Messa: "Art makes the pain you go through freeze, to return to with different eyes"

I would be fooling myself if I didn’t admit that "The Spin" is my favorite album of the past year. Our Italian neighbors, Messa, have spoiled us with their wonderful music, from their early doom attempts to the previous, mystical "Close", and finally to their recent, this-year’s creation, which masterfully blended many influences. Naturally, this talent led them to pan-European recognition, as well as to a massive tour, part of which was carried out together with the legendary Paradise Lost, who held them in very high regard.

Following them this year in various parts of the world where we crossed paths at concerts, I really wanted to meet these people with whom I feel I share so much, in terms of culture, age, and aesthetics, and to learn how they feel about the way life has unfolded for them in recent years through their creative work. After their memorable appearance in our country in support of their previous album, the opportunity for this conversation came shortly before their return to Greece, for me to meet, and for Rocking to repeat a conversation with them. Below you will find a beautiful discussion with Alberto and Sara, the band’s guitarist and vocalist respectively. Two genuine, self-aware, and grounded people who, it seems, still have many emotions to offer through the music we love.

So hello, my name is Irene, and I'm located near you in Athens, Greece, where we're going to see you in a few days. And I would be very happy to start a conversation with you because I have been very happy listening to your music the past few years, and I really enjoyed your last album, "The Spin". So I have here Alberto and Sara with me. So you just got back home to Italy. How do you feel after this very long trip?

S: Alberto.

A: I mean, of course it was an awesome experience and also very, hard on us on a physical level, let's say, and mental to some extent. It was the longest we've been on the road so far. And I think it was, I mean, after all, considering it was for sure a positive experience for us. And we saw what was like to work with a bigger band and to join them on such a nice tour and also seeing many very cool venues, especially in the UK. And it was a great experience. And it was actually the first time we did as a support band for another band. So...

Okay. How was working with Paradise lost? I mean, they're kind of a big deal in the music that we like and I also love them as well. How is it joining them on tour?

A: Well, it's been awesome and they are very nice people, it was an awesome experience.

I did ask myself, "am I saying too much about how I feel?

So I would assume that mentally it’s a little bit hard to deal live with this album which has been around since the spring, it is kind of heavy songwriting emotionally. And I really enjoyed it, must be one of my favorites for this year. And it kind of got me to the heart. First of all, I want to ask if you're comfortable enough to answer this. Who hurt you to write those songs? The lyrics of the Spin feel a very deep emotional connection to thyself and to the outside. I want to know what got you into moving from the, you know, spiritual feeling of "Close" to the more hurt and pressured feeling that "The Spin" gave out.

A: Yeah, I think Sarah has true answer to this.

S: I mean, writing down stuff is a thing that I do nonetheless. I think that we had a certain kind of vision that was not there from the get-go, from the beginning, but we worked through it and with it, it was flowing. And we kept discovering it ourselves the more we were walking and seeing what was actually happening with the material. I think that one difference is that I wanted to be more, let's say, straightforward with the lyrics, probably. There were some times when writing and recording the album, I did ask myself, "am I saying too much about how I feel and what happens within me and outside of me?". It's always a bit of a sacrifice, you know, but It's worth it anyways.

One cool thing about music to me is that it makes you feel less lonely

Well, if I could give you a hint, it made me feel better for something I was going through and made me feel very connected with the lyrics. So if that's worth something to you, then I believe it's worth it. But it's very interesting to say that, sometimes feeling that we're saying too much.

S: You know, one cool thing about music to me is that it makes you feel less lonely. Somehow I feel less lonely when I listen to the other's music and it says something to me. And I think that's really precious. I mean, but that is not just regarding music, but it regards the whole arts in general, in my opinion. I can feel less lonely when I do see a painting and I feel it resonates within me and it tells me something, I try to imagine what, for example, the painter was trying to say or convey with this art and you have to sacrifice some parts of yourself and of your ego in order to create something and it transcends into something bigger than you. Sometimes we're channeled for something else. I think that's very interesting to witness when somebody else is doing art and you can appreciate it. And it's also intense when you are doing your own creative thing and you get drawn into that kind of dimension. So yeah, it's really great when somebody tells you, like you just did before, that you were touched somehow by some songs and by the record. It's really precious because it makes the whole work much more worth and the pain you go through becomes something else and then it gets stuck there in time. And when you will be over it, you'll look at that same material with a new view and a new perspective, I think.

