At its purest, “Affogare, risalire, ricadere”, the newest captivating record from Italian screamo band BYMYSIDE is an emotional battery that leaves the listener in a different state, serving hypnotic beauty, despite its raw and powerful character. We have teamed up with the band to discuss their wildly ambitious, wonderful record, their local scene of Cesena and a lot more. Launch the player and read the full interview below. It features dozens of artists recommendations that will keep you busy for months!
“Affogare, Risalire, Ricadere” shows an interesting take on an old screamo sound and offers various other moods, interesting releases of tension and unexpected instrumentation. BYMYSIDE seem to have done a masterful job of channeling their strong feelings into more smooth and approachable record. The album is available on vinyl via Blessedhands Records (IT) BHR-023, Dreamingorilla Records (IT) DGR-049, Rubayiat Records (ex Allende Records) (UK) RBY-001, Entes Anomicos (GER) EA-302, Tadzio Records (GER) TR-006, Samegrey Records(UKR) SGR-045, and Santapogue Media (USA) SANTA-045.
The record was recorded and mixed by Franco Naddei at Cosabeat Studio (Villafranca di Forlì, Italy) between October and November 2015, and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios (Amherst, Massachusetts) in December 2015. The artwork was made by Valik Lapshin (Samegrey Records, YOTSUYA KAIDAN).
Hey guys! Before we dive into the details of your recent record “Affogare, risalire, ricadere”, please tell us more about BYMYSIDE. What were your musical background before BYMYSIDE and what led you to forming this band?
Hi Karol, thanks a lot for your time.
BYMYSIDE was born in 2011, but we started playing and composing our music in late 2012.
We all came from different musical backgrounds and some of us are still into them, we came from: punk rock, post-hardcore, hardcore punk, hardcore metal, pop punk, alternative rock and so on… all of us had a band or more than one before BYMYSIDE, and some of us still have other musical projects.
All of us wanted to do something different from our old projects and wanted to change approach to music, we wanted to scream hahaha and we still want to do it.
At the beginning BYMYSIDE started as a band inspired by PIANOS BECOME THE TEETH or DEFEATER, trying to put as much as possible things from our old experiences in our songs. Then, growing up and listening to new music constantly every day, our mood on music changed and so also our line-up.
Now we play screamo/punk, because it’s pretty natural for us playing this kind of music.
What ideals, ethics and messages did you want to express in your work work and why?
We talk about what surrounds and consume us in every day life; we talk about our fears, about the end of a relation with old friends or with someone really near you and about being always out of step with the others.
Our lyrics are really personal because we talk about real situations that we’re living or we lived in the past. You can fit in them or not but first of all we seek the honesty in our songs.
We stopped talking about girls. We’re really tired about young screamo bands that always sings “You broke my heart you bitch but stay with me, I’m nothing without, I cry every day when I think of you, bitch”, it’s ok if you’re sad but you can talk about other milion of things.
Then, we don’t talk about politics in our songs but we refuse and avoid every kind of fascism and racism.
Can you break down the lyrics of some of your favorite tracks from “Affogare, Risalire, Ricadere”? Also, could you speak a bit about self-portraiture as it relates to your work? Do you and your experiences often appear in your own lyrics?
Yes, we and our experiences appear in the lyrics. This happens in almost every track but especially in track 4 (“Forme geometriche nel buio che ci circonda”) and in track 6 (“Tutto resta uguale”).
For example: in track 4 I talk about a sad time on holiday with some friends in Budapest. I felt defeated, full of fears in the middle of an unknown big city.
In track 6 I talk about a period of my life when the more I tried to change things in my life the more anyway everything stayed the same, like the name of the song says.
In almost every track of the record the lyrics talk about facts happened or that are happening in our lives, we did the same thing also on our old record and in all the songs we wrote, always respecting the record’s concept.In the case of “Affogare, risalire, ricadere”, the concept is about being out of step with the other people, feeling defeated and other depressive and sad things like these.
Music wise, your work is both uncompromising and deeply emotional. What’s it like to create something that challenges a listener to feel? Can you talk a little about emotionality in your process?
Thank you very much! We really appreciate your words.
I said previously, our music come natural. I don’t know if in our process there’s emotionality, maybe the listener should tell this. I think that our process is the same as the other bands: there’s a guitar riff, if we like it we’ll keep working on this all together, if not we’ll work on other riffs.
