Interview with Stigma - Vlad

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Infernal Masquerade: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions and let’s get started:

Vlad: Thanks man! I'm Vlad, lead singer in STIGMA

I.M: The band started in 2000, with what mission in mind did this group of individuals got together? What main influences did you guys started with?

Yes we started back then, even if we were very young at that time, so for the first couple of years we basically just played local shows covering Raised Fist songs and writing our first own ones. I started this band with the only purpose of writing and performing the music I love, then things become more serious and now I'm here struggling to make this our full time job!!

At the beginning we were mostly influenced by Raised Fist and maybe a small twist of Refused, we were also listening a lot to Stampin' Ground, but we weren't good enough to play their songs ahah!! Things changed, both as influences and bands purposes, after our first line up change in 2002, with that line up we wrote our first EP and started doing this seriously!

I.M: How do think the band has evolved in all your years together (both musically and lyrically)?

It changed a lot, actually! We started from a common hardcore background, then moving it to something closer to grindcore, this on our first two EPs, then our melodic death metal passion came out and we started mixing it with our first sound. Lyrics wise, well, at the beginning I had a very classic hardcore approach to that, mainly talking about our lives, then I decided to go deeper and deeper into one of our common passions: horror!

Our first album was a concept on early horror classic movies, like "Nosferatu, "Dracula", White Zombie" and many more, on our new one, "Concerto For The Undead", we focused on our favorite "Tales From The Crypt" stories and wrote a whole album around that theme!

I.M: “Concerto for the undead” is the band’s second full length release, can you tell us more about the concept behind this album (if no concept, tell us please about the lyrics)?

Yes of course, as I told you this record is a concept based on "Tales From The Crypt", so everything, from music to the artwork, is totally based to the legendary Ec comic. Back when we started jamming for this new record we sat down in our practice room and wrote down titles of our favorite stories out of that comic, then I started working on lyrics, mainly telling the stories, or focusing on some aspects of them I like the most. I think the result is very good, expecially cause I'm pretty sure "Tales From The Crypt" fans will recognize the stories!

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I.M: Having Melodic Death Metal influences, the band’s sound incorporate more modern elements as well. How did you guys forged your particular style of music?

This is just the result of us and our personal influences, which now ranges from our drummer's devotion to mathcore to my passion for Dissection. We work as a team on every song structure, then everyone comes in with his own line and this is what comes out!

I.M: Stigma has performed at Wacken and Metalcamp, before you guys even released your first full-length album, why do you think the band had such honors at such an early ‘age’?

We've always being an hard working band, honestly, we really love doing this music and always looks for chances to spread our sound to new people. We won a national contest who made us play Wacken, as for Metalcamp we got invited by their team, those are some great memories for us, even if we were still pretty raw playing live, I hope we'll get the chance to play there again in the future!

I.M: The Italian scene in the recent years has been producing strong bands like Fomento among others. As a typical characteristic, most of the new bands have a very strong attitude, and decided to not fully copy Metalcore and similar genres. What do you think sparked this creative movement and made bands push for a different direction?

Italy is a different country to live in if you play this type of music, nearly no chances to grow and a lot of envy making things worse, but, of course, as you said, we got sick bands, most of them being where they are after a long path of sacrifice and devotion to their music. We don't have tours starting from our country, don't have very top class labels and we have a very xenophile type of audience, so we have to do something original if we wan't to cut our room in our scene as well gaining the reputation you need to have if you want to make it out of Italy.

I.M: Having a clear Horror movie influence, can you tell us about which movies have scared you to death and are on your top 10 of all time?

I remember having an hard time with Lucio Fulci's movies, as well "The House Of 1000 Corpses", then Dario Argento's "Profondo Rosso" was really scary as well! I don't have a top 10, but I can honestly tell you the first "Dracula" is still at the top of my list, the pure romantic atmospheres and genuine fear of that movie is one of my greatest passions!

I.M: Any touring planned in support for “Concerto for the undead”?, maybe some US shows, since your label Pivotal Rockordings is US based?

We're working hard on Europe at the moment, we'll tour the UK then hopefully the rest of Europe right after the summer, then we just signed to Stomp in Australia, so we're working on going there as well! No plans yet for a US run, but we'll definitely try to make it there, it's one of our dreams for sure!

I.M: If you guys had unlimited budget for a live performance, what do you think you would use to bring the full Stigma concept to life?

I'd call Rob Zombie and tell him to do whatever he wants with us! Ahah! I love his style and atmospheres of his movies, then probably I'd ask some help to Freddie Francis or someone who worked on the "Tales From The Crypt" series, just to make sure we'll pay the right tribute to the concept ahah!

I.M: Anything else you want to add for your followers and our readers?

Thanks for giving me the chance to tell you more about us! You shall preorder our album on our webstore, there's also a pretty sick contest running at the moment!

For more info: http://www.myspace.com/stigmahc and http://www.stigmahc.com/

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