Ater, a concept of darkness and nature



Ater is not an English speaking band but their music speaks the language of Metal. Hailing from Italy they draw their influences from nature and self relization. Ater is a rare entity that places little importance on individualism within their ranks. Instead, they are a unified unit that is dedicated to each other and their Black Metal craft.

Greetings, Many thanks and much respect for doing this interview, lets jump into the fire!

How did Ater come into existence?
Ater came out during 2005 with the intention of crafting some good raw and fast black metal; after a couple of years we started to improve our lineup and songs, with arrangements that has given to our music more solemn and melancholic passages. In late 2007 we recorded the first demo, Arcane Terre, that received a very warm welcome from a lot of people and zines, even though the recording quality wasn't so good. During 2008/2009 we recorded the first full length, Oltre la Vetta, with all the demo songs re-recorded and, of course, some new material.

What influences your lyrics? Religion, Politics, Nature?
We totally don't care about politics in music, and the religion theme isn't the first thing that we look at, even if you may encounter some connection, but always with allegories. Our main influence is nature, and through it we talk about a lot of themes. "Oltre la Vetta" is totally based on it; it's a sort of journey through nature, with an ipotetic (hypothetical) mountain summit as the end of the journey itself, which means the path that everyone takes to achieve the realization of self.

Can you describe the Italian Black Metal scene and tell what it means to Ater?
Here in Italy we have a lot of good bands, like Adversam, Black Flame and Nefarium, but sometimes we see that someone thinks they are part of the "elite" which doesn't exist at all, and maybe this is the main problem in our country; however we support good music and attitude in a lot of bands, mostly from the underground.

Talk about your experience with the Alex Infascelli’s movie. How did all that come about?
ATER-Haha, that was nice! Basically Alex was looking for a band with a strong impact in the live shows for one of its film's scene. I think the thing that he appreciates the most about us was the "flame-spitting", and of course our music and what we try to transmit with it.
It was a very good experience for us, not done for catalyzes attention to black metal at all (as some fools could think!)

How are the live shows going?
Currently we are writing a lot of new songs; for this reason we don't have live shows in schedule, but we are counting the months until we can kick some asses with the new material!

How did you choose the name “Ater” What does it mean?
The name "Ater" means basically a concept of darkness in the ancient Latin language.

Tell a little about each band member, what are some of your past projects.
Not too much to say! What we do with Ater counts as a band, not as individuals. However, each of us has a "past project history"; some of us were in black metal bands before Ater, some in death metal, and so on.

Ater’s music creates many different moods. How do you accomplish this?
We try to inspire to the listener our feelings and emotions in every riff we write; nothing is casual, every note and especially the vocal lines have a particular meaning! You can listen to our music walking through the woods, or closing your eyes and thinking of beautiful landscapes that nature crafts with its hands. We are always glad when someone feels some good vibrations with our music.

What was it like recording in “One Voice Studio”,?
It was great, even if we made a lot of mistakes. The studio owner (ciao Danny!) is a really cool guy; with some hair he could aspire to look like Rasputin, haha. It was our first professional studio recording, and it's always good remembering hilarious things during the recording of "Oltre la Vetta"!

What are the future plans for Ater? Touring? Recording?
Of course our main goal is to promote "Oltre la Vetta" as soon as possible, mainly with live shows, but we are looking after and we're thinking about recording the second full length; we're not in a hurry, but we have some good things to shoot out!

Do you have anything else you want to add, promote or say?
Close your eyes and listen to your surroundings, to every stream, every tree, every mountain! Last but not least, thank you for this interview, thanks to all who are reading these bad-written replies and who will look after our music!