Klimt 1918 Interview from July 2008

The following is an interview with the Italian shoegaze band Klimt 1918 that was originally published on Living For Metal in 2008.

Italy has long been known for many things artistic, from artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci to Michelangelo and wonders such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Music-wise, the range in which the metal scene exists is equally as diverse.  Klimt 1918 is no exception to the rule, with their own brand of music that bands like Anathema and Katatonia are trying to shoot for nowadays.  With a new album in Just In Case We’ll Never Meet Again, the band adds another chapter to their ever-growing musical repertoire.  Recently, drummer Paolo Soellner talked to Living For Metal about some of the things the band did to make the latest release, as well as offer some deep insight into how the band’s connection to art influences the band.

Peter Santellan: For those just getting to know the band, could you give some band history?

Paolo Soellner: Yes sure! My brother Marco (vocals/guitars) and I formed this band in Rome at the end of 1999 from the ashes of ANOTHER DAY, an Italian act dedicated to melodic death metal music. On May 2000, KLIMT1918’s first release Secession makes post modern music was recorded, a 5 song release  that fused together Scandinavian/English avant-garde sonorities and ’80 new wave. Thanks to it, we signed a record deal with the label My Kingdom Music, recording under them our first release Undressed Momento. Good feedback from critics and audience alike let us sign a new and more favourable record deal  with the cult German label Prophecy Productions. On September 2004, we have recorded our second release Dopoguerra (Postwar) that probably signaled the main turn of Klimt 1918 to indie rock sonorities ‘till our new album Just in case we’ll never meet again.  That sums up our evolution from the early beginning ‘til now.

PS: The band name itself is a reference to Gustave Klimt and the year he died.  Who is Gustave Klimt and how was the name settled upon?

Soellner: The name of the band takes inspiration from the painter Gustav Klimt, the maximun exponent of Wien secession. He was the symbol of liberty-style, the point of conjunction between ‘800 and ‘900 art. He died in 1918, when the Asburgic Empire and 1^st world war ended. It’s an important year because it represents the start of a new age, just the wanting to start again for millions of people. It represents an elegy for the dying “old” and the excitement for the “new” that comes out.  Our music embodies all these suggestions; songs of ruins and post-war period, full of vitality, homesickness, and a lot of hope. Songs for what has been and what will do.  Painting, carving and composing is a kind a silent conversation between the creator and the piece of art that is growing up.  Gustav Klimt has transmited to the paintings his figure and his ideals during a period of rebirth of art.  His pieces are first of all decorations; hundreds of different parts joined together, a strange mixture of pain and joy, melancholy and stained quietness. That’s the same “postmodern” way we compose our songs, trying to create a new musical background combining together different sounds as we want and following the same suggestions.

PS: What are some of the band’s influences?

Soellner: Our effort in the last years has been that to find a sound that represented us completely. Just in case we’ll never meet again represents more the Klimt 1918 of today. We feel it as a work that finally describes us for what we are: a band that has found its musical and stylistic dimension of his and it doesn't need anymore to be part of a musical scene. Our influences are so various that we worked a lot to mix them. We wanted the album to sound closer to postrock and shoegaze, as Explosion in the Sky, This will destroy you, M83, Sigur Ros or Jesus and Mary Chain; then everything got more powerful and heterogeneous. That’s Just in case we’ll never meet again.

PS: Prior to the release of Just in Case We’ll Never Meet Again, there was a lineup change.  Could you elaborate on that?

Soellner: In 10 years, we changed lead guitar players three times. There are no coincidences about that, just divorces happened on the way from the beginning ‘till now. Alex, our long time guitar player, left the band in September 2006.

It’s been a difficult divorce, when you play together after so many years, you never thought that one day can take two different ways, there was also a lot of complicity in every thing the band did. We have immediately moved to replace him for imminent live shows and to consolidate a new line-up to complete the composition of the new album.

PS: What is the concept behind the album and how does the title fit in with that?

Soellner: A thread conductor doesn't exist this time. Just in case we’ll never meet again is a sad title that my brother chose when he wanted to split the band, which shortly means "That’s our last album together, my friends, in case we’ll never meet again“. That’s so sad to speak about it but it’s the truth.  Fortunately, I changed his idea about that. It essentially concerns a very autobiographic album. In the life of a person the nostalgia, as the loneliness, the happiness and the serenity are present in equal measure. It’s difficult to underline a particular feeling.

The subtitle "Soundtrack for the cassette generation“, it’s a nostalgic view of the past. We’ve always wanted a title like this because our music refers to a past musical taste, '80 music, the first period when we started listening to music. And the cassette was the only support through you could appreciate it. There were magic moments, music and people were different.

PS: Would you give some details of the album production?

Soellner: Well, when you start recording an album, you have in mind how it must come out. So you seek in your CD collection the right references, the bands that have the sound you are searching for, you choose the right instruments, effects, amplifiers, type of drum, etc. to obtain that. It’s a long work that starts months before the recording session, collecting info, making a note of what you see at each shows you go, paying attention to the effects live bands use. Anyway, we worked with amazing producers, Mauro Munzi, who was probably able to fit our expectations during the recording session, and David Castillo, Katatonia’s sound mastermind for the mix. But the album sounds differently than we imaged, it’s probably more powerful, but we got stunning results as well.  We are really satisfied.

PS: There are some songs that best convey what the band shoots for on the album.  I’ll name some songs and you may give some insight on them.  First, Skygazer.

Soellner: Skygazer is a song that speaks of temporary employment, a diffused condition in Italy of these times. It’s devoted to all the people that every day they make an enormous sacrifice accepting to work under difficult conditions, as for instance, in a basement, in an underground place, without windows, without any possibility to see the sky.

PS: What about Ghost of a Tape Listener?

Soellner: It is a song on the loneliness of the adult age. It takes back a dear theme to Klimt’s 1918, about the end of the adolescence and the childish dreams. This time, these suggestions are reported to the cassettes that represent by now a finished season of our lives, to which however we still combine memoirs and important feelings

PS: How about Suspense Music?

Soellner: It’s a love song, it tells the magic moments before the first kiss. The tension that is created among the bodies is describable as a real suspense; safeties don't exist when it is decided to kiss someone for the first time. It’s a risk that we decide to run.

PS: Are there any tours planned in the near future?

Soellner: We want to promote the new album as much as we can, that’s the first plan. So the first steps are live shows, our booking agency is working on a European tour in October/November and we are working to schedule an Italian tour as well in autumn. We got offers also from US, but nothing is confirmed yet. Now, we are performing in single shows and many summer festivals across Europe.

PS: Anything else you want to add?

Soellner: Just wanna thank all the readers of LIVINGFORMETAL.COM, hoping that you like our last effort. I think that the metal audience is probably the most open-minded of the music scene, and Just in case we’ll never meet again is the sum of different styles that aims to move the listeners.