Resurrecturis comes out of a dream

Resurrecturis has long been considered one of the founding fathers of the Italian death metal scene. With a total of three CD releases to their credit, "Non Voglio Morire" is their newest album released under the Casket Music label. Carlo Strappa, the only remaining original member, talks with us about the newest album, his personal life, and the future of Resurrecturis.

First, I'd like to say thank you for taking the time to interview it's a pleasure to speak with you, Carlo. How did you become interested in metal music and come to the realization that you wanted to form a metal band?
My pleasure, really. I first become interested in metal music when I was  around 9-10 years old. I actually remember three “accidents” that lead my feeble mind towards headbanging music: in the first one my older brother Paolo bought a silly teenager music magazine which included a couple of pictures of pictures of Saxon, which impressed me quite a lot for their leather jackets and Harley Davidson motorcycles. Then after some months, UK hard rockers UFO did an appearance on Italian TV on a Sunday afternoon. I was blown away by the sheer power that these guys could unleash with their electric guitars and long hairs! Some more months pass and a school mate taped me Kiss “Unmasked”. That was enough for me to consecrate my life to metal music (and thus destroy it!!)…  
The thought of being in a band arrived immediately thereafter. I quitted all my other toys and started playing with my younger sister pretending I was Gene Simmons and she was Ace Frehley. I also dressed like Gene Simmons for carnival… These were the first signs of this insane thought of being a guitarist that was rapidly taking shape in my mind. I remember not eating breakfast at school to save pennies to purchase an electric guitar. This happened in summer 1975. It was a second hand Eko guitar. I got it for the price of 100.000 lire. I had become a guitarist! Ahahah

Why did you choose to name your band Resurrecturis and does it have any special meaning?
The name Resurrecturis comes from a dream I had in Summer 1990. Eight months before my beloved brother Vittorio had suddenly died and the cemetery where he was put to rest has an inscription above the main entrance that says “Resurrecturis”. This Latin expression means “for those about to revive”, meaning that a cemetery is a place for people who will rise from their tombs on the day of final judgement.
Over the years we thought some times about changing the band’s name to something more simple and easier to spell, but finally we have come to think that this name represents our fate as a band pretty well, for we have encountered so much trouble and difficulties and yet we have managed to rise our heads again from the dust every time!

You have released a new album entitled "Non Voglio Morire". This has received great reviews. How is this album different than others you have released?
“Non Voglio Morire” is a concept album, that’s the first and greatest difference in respect to all our previous works. Musically it presents an extremely varied mix of styles. Our 1998 debut album, “Nocturnal” had a someway similar approach and offered different influences, but I think NVM actually shows a strong musical and lyrical maturation when compared to that album.

Why have you decided to make this album available free to download from your website? How did your label feel about this?
There is at last one great thing about not being a professional musician which is that you don’t have to make money out of music at all costs, since you must have another source of income. This allows you to do whatever you want in your musical activity, since you are totally free from economic preoccupations. My ultimate goal as a musician is to make great music and give a shape to my visions. Once this is done, it is a great pleasure for me to have people listening to my compositions and maybe getting in touch to discuss them, etc. I think it would have been a real pity if I’d put so much effort and work on a record and then people would not listen to it because our label doesn’t have such a great distribution or the fans don’t have the money, etc. The internet is a great possibility to reach listeners everywhere and actually it was great to be contacted by people from South America, Thailand and so on saying they appreciated what we have done.
The folks at Casket were not exactly ecstatic about the record being freely downloadable from our website, but they were cool enough to say: “hey, it’s your record, you can do whatever you want with it!”. By the way in a couple of days after the official release date the album had already been made available by pirates on mp3 blogs from Bulgaria, Russia and South America.

"Non Voglio Morire" seems to be a very personal and introspective album. Can you take us through the album and what it means to you personally?
“Non Voglio Morire” is the first part of an autobiographic 2-album project that deals with the activities that I spend most of my time with: music and job. “Non Voglio Morire” explores the way I dealt with art/music since I was a teenager until today, more than 20 years later, having become a full grown man, but still spending so much time and energies for music. The album title “Non Voglio Morire” (I don’t want to die) has a double meaning: on one side you have the classic reference to artists’ longing for immortality through their works. On the other side art can be lived as a vital scream in the face of the slow death of adulthood, which is what I’ve seen so many times among my colleagues and peers. People who simply restrict their interests to their work activity, some TV at night and a couple of weeks of holidays twice a year. 
The next album will be centred on the description of the realities of working life…

