Ex Deo – Maurizio Iacono
Posted on June 23, 2009 at 1:00 am by admin
I’ve talked to Maurizio Iacono before about Kataklysm, and that was great time! I couldn’t pass up another chance to talk to him again about Ex Deo. I have to admit, the concept of a metal album based on ancient Rome is pretty novel, and he knows quite a bit about the subject matter, so not only is reading this interview with Maurizio entertaining, it’s also educational!
Way Too Loud!: How did the concept of a Roman metal band come together? Did you spearhead the project?
Maurizio Iacono: I’ve been contemplating doing this for awhile. It’s something that i wanted to do, but I couldn’t really make it fit because Kataklysm is a completely different beast on its own. I kind of played around with the idea on our 2001 album, “Epic: The Poetry of War”, with a twist in a song to give it a little bit of Rome. The idea didn’t fit the concept of Kataklysm, so wanted to have a different thing to do it. It took me me a couple of years because Kataklysm every year is getting bigger, stronger and working harder, so we finally decided that after “Prevail” we’d take a break, like a year or year-and-a-half type of break, and decided that during that time that I would not get a break and continue and do Ex Deo.
I spearheaded the project, and it was pretty much my vision behind it, me getting back into my roots and historical background.
WTL: Part of your Italian roots?
Maurizio: Yeah, both my parents were born in Italy and it’s always been part of our family and history. I’ve been going to Italy a lot in the last few years, and I’ve been grasping a lot of this stuff, and I’ve been wanting to get more into it, so I started reading a lot of books on a lot of the ancient Rome culture, which really transcends into todays world.
WTL: How does the writing process for Ex Deo work?
Maurizio: It was very different from what we’re used to. Kataklysm has its own way of doing things, and with this [band] we had to create its own identity and really put ourselves into the mindframe. I had a really different vision and concept for it, which made it a little easier. We decorated the studio with Roman artifacts, and we had the artwork for the album done already, so we blew that up and we put it in the front. We also played movies like “Gladiator” and the “Rome” series, and we’d take the sound off to just have the visuals. It was important when we were writing that it would fit that image. If it didn’t fit, then we automatically took it off, which was one of the main things when we wrote this record. We didn’t have much influence from other bands, it was more from soundtracks and things like that.
WTL: Did you have a large knowledge of Rome before you started the album? It sounds like it was pretty significant from the books that you read.
Maurizio: I read a lot of books! There were a lot of times on tour where the other guys were having fun, getting lit up and drinking while I was reading and trying to educate myself as much as I could. It’s 1000 years of history, so I’m not going to learn it in a year or two!
WTL: How do you see the connection of Rome relating to today?
Maurizio: If you look at architecture, like the White House, it’s structured the same way as the Pantheon, which was the temple of the gods where the senators would meet up, and its the same colour. Very similar. The aqueducts created by Rome are very similar to the sewer systems we have today.
Society in general has a lot of influences in general similar to Rome, especially in warfare. The way the US army fights their conflicts and a lot of wars in the world have a similar attack approach to what the Romans used to do, they just adapted it to todays world.
I the beginning of the movie “Gladiator” when Germany was being attacked, they started off in formation using catapults and spears to weaken the enemy, and after they were broken down they went to man-to-man combat. Today a lot is done by air first by airfare and missiles first, then when the enemy has been weakened, they’ll bring soldiers in for man-to-man combat.
Even simple things, like one dollar bills have a lot of text written in latin, a derivative of Roman. I think it’s everywhere, which is what made me get into this and want to do it, because everything around me has a lot of this Roman influence, and a lot of people don’t get where it comes from.
WTL: What stories from ancient Rome did you pick for the specific songs?
Maurizio: I went with some of the easier stories because I wanted people to be attracted to it right away, so there’s more popular themes, and it might be the only Ex Deo record I do, so I went with Ceaser, Octavian, Mark Antony, gladiators, slaves and of course Romulus and Remus, the story of how Rome was formed and created. I went with that as an initial introduction.
WTL: The way the guests appear on the album appears almost like they’re playing roles.
Maurizio: I thought it would be more majestic if I did it that way. I know that Adam [Nergal of Behemoth] was really happy when I gave him the Ceasar quote because it was a very famous line. Ceasar used that line when after he conquered Gaul and went back to Rome. When people asked him about it, he said “I came, I saw, I conquered”. Imagine in those days saying that!
Of course there was no one better than Karl Sanders to do the solo with the Egyptian theme of when Rome when to Egypt. He was the perfect guy to do it with Nile being influenced by the whole Egyptian mythology.
