Line Up:
Ricky Mandozzi: Bass & Vocals
Romeo Promopoulos: Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Marty Van Kerckhoven: Lead & Rhythm guitar
Lorenzo Vissol: Drums
Well,Friends of Aristocracy!
We speak again of our newsroom, where in a little while, we will have, in all its emotions, the interview 148 of the Aristocracy.This time, we talked to a band that makes an absolute attack of Death Metal crossed with the high octane of Thrash Metal. For 43 minutes, they keep the listener in a hellish rhythm combined with a solid quality already seen in 2020, the year in which these our interviewees started their career by releasing the EP Voices. Now, they show us their debut album titled Recollections of the Insane.We are talking about the Belgian band Schizophrenia. Before we start the interview, we want to give a sincere thanks to the band, especially to guitarist Romeo Promopoulos for answering our humble questions. Let's go to a song and our chat with him.
A1:Talking about the composition work in Recollections of the Insane?
Romeo Promopoulos:We pretty much all have a lot of input on composing new material. Most of the time Me or Marty come up with a part or a riff or even a full fletched song and from there we all start giving input and really throwing ideas around. Sometimes we finish a song and then we still completely change the whole structure until we really feel like it became why it was meant to be.
A2:What complexity did you want to bring to this album?
Romeo Promopoulos:We don’t really care that much about complexity or try to be complex on purpose. We really try to feel where the song is going and really literally just write and play what comes out. If it sounds good, its good.No need for fancy stuff just for the sake of making a fancy song haha. If it ends up being complex then it just is. But our writing and ideas come out pretty natural honestly.
A3:What are Stratified Realities?
Romeo Promopoulos:Stratified realities are different layers of existence, or other realities so to speak. Like for instance dreams or other realms we don’t know about. The song Stratified Realities all came from a dream I had that was so vivid and real. I could feel the wind and smell the atmosphere. It was really a crazy experience. It kinda felt and was like a dream within a dream. It's too long to explain everything that happened in there but as soon as I woke up in shock in the middle of the night I wrote everything down and started writing this song.
A4:What caused the sadness in the third song?
Romeo Promopoulos:The time I came up with the idea for the song I was going through a pretty dark time also some other members. But I think we all have been struggling from time to time some harder then others. But it's always something dark lurking inside, in my case this was just something to get out of my system otherwise it stays there and becomes bigger and bigger so it's like you get this anger,sadness and just poison out of your mind and create something with it. That’s what became sea of sorrow.
A5:Some literature or film inspire the band?
Romeo Promopoulos: Not really in per se or a specific movie, books or literature.. I mean we get our inspiration from everywhere, also a lot from stuff that just shows up in our thoughts. And maybe we connect it to other stuff… we leave a lot open for interpretation.
A6:Does the second song assume that the main character of your story is brainwashed?
Romeo Promopoulos:No not really haha, I remember when we wrote this one we had a pretty funny straight forward working title for the song, cause the way how it sounded. Pretty much straight forward and we really liked how it was just in your face so we kinda kept it this way. Then Ricky had some fun with the lyrics making it one of our more brutal nasty songs that just punches you in the gut hahaha.
A7:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
Romeo Promopoulos:Our Idea behind the cover is the guy in front is kneeling in front of this huge statue which reassembles his sanity or insanity, like he’s fallen a slave for his madness. That’s why we called the album “Recollections Of The Insane”. The Memories and thoughts of someone that has descended into complete insanity.
A8:How is Schizophrenia different from your previous bands?
Romeo Promopoulos:We are way more heavier and it's more a blend from everything. We love so much music, obviously leaning more towards the heavier side of things. But we really try to incorporate everything. There's no limits and no boundaries. So we don’t stick to one genre like thrash or just death, or whatever you know. On top of that now we are at a level where we can include a lot more melody into our songs. Which if done well makes the heavier stand out even more.
A9:Who are the damned who had falls?
Romeo Promopoulos: If I could give a reference for this song that would perfectly illustrate what it's about I would tell you to go look at the paintings from Peter Paul Rubens. This song was mostly written by Marty. He’s really into the old arts of painting and knows a lot about it. He also paints himself !
A10:Why can we say that the stories on this album are crazy?
Romeo Promopoulos:haha maybe they are crazy, maybe they are not. Depends on who’s listening and how you interpret it.
A11:The band feel differences between Voices and now in Recollections of the Insane?
Romeo Promopoulos:Oh yes, for sure it feels different in a way. Although we are still the same, I think you can see and hear the difference between voices and recollections of the insane. Back when we were writing “Voices” we were still too stuck on one genre, mostly thrash and merely trying to touch the edges of death metal. Also we got better at our instruments and we can really express our music in a way that we intend to. We have more freedom now because of that.
A12:This album is conceptual?
Romeo Promopoulos:Not specifically, but for this album you could maybe say that yes. Like I said we just write what’s in our head and it just becomes something that afterwards we could be like, aha ! It makes sense now. It's like magic.
A13:Why is the mental universe so fundamental to the band?
Romeo Promopoulos:Well it is a super interesting subject. Which goes super broad. There's so much about the mind we don’t even know yet or will never know. Like what’s consciousness ?
A14:What kind of subject don´t deserve a Schizophrenia song?
Romeo Promopoulos:Theres a lot of subject that are pretty useless hahaha, depends on the band I guess ?
A15:Why is this album the most authentic version of the band? Romeo Promopoulos:Because we truly get to write what we want to write. No one is telling us what to and how to do it. Also we give that freedom to ourselves by not sticking to one genre.
A16:What other elements besides Death Metal used by the band on this album?
Romeo Promopoulos:Some Black metal elements, Classical music, maybe even some fusionish stuff, Marty is really into that. I’m sure I’m missing some stuff.
A17:What details did you put on this album?
Romeo Promopoulos:We thought a lot about the song structures, and how to get a nice a balance or flow in them. "