Rhapsody Of Fire: The show will go on!

Rhapsody Of Fire are coming with a new album! Dark Wings Of Steel is about to be released in a few days... And fans are waiting. To shorten the time, and to get material for my story in the next issue for SLAM music magazine, I sent some questions to the band. Alex Staropoli, head and original member of Rhapsody Of Fire was very willing to talk about the new record as well as the past, the present and the future of his "baby".

Otti:
First of all, just to have it clear. In 2012 there was that split, ending up in two bands called Rhapsody of Fire and Luca Turilli´s Rhapsody. In your own words, can you tell me what exactly happened?

After evaluating our career, 15 years of professional activity, 10 studio albums released, 2 sagas, Luca and I decided to stop working together simply because we did not feel the same spirit and the same will to work together anymore. Despite that we still are very good friends. The great thing here is that both of us are extremely happy with the results of the respective productions and bands, and that´s the most important thing. We always wish each other the best.

"Nothing could have stopped us from creating this new studio album."

Otti:
So... your new album Dark Wings Of Steel is going to be released soon, the first one without Luca. How do you feel about that?

Alex:
I feel great. We have no regrets about the split because it was a conscious decision not taken in a few hours but after evaluating the entire situation during a long period of time. I never had the necessity to compose music by myself but it turned out to be a very stimulating situation. It is not really about having control but overall to have the total artistic freedom.

Otti:
What can you tell me generally about the development of Dark Wings Of Steel?

Alex:
DWOS was composed in the last few years by myself and my brother Manuel Staropoli. Manuel happen to be an awesome Baroque Flute, a Recorder concert player, a professor teaching in a conservatory, a bass player and a great composer. He wrote very cool material, so cool that I decided to combine our forces. As far as I am concern, composition wise, I am really demanding. I spent all the time I needed to evaluate every single note of each song before to go for it.
Roby De Micheli helped a lot too, it was important for us to have great feedback from him. He wrote some fantastic guitar riffs and guitar solos. I am really happy to call him a friend and a stabile member. No many knows that Roby De Micheli was part of the band with Luca and myself at the very beginning of our career, so he is no stranger at all to what we do, as my brother, who witnessed the entire process of creation and development of Rhapsody Of Fire since the 90´s.
I wrote and arranged all the orchestral material as always. I asked a friend of mine which is an orchestra director and arranger to finalize the actual scores and to direct the orchestra during the recordings. We used the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra - F.A.M.E.´S Project - Skopje. It was a very emotional moment to hear the orchestra recording many parts for a Rhapsody Of Fire album again and most important, we can all hear again the fantastic vibrations in the final mix that only real instruments can deliver.

Otti:
Where and how did you record and how did it differ from the former ones?

Alex:
Four studios where actually used. Drums were recorded at Sebastian Roeder´s Backyards Studios - Kempten.
Bass guitar, all guitars, choirs were recorded at Echoes Studios in Trieste, a friend of mine studio, Vocals were recorded in my studio and the orchestra in Skopje - Macedonia. Main difference is that I wanted to use facilities mainly in my town Trieste to have control over the entire production, having only the band members involved in the recordings. As a producer I felt responsible and I did not wanted any external presence. Another difference is that the album was mixed by Sebastian Roeder. The entire production was very cool and everyone was into it with great enthusiasm.

Otti: And did you face any difficulties while working on DWOS? Alex: Well, we had a few unfortunate moments such a big flood around Munich that created quite some troubles to our faithful drummer Alex Holzwarth just before entering the studio, and secondly we had a very powerful storm in Trieste once and some of our hard drives got burned out, also the back up ones, erasing the entire guitars recordings, so Roby had to re-record everything all over again with new enthusiasm. Nothing could have stopped us from creating this new studio album. Beside that the production was quite smooth. Otti: You are some kind of musical storytellers so to say... What topics have found their way onto the new record? And is there a bigger connection between all the songs? Alex: Having created and developed an epic saga through 10 studio albums I decided to change and to not have another saga nor a concept album. The new lyrics, and the music as well, are magic, poetic, dramatic, visionary, intense like in the previous albums. Those elements connects all the new songs and probably both, music and lyrics, are even more accessible to the listener. Fabio wrote all the lyrics. It was the most epic and demanding process Fabio was ever into I guess. It is a great advantage that the singer is also a lyricist. It is clear that vocal performance and the words on Dark Wings Of Steel are really more fluent. During the band´s career I have usually never answered to question referring to the lyrics since I have always preferred to leave to the lyricist that task and I will continue doing so, moreover I believe that are the listeners who should read the lyrics and get inspired by them, get images by them, shaping and feeling them in their hearts, surely in many different and personal ways. Otti: Creating such complex arrangements as you have in your music is never easy I guess. How did the songwriting take place for the new material? Alex: It was a stimulating process. I felt really good while composing and arranging the new material. I have started years ago to write down ideas and parts, also with my brother Manuel. Since day 1st we were aware to have some magic music in our hands, and finally, after so much time and hard work we can finally hear the comments from the fans and reactions from all over the world.

Otti:
Dark Wings Of Steel is also the first album you release on AFM Records, isn´t it? So what made change your record company, what are the good things you can tell about your new label?

Alex:
The agreement with Nuclear Blast expired a bit after the release of From Chaos To Eternity. So it was a great chance for me to move on and find another label. In any case it was better for Luca and myself to not work on the same label. I am very happy about AFM Records, we already released LIVE - From Chaos To Eternity to start with, a big gift to all our fans that got the chance to listen on a CD what we are doing on stage. It´s very important for me to underline that in LIVE - From Chaos To Eternity we did not made any re-recordings in studio. We wanted to keep the product as live and human as possible and to avoid to ´polish´ it as many bands do these days with their live albums.

Otti:
Let´s put things together: You got a long period of wonderful music making, had a big time of change now... So how are you looking into the future at the moment?

Alex:
Step by step I want to establish Rhapsody Of Fire even more and make everyone, fans, media, promoters, believe that we are here to stay, to stay strong and continuing to create great epic music, continuing to tour all over the planet. In the immediate future we are going to shoot a video, making more promotion for Dark Wings Of Steel and soon again live activity, that would possibly end up with a full live DVD which fans are waiting since long time.

Otti:
For sure you will present all that new stuff live on stage soon, will you? What can you tell me about upcoming gigs?

Alex:
We are evaluating some options with our tour agency All Access. Tour will start in Europe probably beginning of next year.
Rhapsody Of Fire with this new 5 band members line up are ready to play anytime and anywhere! We already played a few concerts with this line up and results were very good, cleaner sound and tighter playing. When we are on stage we only think to deliver energy and emotions. Our fans will always experience this with us, straight powerful sound, great wide musical landscapes, theatrical performance.
It will be exciting to play some of the new album songs of course.

Otti:
And last but not least: What else do you want to tell the world outside?

Alex:
Rhapsody Of Fire are ready. We are ready to go on tour and meet again all our fans that showed us great support and friendship through all these years. See you out there!! Stay tuned on our official website and Facebook pages! More news coming soon!

www.rhapsodyoffire.com

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