Interview with Giada Celeste Chelli of Violet Blends (Italy)
By Mick Michaels
The Cosmick View: Hello, and welcome to The Cosmick View/MBM Ten Pounder! Thanks for taking some time to chat with us!
Giada Celeste Chelli: Hello! Thanks for having me, it’s a pleasure!
CV: Describe your
definition of the band’s sound and style and how does that definition
uniquely describe the music?
GCC: We describe our music as a kaleidoscopic blend of different
musical genres, forms and styles. We always try to paint a musical
discourse of clear sonic eloquence with the right expressive power to describe
and dissect feelings. The sound system, enhanced by the frequent dynamic and rhythmic
leaps, leads along a tortuous path of feelings and confessions, under the
guidance of the vocal melody which leads the listener towards heterogeneous
atmospheres. We talk about fears, anxieties,
broken dreams, aspirations, joys and hopes of our life. I can say that the base
of our music is rock, but you can hear echoes of classical forms, jazz chords,
metal riffs and punk attitudes, it combines different musical genres and
unravels between them. I started with classical music, then went from gothic
metal to grunge over the years, the drummer Michel Agostini loves
classic metal and art rock, the bassist Ferruccio Baroni is into prog music, we
arrange songs together, so all our different backgrounds
and tastes shape the songs.Our songs may seem simply catchy, but an
attentive ear will discover many harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, dissonant and semantic nuances. There
are so many elements that blend and play hide and seek in our music, each song
is conceived as a puzzle in which every instrument, every sound effect, every
word and every atmosphere must fit perfectly serving the general meaning. We want our music to
reflect and represent who we are. Our music is certainly authentic; it tells
our story and paints us without veils or artifices.
CV: Today, everyone
talks about artist and audience connection. Is such a level of connection
actually achievable for an artist and if so, how have you made the connection
to your fans?
GCC: Yes, it is and it is
extremely important. The artist creates the work of art to present themselves to the world and to connect with
people through their music, I believe it is a sort of mask or veil that we use
to communicate with others and therefore it is important to create a connection
with those who listen. Our
main goal is to reach people's hearts with our music. When people listen to our
music I want them to feel understood and know that they’re not alone, we all
have dark moments, but we have to find a way to face the problems and overcome
the obstacles. Music brings people together in a profound way and can give the
strength to carry on in the darkest moments. I strongly believe in the healing
power of music and its ability to turn strangers into friends, this is what we
do with our fans. Music allows you to build relationships with people you'd
never meet any other way.
CV: Is fan interaction
an important part of the band’s inner culture?
GCC: Definitely! Our
greatest satisfaction is when a person tells us that one of our songs has
helped them through a difficult moment in their life. It's a wonderful feeling
to have confirmation that what you’re doing helps someone feel better and we're so grateful for the support they give
us in return. Interacting with people helps you grow both as a person and as an
artist, I think it's important to understand other people's points of view,
then maybe it happens that you make a new friend.
CV: Can a band truly
interact with its fans and still maintain a level of personal privacy without
crossing the line and giving up their “personal space” in your opinion?
GCC: I think so. From the
moment you expose yourself to the public you must be willing to take the positive
and negative aspects and you must be prepared for what you will encounter. You
become an easy target for criticism, you are subjected to the judgment of
others and you have to learn to take it. There's something insane in writing
music and to expose ourselves completely naked in front of people. At the same
time you have to create your own personal space and separate the artist from
the person, learn when to say "enough". As a woman I encounter
different and more dangerous issues than my male colleagues, this is a fact. I had to learn
how to protect myself.
CV: Is music, and its
value, viewed differently around the world in your opinion? If so, what
do you see as the biggest difference in such multiple views among various
cultures?
GCC: I can see a difference,
every country has its culture and mentality and therefore perceives the music
in a different way. Talking about Italy, there is almost no rock and metal
culture, here pop and now trap music rule. There’s almost
no interest at all in discovering something new, something that is not
mainstream, people
are closed in their cocoon
with only what TV and major
radio station offer. From this point of
view, the United States and the United Kingdom are much more open to the new
possibilities that music can offer. Putting the genre aside, I notice an important lack of consciousness and knowledge
of what is art and its value
everywhere. There's a lot of entertainment and
very little art in these times. I see that many people cannot even see the
difference between art and entertainment. Our attention span is at its lowest
level, we spend our days like idiots in front of our smartphones, gorging on
one 30-second video after another, remaining passive in front of any stimulus
and I believe that it is a problem on a global level. We should start from
school, teaching children the significance and value of art and music and the
importance of learning to think critically and discover new things.