The musical style of "Non Voglio Morire" incorporates a variety of different metal genres and does a great job of representing your varied musical taste and ability. Many bands find one style they are comfortable with and stick with it. How did you come to the realization that you wanted to create such a musically varied album as this?
The main reason for incorporating so many different styles and atmospheres into our music was dictated by the theme of the album. Since I was trying to illustrate a path that was covered over the course of more than 2 decades, I found that to illustrate such different eras and such different thoughts I needed to use a vast stylish grammar, picking influences and inspiration from many sources. I have been listening to metal since 1980 and it’s pretty obvious that (luckily) this form of music has evolved pretty dramatically in every respect over the course of time. I thought that it was simply pertinent to add influences from industrial metal, thrash, black, grindcore, etc, in an album like this.
To cut it short I would say that the lyrical and musical content of NVM are extremely interconnected and the music necessarily reflects the progress of the story that is being told.



Were there any particular challenges that stick out in your mind during the creation of this album?
Maintaining a sense of unity without sacrificing the complexity and variety of the musical content if the album was the real challenge behind this work. A lot of parts had to be changed or rewritten because even if they sounded cool, they did not fit with that particular moment that was being described in the specific song. It was the first time that I was working on a concept album, where music was so strongly influenced by the lyrics. That was pretty hard from one side, but really helpful in getting inspiration on the other.

You hail from Italy. What is the metal scene like there?
In the past I used to know everything about the underground in Italy and abroad. In fact I spent more than 10 years doing my own fanzine and writing for music magazines in Italy. More recently I had to stop doing this, since it was a highly time consuming activity and I wasn’t getting a lot of revenue from that. Since my job was becoming more and more demanding I had to choose what I wanted to dedicate my spare time to, being a rock journalist or a rock musician. Even if I really liked interviewing bands and doing reviews I easily decided that making my own music was much more important for me.
This said, the Italian scene counts a lot of bands of all types. Many bands are simply trying to imitate some foreign model, but some of them shine of their own light. Some bands that I particularly like are Cut, Three Second Kiss, Zu, Cripple Bastard, Eterea… But be warned, most of them are not metal bands!

We'd like to know what your personal life is like? Are you married? Do you have children?
I live on my own in a flat in Pesaro, Italy, where I also work. My daytime activity is in the as head of the marketing department of a company that produces industrial machinery. I’m not married, I parted ways with my girlfriend in April 2009 and I’m enjoying being alone. I don’t have any child, but I would like to have a couple, but probably I’ll have to find a new girlfriend before that becomes possible (ah!).

How do you balance your personal life with band life? And how does your personal life influence your music today?
It’s not really easy to have equilibrium, because every single aspect of life (work, personal interests, friends, lovers, family, etc.) needs a certain amount of time and the sum of all these time portions exceeds the daily 24 hours that we have at our disposal. It is very important to be able to put things in the correct order, even if this may be “unpopular” among the people around you. Nowadays there is a profound interaction between my artistic life and my personal life. It was also a conscious decision when I started this autobiographical project that I commenced with “Non Voglio Morire”.

What are the plans for Resurrecturis' future? Any tours in the works?
We are looking for a European tour to complete the promotion of “Non Voglio Morire”, so far we’ve received some offers, but for one reason or another we were forced to turn them down. I hope somebody comes up soon and offers us the right opportunity.

What can we find you listening to these days? Also, curious to know what you consider to be the top five CDs of all time?
There is such an incredible amount of good music around these days that is really unbelievable! You go to Lastfm.com and, wow,  you can discover 5 new godly bands every day! Some cool new stuff that I’ve listened lately is: Psyopus, Iwrestledabearonce, Architects, Hymogen Heap, 7000 Dying Rats, Trail of the Dead. But I listen to a lot of older music, from hard rock to NWOBHM to folk and classical music. Whatever, really!
All time faves is really difficult. Here are some albums that stand out, but there are so many more…
Venom. “Black Metal”
Napalm Death: “Scum”
Repulsion: “Horrified”
Dillinger Escape Plan “Calculating Infinity”
Carcass: “Heartwork”

Thanks again for the interview, it's been a pleasure. Do you have any last words for your fans?
Thanks to you for giving us the possibility to present our band to the readers of the supercool BRUTALISM.com! The works have started for the next Resurrecturis album, which will be the closing chapter of the art/work project that has started with “Non Voglio Morire”. Be prepared for some interesting additions to our recipe of music soundscapes. In the meantime you can get our current album “Non Voglio Morire” either in shops or as free mp3 download from www.resurrecturis.com! Enjoy life!