Obsidian from Keep of Kalessin has done some really good work, and his solos are just majestic, and I wanted to bring in someone with a melodic edge to the song, and those guys are involved with history in their music too, and it was important for me to have that link.
WTL: Did you enjoy getting dressed up in the armour and getting the Gladius sword?
Maurizio: (Laughs) Let me tell you, it was heavy! It was a challenge putting it on, but once you’re in it, you get that “power” feel. It’s hard to explain until you wear it an then put yourself in the mindframe, and it’s kind of cool! I know that we’ll tour for this, and we will bring the Rome theme live, so we will have armour, but they’ll be different than what you saw in the video or pictures because that ones just too heavy, so we’ll be using armour that’s easier to move around in.
We’re going to add other things, but I don’t want to give everything away now, because then I’m just killing some of the surprises, but we’re really going to make this look cool!
WTL: How much touring are you planning to do with Ex Deo?
Maurizio: For sure I’m not going to make it like what Kataklysm is because Kataklysm is a road-warrior type band and we’re know for our live show, so we can tour a lot for that. This is going to be more prestigious. I want to make it something that’s a cool thing to see, and not something you can get to see all the time in your backyard.
We might do something in North America for the fall, but if not we’ll most likely do something next year. We definitely want to tour the US at least once for this record, just to do something different with the guys in Kataklysm I think would be fun!
WTL: What do you think led to the downfall of Rome?
Maurizio: I think it was a mixture of a lot of different things. Mainly from what I understand and read, the first initial crack was the adaptation of Christianity. Ancient Rome was a Pagan empire that accepted different religion in their domain. You had to obey their laws, but you were allowed to worship your own gods and live your own type of beliefs and have your own traditions. There were Jews and Egyptians, and people from all over the world that were inside of Rome, and Rome understood that the only way not to have civil wars all over the place was to give people citizenship and the freedom to practice what they believe it. Now the moment they stopped that and felt threatened by Christianity and Nero and these crazy emperors like Caligula annihilated them and made people wonder why they were being annihilated, and got people interested in religion. Constantine made it the official religion of Rome.
Imagine if one day the government declares that Islam is the new religion and that everyone has to obey by it – that’s pretty much what happened in Rome, but it was the opposite of what they believed in, because some people believed in different gods, like the god of war, the god of water. When that happened, the foundation of everything, of what the country believed in changed overnight. I would think that was the beginning of the downfall. Even people who believed in the ancient Roman traditions would be persecuted.
WTL: With a little bit more reading you’ll be giving seminars there!
Maurizio: (Laughs) No, no, no. I never did this for any political reason, it’s just the story of Rome, and I wanted to make entertainment in a way while people can get educated on certain things. I became more fascinated by reading it. It changed the whole system, from the day Romulus was born to 800 years later somebody decides they’re going to change everything.
WTL: You mentioned that you don’t know if there’s going to be another album. Are plans up in the air for that?
Maurizio: Well, if people want one I don’t see why I wouldn’t do another record. I have a lot of ideas, and Rome is 1000 years long, and there’s a lot to talk about, and I would love to do another record. If people were interested in it I would look into it for sure, and at the moment this thing is pretty much on fire, so things are looking in good shape for another record.
We’re going to do another Kataklysm [album] in 2011, so it’d be a long time before I do another [Ex Deo] album, like 2012 or 2013. I don’t know if the world will still exist by then! If I do another one it’ll be a lot more detailed with strong content because this album is an introduction.
WTL: Who would you like Ex Deo to tour with if you had the opportunity to?
Maurizio: That’s a good question! I’d be into touring with any band that would make sense. A good billing to go with that would be Nile because they’ve got some historical stuff. The Viking bands would make sense too. I wouldn’t tour with bands that are just completely out of whack like deathcore, or something else that doesn’t fit with the concept of what I’m doing.
WTL: How did you end up choosing Ex Deo as a band name? I usually don‘t ask bands what their band name means, but I’m hoping to beat everybody to the punch on this one since it’s early on!
Maurizio: I was actually expecting a lot of interviewers to ask me that question, and I haven’t gotten that question too many times.
Ex Deo is more Greco-Roman. In Roman is would be Deous, but it’s Latin for “from god”, and this is what they would say to pass law, or to encourage their soldiers. For example, a general would talk to his soldiers and legionnaires and say “This wasn’t my decision, this comes from the god of Mars”, so from god, and the senators would do the same thing when they passed a law, “It’s not my decision, it’s something sent from god” like Jupiter. To me it related a lot to what Rome was, It was a lot of spiritual and a lot of spiritual things coming from outside. I love the fact that they viewed the the whole world being related to the sun, because to them when the sun comes it brings life, and when it leave the earth dies.
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