CV: Do you feel that a
band that has an international appeal, will tend to connect more so to American
audiences? Would they be more enticed or intrigued to see the band over
indigenous acts because of the foreign flavor?
GCC: I can speak as an
Italian musician, if you live in a country where rock and metal are not taken
into much consideration it is obvious that you try to address other audiences.
The American public is much more open to new bands and is also more used to
hearing sounds similar to ours, so it's easier. I honestly don't know if the
fact of being foreign can have an appeal for the American public, it's
something I haven't particularly noticed in my experience. But as they say, the
grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
CV: Has
modern-day digital technology made everyone an artist on some level in your opinion?
Have the actual lines of what really is an artist been blurred?
GCC: Unfortunately,
nowadays it's not the quality of what you do that counts, but the quantity. The
music industry pushes you to continuously produce, to stay in the business you
have to release
albums, singles, collections, be present on social media, be seen online
constantly, otherwise you end up forgotten. Modern technology and the
carelessness with which we swallow music has blurred the boundaries of what has
artistic value and what does not. Everyone can have their fifteen minutes of
fame if a TikTok goes viral. The artist is the one who develops a concept and
translates it according to his sensitivity, even if few now recognize this
difference. So to answer the question, no, despite modern technologies that
allow everyone to produce music, not everyone has become an artist and fame is
not a means to distinguish and affirm artistic value. Fortunately there is
still a good portion of people who recognize the value and meaning of music,
artists have always aimed more at the minority than the majority of the public.
Nowadays there is a musical flood that has transformed what we once listened to
attentively into continuous and constant background noise. With this assumption
it is clear that there is a tendency to confuse art with entertainment.
CV: How would you
describe the difference between an artist who follows trends and one who sets
them?
GCC: Art is the elaboration
of concepts; it is the expression of ideas through the peculiar sensitivity of an
artist. From the moment you follow and copy trends or canons that other artists
have established, yours is no longer art. Another important feature of art is
that it does not have to be original but authentic. In my opinion, authenticity
is the fundamental value of any art form; it counts a thousand times more than
originality, which is a false myth. Science invents while art translates and
represents through the eyes of the artist. And here the big difference between
art and entertainment returns.
CV: Has music overall
been splintered into too many sub-genres in an effort to appease fan tastes in
your opinion? And has such fan appeasements, in actuality, weakened music’s
impact as a whole by dividing audiences?
GCC: Not necessarily, sub-genres can also simply reflect the
sensibility of the artists. To facilitate understanding the world in general we
tend to label everything and I understand and accept this. I studied music for
years at university where to simplify understanding they put Haydn, Mozart and
Beethoven together, genres and categories help us contextualize music and
orient ourselves. Sub-genres
arise from the evolution of times and musical tastes and flourish from the
experimentation of musicians. I don't see any negative in this.
CV: What can fans expect
to see coming next from you?
GCC: We have great news to
tell you! We're about to release our first live album on October 27th 2023 via
Eclipse Records and we're thrilled! The album is called "Live and True"
and contains 17 tracks, a full concert that we performed in 2022 at Viper
Theatre in Florence, Italy. At some point we realized that many of our fans
around the world hadn't seen us live yet and so we started thinking about
releasing one of our live performances as an album. During the performance, a deep
connection is created with the audience and a synergy that cannot be reproduced
in the recording studio. For this reason we decided to release a live album, to
share this experience with all our fans around the world. The performance is
real and we wanted to leave it as raw as possible.
There's already a pre-save link of "Live and True.”
There will also be CDs of the album and we'll start the pre-order very soon. Hope you like the news!
CV: Thanks again for
taking some time and talking. It is greatly appreciated.
GCC: Thanks for having me…it's
been a pleasure chatting with you. Greetings from Italy!
Check out Violet Blend at:
New album “Live and True” pre-save: https://lnk.to/vltliv
Website: http://www.violetblend.it/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1CKILvBNg7lmo6LJUvjzX6?si=FjDckaI3Qu2gSx95Jd1LTQ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/violetblend/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/violetblend/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/VioletBlend
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VioletBlend
Merch Bandcamp: https://violetblend.bandcamp.com/
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