Τhat was accompanied very nicely, in my opinion, with how your music flew in some different directions that were pretty obviously well within you, but this element of gothic rock and new wave became even more apparent into the more traditional doom sounds that you would contemplate before. And the guitar got a lot more into the forefront. So did you combine the darker aesthetic of the Gothic sounds with the theme of the lyrics, or did it just flow naturally?

S: I think it flew kind of naturally. I didn't think about it too much, to be honest. It was just when I was writing, as I told you before, I was trying to be more sharp. But the whole record, we wanted it to be sharper, both musically and lyrically wise, for our regards, me at least. It was spontaneous. I think that most of, I mean, 90% of Messa's lyrics are pretty dark on their own. But I think they fit with the music. And some parts of "The Spin" were of course thought about very much. Some others were spontaneous and natural because it just felt right.

In regards to viewing art in general as a nice way to communicate and express, this time you had something that I recognize as a side project to the album with what you did with the video clips, because there was a common thematology in between the four videos that you released. In my mind, it reminded something between the classic Italian giallo, a little bit of Western, a little bit of adventure. So how did you think about the concept? What did you want to present?

S: So the whole theme behind the videos, we thought about it and we wanted the videos to be tied together, like three different chapters of the same journey. Marco, which is the bass player from Messa, actually was the director of the videos, him and the rest of us thought of this kind of story in order to express both the visual and the aesthetic and the musical side of "The Spin". On the cover of the record, there's this tire made with a marble too. It's a piece by Nico Schellar, an Italian artist. And I think it perfectly represents the meaning behind this record. So what we tried to do was to translate that into moving images as well.

There's a whole journey in the album and as the title of the of the album says, it makes you spin - and from one point, you do the whole fucking circle and then you go back to it because it keeps on spinning and it's just how life works. It's cyclical. You can't escape from it. We wanted the videos to end up exactly how they began. Because at the end of the "Fire On The Roof we're looping back to the beginning and you're leaving again, not knowing what you will find next, because that is something that changes all the time. It was interesting to shoot the video in the first one "At Races" in the Balkans. It was a very strong and intense experience. Some parts were actually loaded with fun, to be honest, because we had a chance to meet a lot of very nice people. The crew of bikers that were actually performing on the video were lovely people, and they welcomed us from the get-go. We didn't know each other, we've just been in contact with emails. We were not friends or people that you do already know. and have a kind of relationship with them beforehand. And they were super kind and welcoming. We spent some days with them and their story was actually super interesting.

So that was the reason why we also made a little documentary on them, while we were filming. That was not planned. But their stories were so interesting that we just said, okay, we have to let them narrate their own story because it was so interesting. I think the three chapters fit with each other. It was not easy to choose which songs we wanted to release as singles. But we made it work. And this time I allowed myself to put a spoken word at the end of the videos...

That's what I wanted to ask! Where was it coming from?

S: Okay, that was another unplanned thing. Tthe video for "At Races" was over. We were thinking about a way to connect that video to the next one. I had some stuff scribbled down. And I just, called Alberto and told him, hey, just put a mic and I'll come to your house and I'll try to record this and see if it fits or not. At the end, we did it for the whole three videos. I think it can give to the viewer the idea that there is something coming next - and what is that thing going to be about?

So yeah, it was creating some tension at the end of each video. So, it was your writings, it wasn't like a poem or a writing of somebody else. Okay, very nice!

S: Yeah, it's all stuff that I wrote because I do write like all the time. I did have that scribbled down already and I used that one and then I wrote the other two for the videos with the idea in mind that they were going that direction, but the first one was as I said unplanned.

And another very interesting thing on my part, the time that I first listened to the album was the ending of "Thicker Than Blood", because, this song suddenly gives in black metal and many different things happen. And you tricked me the first time because I thought that the brutal vocals at the end were yours, but apparently they're not!

S: I wish. I wish. I wish they were mine. No, it's Rocco, it's the drummer. I wish I could sing like this.

I realized that first time, when I saw you performing the new album in Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands. My friend next to me was very adamant to not listen to your album beforehand. I had the pleasure of getting a listen before. And I was like looking for his reaction. You had a very big crowd there and the live performance I think was accompanied by the same person that was performing trumpet on your album - Michele on stage there.