This is simply our music, we don’t want to challenge anyone to feel anything. Feel free to listen to what you really like, and, of course, if you feel into our music we can only appreciate this, if not, well, no problem, life goes on.
Ultimately, what do you hope the listener to get out of your work?
Well, we really appreciate if someone feels into our music but, as I said previously, if you don’t like our work, no problem. We also really appreciate if someone helps us in a concrete way, buying our record, organizing a show in his town, sharing our songs with people that don’t know us, etc.
We all may do like this with the bands we like, supporting them, helping them in a concrete way.
“Affogare, risalire, ricadere” was released via Blessedhands Records (IT), Dreamingorilla Records (IT), Rubayiat Records (UK), Entes Anomicos (GER), Tadzio Records (GER), Samegrey Records (UKR), Pundonor Records (ESP), and Santapogue Media (USA). How do you arrange such a multi-label deal? What formats did you manage to secure?
We asked to a lot of labels to help us in releasing this record. The ones in this coproduction were all excited to be part of it so they accepted immediately. Other labels said that weren’t able to be part of it but in the meantime we knew those people and they knew BYMYSIDE. Other labels didn’t replied at all.
The funny thing is that we’re from Italy and the Italian labels that helped us are only two, the other labels are from Germany, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Spain and United States; for us, a young and local band from Italy, it’s unbelievable that our record will be played on the other side of the world.
We still want to thank all the labels that helped us, and if you want to support them buy our new record from them:
Blessedhands Records BHR 023; Dreamingorilla Records DGR – 049; Rubaiyat Records (ex Allende Records) RBY 001; Pundonor Records PUN 002; Tadzio Records TR 006; Samegrey Records SGR 013; Santapogue Media SANTA 045; Entes Anomicos EAR 302; now some of those guys are our friends and it’s incredible for us. We also still want to thank Valik Lapshin from Samegrey Records and YOTSUYA KAIDAN who did the artwork. Check out his works here!
About the format: we wanted to release vinyls, it was the only option considered by us. Some of the labels asked if we were interested in releasing other formats like tapes but all of us dreamed to have his band’s vinyl in his hands, one day. So we did it and we hare very very very happy of this.
Maybe one day we’ll release also digipacks or tapes of this record, we will see, at the moment we don’t know.
Technically, how did you prepare all the needed stuff to put this record on vinyl? How did you deal with covers, pressings and all the material details?
It took a lot of time, but I think it’s normal when you talk about release a record in vinyl.
First of all we wanted to have our work finished.
Then, we knew more or less how many labels will be involved in this coproduction and in the meantime Valik worked on the entire artwork.
So, we contacted the print plant here in Italy and they printed only the vinyls.
In the end, a friend of our guitarist printed the covers and the inlays.
We put vinyls into the covers one night at our drummer’s house listening to TURNOVER. It was pretty romantic hahaha but I think that the whole effort was rewarded.
We still want to thank also: Franco Naddei at Cosabeat Studio in Villafranca di Forlì, Italy who recorded and mixed our work and Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios (Amherst, Massachusetts) for mastering it.
Their works were just perfect for us, check them out!
Where did this weird cover design come from? What inspired this artwork?
We simply said to Valik: “Listen a lot to our record and get inspired by this”.
At the beginning we weren’t sure about what should be in the artwork or who would have done it. We wanted only that the artwork was inspired by our music and our lyrics and their atmosphere.
We love the final result. I think Valik did a great job, a lot of people congratulated us for the choice of the artwork, we’re very happy of this and also Valik.
Ok guys, running a fully independent band, what has been your greatest challenge on your journey and how did you tackle it?
We hadn’t so many troubles or great challenges to face until this moment.
Of course, as every band in the world, I think, we had some quarrels but nothing unsolvable.
The main challenge at the moment is to play so much shows as possible, this is not so easy for us because we all have a job or we’re students but also this thing is solvable.
What was the most memorable moment from all the live shows you’ve played so far?
We played with a lot of friends from our area, with bands from other Italy areas and with foreign bands and in almost every show we played we had funny/great/bad times that we carry with us.
