{"id":3543,"date":"2015-10-18T21:02:42","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T19:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powerofmetal.dk\/?p=3543"},"modified":"2015-10-24T20:17:53","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T18:17:53","slug":"interview-with-guitarist-francesco-artusato-of-devil-you-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsite.powerofmetal.dk\/interviews\/interview-with-guitarist-francesco-artusato-of-devil-you-know","title":{"rendered":"Interview with guitarist Francesco Artusato of DEVIL YOU KNOW"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DevilYouKnow-Logo\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Congrats on the new album! While listening to it and \u201cThe Beauty Of Destruction\u201d last year, I realized that nothing seems impossible for Devil You Know. But in your opinion, what separates \u201cThey Bleed Red\u201d from your previous release?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First of all, thanks for your compliments! I think it\u2019s just an overall more aggressive and raw sounding record. Obviously, there are still a lot of different elements in a song, but I feel like all in all, the vibe is just a little more angry and harsh. That was a thing we discussed before we started working on the record. It was everybody\u2019s intention to get a record like that.<\/p>\n

Although the fans are used to much diversity on a Devil You Know album, is there a particular song or twist on the new album that will surprise the fans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A very special song for me and also one of my favorites on the record is track seven, \u201cLet The Pain Take Hold\u201d. I love everything about that song, the way we worked on it and just the way it happened, lyrically and the vocals. It is obviously something different and it\u2019s not easy to write a song like that. It was a big challenge for us. But to me, this shows some different elements and it was really cool to have the freedom to do that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

I was going to mention \u201cLet The Pain Take Hold\u201d \u2013 you guys released slower, calmer songs in the past, but this one actually sounds like a real ballad. Can you tell me more about how it came together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One day, I woke up and was like \u201cI really want to have a song like this!\u201d and I had the structure in my mind. So I started working on it and then, I remember, I had some instrumental demos which I sent to John \u2013 he loved the song \u2013 then we showed it to Howard. The stuff that\u2019s going on and the structure make it a challenging song for sure, but when we started working on it with the producer, it just kept getting better and better. We were like, \u201cHoly crap, this is awesome!\u201d Seriously, the first time Howard was recording in the studio and when he was singing the vocal melody that comes after the guitars, I was shaking. The feeling after we did all this was just awesome.<\/p>\n

\"DevilYouKnow2015a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Because Devil You Know is a rather young band, you had loads of songwriting freedom for the first album. Did you feel limited to write music in a certain style this time, now that people are familiar with the band\u2019s sound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting: With the first record, it\u2019s true, we had freedom, because it was the first time being in a band and writing a record, but there were so many people trying to tell us what we should do, like \u201cOh, Howard should sound like this on the record, because it\u2019s his big comeback\u201d etc. and it was kind of frustrating. This time, part of the deal was to not get anybody involved in this, it would be just the band and the producer in the studio and the others would hear the record once it was done and they\u2019d better like it (laughs). This way, we had 100 percent freedom. We actually have an acoustic song among the bonus tracks and I remember telling the label about it and they asked me \u201cAre you sure this is a good idea?\u201d and I told them \u201cTrust me, it\u2019s going to sound awesome\u201d and it does. Honestly, I\u2019m a fan of so much different music and my favorite metal bands are the ones that incorporate all the different styles and genres. To me, it\u2019s so awesome to listen to such a record \u2013 you do have the ballad, the slow song, the fast songs \u2013 it\u2019s a journey. Especially with this second record, it was a matter of creating that and I think we kind of did (laughs).<\/p>\n

I remember that you guys wrote around 40 songs for \u201cThe Beauty Of Destruction\u201d. With how much material did you enter the studio this time, and did you use any of the old material?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We thought we were going to use some of the material from the previous record, but we started writing new songs and they were better. So we kept writing and all the material on the new album is written after [the first release], which is actually weird, because we released \u201cThe Beauty Of Destruction\u201d in April 2014, but at that time, that record was already done for months and months, so we already had new songs. We probably had half of this new record written before the first came out (laughs). This is why we thought that the actual new material is sounding better and in the end, we didn\u2019t use any of the old material. We didn\u2019t write so many songs this time, though. It was a little more planned, we knew that we wanted a certain song in the middle of the record and we wanted to start it with some heavy songs that have this or that kind of vibe and we did just that, focused on those things and tried to write the best songs we could. There were definitely less songs.<\/p>\n

You already mentioned your producer \u2013 I guess it was good to work with him in the studio?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah. We worked with Josh Wilbur. I\u2019m a huge fan of his work with the bands he worked with, the engineering world and producing. For me, it was great to work with a guy like him and I only had heard good things about him. So we started working with him and he is just amazing, so talented and so good to work with on a personal level. He has become a friend of ours and we ended up hanging out with a friend while working \u2013 it was awesome. With some producers, you just don\u2019t get there, so it\u2019s always different, but this was a great experience.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me something about the connection between the cover artwork and the main lyrical topics on \u201cThey Bleed Red\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of \u201cThey Bleed Red\u201d is that we\u2019re all vulnerable, we\u2019re all the same and although we all can have different lives, jobs, comfort, be in different places, in the end, we all bleed red. The idea for the album cover was to have an image that unifies everybody – the world on the cover symbolizes all of us. And actually, I think that it\u2019s kind of cool that it\u2019s \u201cThey Bleed Red\u201d and you see the world, but it\u2019s obviously us. The big picture is the world and it\u2019s bleeding, but then, inside the booklet, there are images that show certain individuals. It\u2019s a very cool concept visually, and we worked with Travis Smith (Opeth, Devin Townsend) again, who is an amazing artist.<\/p>\n

\"Devil<\/a><\/p>\n

Devil You Know also recently released a new video for \u201cThe Way We Die\u201d. Ever since I\u2019ve seen it, I’ve been wondering how you guys came up with the location and working with the Burning Angels \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a funny thing because obviously, the record\u2019s got a very serious and dark tone, but then we came up with the music video that is just silly and ridiculous. At the same time, we as a band were like \u201cLet\u2019s do something that is silly and different and not<\/em> do a performance video in a warehouse\u201d – which is 99 percent of metal videos. We\u2019ve done that with other music videos, it\u2019s just that this time, we didn\u2019t want to worry about the performance part and just do something that is fun. The song is serious, but you\u2019re going to finish the video with a smile on your face. It\u2019s good to create some controversy, too, with people hating it and saying \u201cYou guys are stupid\u201d or \u201cThis is horrible because you\u2019ve got porn stars in your video\u201d and people loving it and being like \u201cOh, this is my favorite porn star, this is awesome!\u201d It\u2019s fun to see the reactions.<\/p>\n