A: We wanted to see the people reaction because we had no idea about how was the album going to be received by people. So we were basically looking the people were listening to us, but we were looking at the people at the same time, trying to understand what was going on. Those first gigs were very nice to us. People seemed to really enjoy the new work. On our side, it was very cool to have the trumpet player, Michele Tedesco, with us, who also played the piano. This gave something more to the live performance, it's more similar to the album, I guess. It was an amazing experience. Playing Roardburn is always a challenge. But so far it was very rewarding to play that show. And I was very happy to play the new material. We were still kind of trying to understand how to play live the album. Because you cannot play the whole thing.

We were tied to the set list on the album. It was difficult to get rid of that on live shows

You mean you want to come up with a setlist on most of the other shows?

A: On the setlist, we changed the setlist like 1000 times. Because we were tied to the set list on the album. It was difficult to get rid of that. Because when you play the first three songs of the album in the same order, then you start to expect what's coming after. I wanted to lose that thing. I wanted to, have some surprise on the people, and still the problem with this album so far is that we had a lot of very short gigs actually.

We played a lot of 45-minute gigs this year, and the album was fitting barely. But we still wanted to play old stuff. I mean, Roadburn was one thing, and we had to play the whole album. But the other gigs, we still want to give an idea of what we do. The previous album was different. So we wanted to include those songs in the set list, but it was very difficult to give up new songs to have the older ones. In the end, we did 1000 different set lists. But now I think we found a solution.

Well, I attended the Damnation Festival in Manchester, where I also saw you. And I think you are approaching a very good golden combination of songs there.

A: Thank you. But in that occasion, we had even less time to play! So we had to pick out and to remove more songs than usual. I hope we're going to play some longer shows in the future.

So you're gonna tell me if you’ll do that, because the next weekend you're coming over here in Greece! Will those be your last lives of this year or are you continuing?

A: We have a festival in the Netherlands.

S: But like those these three shows in December are going to be the last ones for this year. And we are going to be doing an Italian tour next winter, let's say, winter to spring. So it's going to be from late January extending to the whole month of February, just weekends. And we're going to play Italy, we just played a couple shows in Italy this year since when "The Spin" came out. We'll finally have the chance to play the record in some Italian cities and it's going to be very nice, I think.

In Italy, they sometimes play our songs on the radio nd I was amazed that I could hear myself in the shopping mall parking lot!

Do you, because I don't have a clear image of that, face the same recognition inside Italy? Because I know that Europe is very supportive of you the past few years and I'm happy for that. But does it feel the same back home?

S: To be honest, I think we're very well treated at home. I mean, we're not Iron Maiden or anything else. We're not such a big band. Many people have no idea we exist and what we do. I think so far we've been treated very well by the Italian audience. Some love you, some hate you, and it's part of the game and it's totally fine. There's always going to be somebody who's going to criticize you and like, who cares? There's also a ton of people who love what we do and I'm very happy about it and understand what what we are trying to do and the vision that we have. So that's what I care about.

A: Yeah, for example, for this album, there's a local radio here that usually plays some rock music, let's say. And for this album, they sometimes play our songs. And I was amazed that I could hear myself in the shopping mall parking lot.

S: See, that was hilarious. I mean, it happened to a friend of mine as well. And she was like, "dude, you're in the fucking parking lot of the supermarket!". Oh my God. Yeah, because it's a radio station that plays like rock music, as Alberto said, and most of our friends, when they're at work, or maybe they're driving or whatever, they would just put on that radio inside the office or the factory or anything. It's like the, let's say the working class rock radio in our area. Yeah. And you're like, "oh, here's my friend". The first time this happened, I like in a matter of literally 10 minutes, at least like five or six friends were texting me! That was really unexpected, but also very funny in my opinion, but it's good.

Yeah, I get where you've been. I wish over here were the mass media were a little bit more supportive of the rock and metal bands because we have some very good ones. So how do you feel about Greek audiences? Because you've been here before.

A: It's been awesome all the time. I mean, one of the best places to play and to eat, not to say.

S: I mean, kind people, very welcoming, super warm. We're like brothers and sisters. I mean, Italy and Greece have some traits in common and some warmth in common, I think.

