Fear The Sirens ready to test the effects
Italy might not be the most well known place for underground music, but you'd be pleasantly surprised at the wonders it may birth. Such as the rising talents of Fear The Sirens; A band fighting their way up the ladder of success, hoping to play literally everywhere just to get people to hear their message. Here I'm talking to vocalist and frontman Davey Passavanti about the Italian hardcore/metal scene, and just generally catching up with news on their debut album aswell as shows, and band interests.
Hello, before I start asking some questions can I ask who I'm talking to and what you do in the band?
Talking to Davey, I'm the singer and the "old man" of the band.
Your album 'The Ruins We Used To Call Home' has an excellent variety of genres included, but what bands truly influenced you for this record, and who do you look up to in general?
We look up with respect and admiration to some of the greatest bands ever of the past, starting from Strongarm, to Shai Hulud (which are keeping on through the years greatly) or Comeback Kid. But we like a lot of bands of the moment like It Prevails, and Counterparts.
What's been the overall response after releasing "The Ruins We Used To Call Home", have you noticed a major increase in new fans, and more people at shows?
Definitely, and we're really proud about this. We've had a really good response in Europe and overseas in terms of fans and people who write to us everyday just to tell us that they're loving the album or some songs in particular, this means the world to us and we try to reply as much as possible to everyone. For what concerns the live part, we're now ready to go test the effects of "The Ruins We Used To Call Home" on the shows, so we're setting up as many dates we can for the near future.
What's the Italian metal/hardcore scene like?
The scene is not that big, but is really active, more than people around Europe usually I think. The problem is maybe that the kids here often prefer to only support foreign bands, or just the bigger Italian ones, and they tend not to support younger bands at all. I have to say we've been lucky from the start with Fear the Sirens cause we've had a really good response since the very first shows, maybe thanks to Facebook and internet promotion, but we can't do nothing but thank every single friend or fan at every concert because the results we're having only depend on them. They're our fuel!
Tell us how crazy your live shows are and who you've played with. Anything absolutely mental happened, any broken bones, bloody noses etc?
As u know we started in 2011 so we're relatively young as a band, but as I told you we've had the crazyest response since the first batch of gigs. We're not so breakdown oriented talking about songwriting so our shows are mostly about stagedives and singalong (that is what we definitely love the most. I put so much effort in trying to write lyrics in which the kids can recognize themselves and get an inspiration from, so when I see them sing, for me it's the biggest emotion. Being a young band, we've already shared the stage with great bands such as Heart in Hand, Napoleon, Hopes Die Last and Dungeon Elite. The most insane scene I remember was definitely at the release party of the album in which we played with Napoleon, we decided to start with the song people seem to like the most here in Italy that is "Till The End Of Days", and after the first word of the song I was like "OMG" cause we were having a stage invasion already and I can't actually tell you who sung that song, it was awesome!
Do you believe the internet has boosted the metal scene for the better? How do you cope with the mass competition between other metalcore/hardcore bands?
I think internet promotion is at the moment one of most important things for a band to get out and get known, not the main because I still want to think that touring and being on stage is more important. I believe that sometimes people do not understand that internet can be used to create a network and make every band bigger, there's enough space for every band (at least for the good ones) and supporting and promoting each other could definitely be the way to get huge together.
Which member of the band has the worst bad habbits, and what are they?
I'm not tellin' who... but SOMEONE definitely has to come to rehearsals in time and stop letting us begin every time with an hour of delay... YES, i'm talkin TO YOU. Lol
What's your favorite fast food restaurant after playing a show?
Well we go for the big classic usually, so McDonald's is most of the time our choice, but when we're really starving, we have a great place here where they massively make sandwiches for bars and you can buy them there at the lowest price ever... yeah we suck.
Tell us a rude joke!
A kid wrote to Santa, "Please send me a sister." Santa wrote him back, "Ok, send me your mother."
If you were trying to get people to check you guys out, what would you say you guys have that other bands don't have?
I won't tell you what we have more then the other bands, I'll just tell you that we really put all of ourself in our music and who's gonna listen to our stuff will really know who we are. This music means everything to us and that's what we try to express in every single show.
What's the future for Fear The Sirens?
After the release of our first Video "The Reach", now we're working on a new EP that I think will be out this Autumn. Our style is constantly evolving, and I'm sure you guys will apreciate the changes! In the meanwhile we're working with our contacts to organize as many dates as possible for the next future so we can promote our music on stage and do what we love the most, play live!
Thank you for doing this interview with us! Before I stop, are there any shout-outs you wish to give, or anything you want people to know?
Thank you guys for the space you gave us and for the possibility to share a bit of our world with the people who usually follow us and with who didn't know us too. Come check out our music on the net and write us if you wanna book us! We're really willing to play everywhere!! So just drop us a line and let's do it!!
