The Secret - Michael Bertoldini
Posted on March 12, 2008 at 8:52 pm by admin
After I reviewed “Disintoxication” by The Secret, I had to interview these guys, seeing as that album is a strong contender on my year end list. It’s just that simple. Guitarist Michael Bertoldini was kind enough to fire these questions back really quick.
Way Too Loud!: There doesn’t seem to be a lot of general info out there about The Secret. Is it the bands intention to keep a low profile?
Michael Bertoldini: Actually we’d love to be as popular as Metallica or Led Zeppelin but the ugly simple truth is that we pretty much disappeared for a couple of years after our first record came out and the world stopped caring about us for a while…
WTL: What was the intention of the art for Disintoxication? I love imagery, although those lyrics tend to blend in a bit when it’s black on black…
Michael: When we spoke to Seldon Hunt, the designer who created the artwork of Disintoxication, we told him we wanted the artwork to be as dark and obscure as possible. He took our words really seriously. Isn’t the artwork just awesome? Anyway if anyone is interested about reading our lyrics without embracing myopia, we posted everything on our myspace.
WTL: What made you choose the title “Disintoxication”?
Michael: The years before the recordings of Disintoxication have been pretty troubled for us. For some weird, unknown reasons, our personal lives just collapsed simultaneously. The band almost broke up because of endless line up problems, financial and nervous breakdowns. Various members of the band went through depression, got arrested and basically just wanted to die. After flirting with drama for over a year I met my old friend Chris, our actual drummer. We didn’t speak for almost 6 years but we ended up jamming in a cold, humid, smelly practice space and started the writing process of Disintoxication. We chose this title because from that day we started taking distance from all things and people that was ruining our lives. It’s been a kind of rehab. We’ve been so focused about writing music and making the band work again that we forgot about any other thing in our lives. Disintoxication is a middle finger in the face of our past.
WTL: How does the writing process work?
Michael: Usually we meet in our practice space and try to jam around some riffs or sometimes we try to build a structure around a concept we already have in mind. We try many arrangements and finally decide the ones that work better for the songs we’re writing. For this new record we tried to put some more structure in the songs instead of putting 100 riffs in a row and it took more time just to make songs flow how we wanted but we’re pretty satisfied about the results.
WTL: How did you get connected with Cult Of Luna? (One of my favourite bands!)
Michael: We went to one of their Italian shows during “Salvation”’s tour and spoke with Magnus. We were in love with many records recorded at Tonteknik Studios (Breach, Refused, Poison the Well, Cul of Luna) so we asked him if he wanted to produce our album there and he agreed.
Magnus is a very talented producer and musician and also a very down to earth guy. Working with him has been very easy and he made us feel comfortable in every moment of the recording. We really couldn’t be happier about him.
WTL: How did Magnus Lindberg contribute to the song Umea (beyond playing drums on it)?
Michael: We liked a guitar part that wasn’t included in any of the songs we were going to record so we asked Magnus to jam with us, mostly for fun. We recorded many parts and then we built an actual song off the parts we liked the most. It’s been pretty unusual to work in this way but in the end we loved the result and decided to include it on the record.
WTL: What bands influenced the members of The Secret? Who got you up and playing, and who got you inspired to play the music you play?
Michael: I think that all us of started playing because of Sepultura and Metallica. We all loved those bands and wanted to be like them. Then we all discovered hardcore music and started playing in local bands and playing small shows around our hometowns. Now we all listen to different stuff and have different influences. Anyway I can say that we all agree on Neurosis being probably our favorite band ever.
WTL: What’s the scene like in Italy right now? There seems to be an uprising of heavy bands, although I can’t of any band similar to The Secret residing in Italy.
Michael: There are many good Italian bands at the moment. Things are growing very quickly and it’s really good cause now more and more people is starting to give some interest about good heavy music. Amia Venera Landscape, Slomotion Apocalypse, To Kill, il Teatro degli Orrori are all very good bands and cool dudes.
Anyway our hometown is probably the worst city in Italy for everything connected with music or playing in a band. It’s lame cause we don’t have many chances to play in Trieste but on the other hand this sort of isolation from other musicians help us not be influenced by local trends like in many other parts of the country.
WTL: There’s so many technical bands out there, and certainly I consider The Secret technical, but what were the easiest songs to play and record on Disintoxication?
Michael: We’re far from being technical. We’re just fast but songs aren’t that hard to play. Funeral Monolith is probably the easiest song we have. We all feel very comfortable when playing it even because it’s been the first song written with this line up. It’s also very easy to do some extreme headbanging while playing the last part of the song.
WTL: Do you ever have trouble with people not getting what you’re playing?
Michael: It could sound weird but the reaction towards our new stuff has been surprisingly good even if we consider our new material more “difficult “ to get compared to the first album. It’s cool cause even people into different styles seems to appreciated our music and we couldn’t be happier about it. Maybe it’s a sign that people is becoming more open minded towards music that is not 100% fast or 100% slow or whatever.
WTL: Who would you like to tour with that’s both feasible but not obvious?
Michael: We’d love to tour with our label mates Cursed cause we consider them one of the best and angriest bands in today music scene. Touring with Cult of Luna would also be great, we really hope it will happen someday.
WTL: Is there any chance of touring North America, and passing through Canada? I’m betting the live show would be insane!
Michael: We absolutely HAVE to tour North America with this record. We’re already talking with other bands about it so it will happen for sure, hopefully in 2008.
WTL: So many people ask bands what their band name means. You probably get asked too often, so have you ever lied about what your band name means, or perhaps even lied about what your band name was?
Michael: 99% of interviews we did starts with a question about our name or with some questions like “what’s the secret?” Thanx a lot for not asking about it. I personally lied many times to be more interesting even cause I doubt anybody in the world care about it actually.
WTL: Thanks for doing this interview! I loved Disintoxication and it’s a strong contender on my year end list!
Michael: Thanx a lot about your interest about our band, this is by far the best interview we ever received. Stay high!
The Secret at MySpace
Goodfellow Records
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