For example: about 2 years ago we played near Rimini and the venue’s sound engineer, who seemed to us a very big/crazy man at first sight, felt in love with our drummer and he tried to kiss him more than once.
Another great memory is when we played and organized a secret house show at my house in Cesena’s countryside (our hometown).
Another one is the very first “Heavy Shows” gig, about one year ago, in our area with our friends NOYÉ, MARCOVALDO, also LENTIC WATERS were supposed to play but one of the guys was ill, they joined anyway the show and the afterparty was incredible.
We also miss our very first shows with our friends HIEROPHANT (their new record will be out soon via Season of Mist, don’t miss it) LA PROSPETTIVA and AND SO YOUR LIFE IS RUINED.
Instead, one time our guitarist risked his life: he played one show with high temperature and 3 days later he was hospitalized for heart problems, everything went well but we got very scared in a first moment.
Another bad memory was when about 3 years ago CLIMATES from UK stole some t-shirts from our merch. We don’t know what they did with them but from that moment we hate those shitty babies, even if our bass player always wears their horrible “bear” hoodie hahaha.
Haha, amazing! :) Did you have any specific venues and in Cesena worth a recommendation to our readers? What cool spots should we head to once we get there?
Well live really near to the hills, the mountains and the seaside. In almost all the areas there are cool places in which you can eat excellent food (we recommend you the almighty PIADINA) and we also have some spots not far from Cesena where you can have fun. So there is something to suit all tastes.
There are also some cool venues in which bands could play shows. Our favourite at the moment is Magazzino Parallelo (aka “Parallo” for the locals), in which the guys from “Heavy Shows” organize very cool shows almost once or twice a month, here you can see a list from September to November 2016. We can say that we don’t live in a bad city hahaha
What have been some of the most memorable artists and records you encountered this year so far?
I hope to don’t forget anyone in this list hahaha but let’s try!
This year we met and played with some cool bands like: CHAVIRÉ, HYPERWÜLFF, CLASS, YO SBRAITO (their new record “Secondo aspettative altre” is out!), URAGANO and many others.
We enjoyed some albums like: Slow by SPORT, La malora by MARNERO, Bad Weather by SLANDER, Tired of tomorrow’s you by YOTSUYA KAIDAN, Rivincite by AND SO YOUR LIFE IS RUINED, Hypercaffium Spazzinate by DESCENDENTS, Guidance by RUSSIAN CIRCLES, Istmo by ISTMO, Death index by DEATH INDEX, Ulises by VIVA BELGRADO, Persona by URALI and many others.
We discovered, and sometimes saw playing, bands like: MUSCLE WORSHIP, BETTER LEAVE TOWN, JOILETTE, HALLELUJAH!, ISTVAN, LA VIA DEGLI ASTRONAUTI, and many others.
Fortunately this year is not over yet: new concerts to see, new bands to know, friends will release new music, new concerts for BYMYSIDE (we hope); still listening/seeing our favourite bands even today, still knowing old bands (OASIS rulez), still waiting for something new to listen.
Great, thanks so much! Please feel free to wrap it up with your final thoughts and some details on your next steps, upcoming shows and plans for the future.
We hope to play so much shows as possible, maybe have tours in Italy and maybe one day around Europe and to know so much people as possible! If you want BYMYSIDE in your city drop us a line!
We suggest you some bands from our local scene that you MUST listen to: NOYÉ (previously mentioned), HEARTFALL (our drummer’s other band, new record will be out soon!), SO LONG, ASTORIA (Michele’s, our guitarist, band, new music ready to be recorded and they will be out very soon), LA PROSPETTIVA (previously mentioned), IL GHIACCIO, TUMULTO, RIVIERA, HANNYA, TEENAGE BUBBLEGUMS, MARCOVALDO (previously mentioned).
Support also “Heavy Shows”, Cannibal Collective, Cause Care and all the labels that helped us in releasing our new record “Affogare, risalire, ricadere”, we love you.
Support your local scene, support the bands that you like, organize them a show, buy their records, help them in a concrete way if you can.
Cool. Thanks for your time. Cheers!
Check us out if you want on: Facebook, Bandcamp, Tumblr, Soundcloud, Youtube, Instagram and, for any kind of request, this is our email: [email protected].
Thank you Karol so much for your time and for having us on IDIOTEQ.
CIAO!