This Mediterranean slightly drunk happiness!

S: Exactly. So I think we get along very well with each other. And every time we've been to Greece, it was a lovely experience from every point of view. And every time we played Greece, we would come home very happy and nourished with good food, good meetings and nice people and great shows. I'm very happy that we're coming back to Greece.

Hopefully we'll make your end of the year even more happier!

S: Well, I'm stoked to be playing Athens and Thessaloniki again because it's been a big pleasure last time and I'm really, really happy that we had the chance to do this again.

Alessandro was a solid rock in the local underground scene

We're happy too, believe me, both your previous but also the new album are pretty much loved over here. One last question regarding the album specifically, because it was something that seemed interesting, but I couldn't find much information myself on it. You have dedicated this album to a specific person called Alessandro Tassotti. I couldn't find much about him. So I would assume it's like a local figure or in your area. I would very much like to say some words about him, who he is to understand more.

S: So Alessandro was a very close friend of ours that passed away September last year. And he was a very supportive friend. Music was his eternal fire. He had an insane music culture and he would make us discover so many new bands. And he was a really, really kind person. He was the kind of friend that supports you nonetheless, regardless of what you're doing. He was the kind of friend that, it's Tuesday night, it's raining. You're playing, I don't know, one hour and a half away from your hometown. There's five people showing up – okay, he will be one of them. When the album came out we just decided to dedicate the record to him because it just felt right to us to pay a homage or a little thought to this very special person that meant a lot to us. He was a solid rock in the local underground scene. And at a personal level too, as a friend. We just thought about it and we just did it.

When we won't have anything left to say, we'll just quit. But it's not the case

First of all, guys, my sincere condolences for him. And I think more people will know him through your record or anyone else remembering him. I would really much like to know how you feel, because you're now in a transition. As you said before, you might not be Iron Maiden, but you are a band that started locally and you're growing rapidly in reputation. How does it feel to be in the middle looking back to where you were like a smaller band and towards where you're going to right now? Do you feel pressure? Do you feel good about yourselves?

A: Well, to be honest, I feel very lucky that I have the opportunity to keep doing this, first of all. because it's been 10 years, almost 11 years, a lot of time. Having the opportunity to say that this is my job, it's a great deal to me. I still keep thinking about what can I do next and what the next album is going to be, what the next work is going to be. This is the thing that comes to mind to me first.

S: I agree. It's kind of the same for me because I feel a huge privilege from so many points of view and I feel really lucky in knowing thatI and we are doing this. At the same time, I feel there's more that we can say and learn and do because with every record you try to push the bar to, "how can I be a better musician" next? What can I discover next? And how can I keep my core and use language in order to move, but still keeping the integrity that I have. It's something which is not easy, but if you do have the fire inside of you, you can definitely do that. I think we still have a lot to say. When we, I mean, I think that when we won't have anything left to say, we'll just quit. But it's not the case.

So based on what you say, I find it very interesting that you say that "I feel that we have a lot more to say". But in contrast, the record wasn't too much. It wasn't everything all at once. It knew exactly where to stop, to say what the one story it had to say. And you kept yourselves from using everything else you felt you need to say, probably for something next.

A: Well, I like to think about the album as a photography of a moment. We still want to do other photographies and every moment that we leave counts for doing a new picture. We look at the past work as mainly experience that we can learn from. I don't think we are a band that sits on the stuff we've done before. We can sure learn from the mistakes, which always exist, and also about the good things and try to build a better result for the next one.

S: I agree. When you publish a record, there's so much going on and so many new experiences that you do and new music that you'd start listening to and so many inputs that you receive. All those inputs end up creating what is the base and the thought behind the the record that's coming next. It's like it's like a circle, a spin at the end because there's always something that you're going to gain and rediscover. It becomes a part of you and then you keep that silently in your hear,t in your mind. You let it ferment a bit and then it turns out to be turned into something else, into a new direction, just keep it for yourself. And then when the time is right, it's going to come out. That's how I see it.

It was honestly my pleasure meeting you guys. I will come meet you up close in a few days. So you can say something to close this up, whatever you feel like to say towards the audience!

S: Thank you for everything. We can't wait to see you and thanks for having us. It's going to be such a huge pleasure and we can't wait!