion of the album going? I’ve noticed on your website that you had very few live shows in the past year, what are the reasons behind this?

D.N: During 2008 we had few live shows because the songwriting process and the recordings took a lot of time and energy, so we decided to slow down the live activity for a while. Since the album was released in December, the promotion actually started in January, with gigs, interviews, podcastings etc.
The promotion is going really good, thanks to our label (Black Fading Records) and management (Alkemist Fanatix), and sure we keep on promoting our music on Myspace, Facebook and Youtube, great tools for a band nowadays.

I.M: Are you going to continue with your current label (Black Fading Records)? Or are you looking for a bigger label?

D.N: We enjoyed working with Cristiano Santini (Black Fading) and we hope to continue this collaboration, however if a bigger label will be interested in our band and work it would be great, and Cristiano would be definitely happy for us!

I.M: I’ve noticed that in your last 2 releases you have cover songs in each one, are there any other covers your band plays on live performances? Or are those planed for a future album?

D.N: Covers are a really good way to bring your sound in a more direct way: playing a song that people already know, people can focus on the band’s sound.
We also used to play during gigs “Say just words” by Paradise Lost and “Devil’s Plaything” by Danzig. We recorded “It’s on me” by Pyogenesis (included in “Nocturnalight”), and “Because the night” and “Bang Bang” (both included in “Second Rose”) because they were special songs for us. “Because the night” was the first song I sang when Asher and I started to play together. We always wanted to personalize it with our sound. “Bang Bang” was a simple, short and famous song we always listened to when we were kids.
We’re still looking for a cover for the next album, we just have some ideas… We accept suggestions!

I.M: How do you guys describe the evolution of your music since the band got together in 1999?

D.N: We started writing our first composition with a very intimate and romantic sound… “Nocturnalight” is more slow, melodic, and yet more classically metal in some way. After the release of Nocturnalight we’ve been working on the new songs in a different way: we try to compose more powerful, simple, direct songs, our sound became more rock and modern, adding some electronic sound too, though we’re still very melodic.

I.M: Of all the songs in you albums, what song do you consider the most special for you and why?

D.N: I feel a lot of affection for all the songs in this album, every song represent a moment in my life during the past few years, so it’s hard for me to pick one, but if I have to, it would be “Exile”. This song represent my deepest emotions and it means a lot to me: the lyrics are precious to me, my inner world condensed into a song.

I.M: Where do you see Domina Noctis in 5 years?

D.N: Well who can tell? We simply whish to still be on the square playing the music we love.

I.M: How is the Italian metal scene these days? I would imagine that after the commercial success of Lacuna Coil there would be other bands following their path, what is your opinion on this?

D.N: I must say that this is an overestimated topic in the metal scene…. I’ll try to express my opinion once for all, anyway. I think that Lacuna Coil opened a path for many female fronted bands, but there are many issues related to this… First of all, people think that if a band plays gothic metal and has a female singer, this means that the band is trying to become a copy of Lacuna Coil. This is basically like saying that just because a band has got synths is trying to become like Depeche Mode! But I’ve never heard anybody saying such thing.

I.M: Are there any bands you would like to record something with (either as a special guest or one of the band members as a special guest of that band)?

D.N: Well actually I’ve been recently recording some guest vocals on the upcoming album of an italian band named In Tormentata Quiete: it was a wonderful collaboration and I hope the new songs will be online on myspace soon. I personally would love to record a duet along with Herr Morbid from Forgotten Tomb (the band in which Asher, our guitarist, plays drums): maybe there will be a chance in the next Domina Noctis’ album!

I.M: Any interesting stories about a live performance that went bad? Or something weird that happened while you, guys, were performing?

D.N: 99% of the times we have something going bad, like the drummer’s metronome that stops working 2 minutes before the show, stage monitors buzzing only during the show (but not during the sound check!) etc… I have to say something that maybe most of the people ignore: singers never can hear what they sing during a gig. Assume this. Never heard my voice properly during a show.

I.M: Are any of the band members involved in other bands or music related projects?

D.N: As I said before, Asher is also the drummer in Forgotten Tomb; Niko plays drums in Noctiluca (rock/noise band); Asher and Azog play in some tribute band for fun (a Misfits tribute band for example).

I.M: Any local bands you would like to recommend to our readers?

D.N: We’ll take this chance to suggest some deserving bands: Kalevala, Forgotten Tomb, Noctiluca, Winter Haze, Scarecrown, just to mention a few of them. Please google them or search for them on myspace!

I.M: I’ve seen that you have toured in Italy and you, guys, had a few shows in Russia, what do you think about the fans in Russia compared to the fans in Italy? What other places would you, guys, be ‘extra’ interested in touring?

D.N: The russian audience was very warm and passionate, we loved them!! Italian audience looks a little more static and cold, but we had great feed back in Italy too.
We’d love to tour anywhere, we don’t really have limits on this: it will be a great experience to take our music out of Italy once again, and we hope we’ll have of course the chance to return to Russia to promote the new album.

I.M: Thanks for your time, and everybody at Infernal Masquerade wishes Domina Noctis the best of luck in all future endeavors. Anything else you want to add?

Enjoy Second Rose, find it on Amazon.com or Itunes, and remember to join our Official Myspace Fanpage USA! Horns up!

Check out this band's myspace here

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