“Like falling in love in September ‘96”, the debut record from Italian marhy emo band MORE LEMONADE, is one of those records that could serve really well as a soundtrack of all those moments and stories in your life that you wish you could remember forever or forget for just as long. The release shows promise of growth for an already fantastic band and our interview for IDIOTEQ was something inevitable. Check out MORE LEMONADE as they deliver an original, heartfelt infusion of math and indie rock with touching emo to create something that will stay with you and keep you coming back for years to come.
Photo by Martina Rigoni.
Hey guys! Thanks a lot for teaming up with me for this interview. I truly love your recent record and I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to learn more about MORE LEMONADE!
Please drop us a couple of lines about your background and roots in music and how you evolved to what we hear on “Like falling in love in September ’96”?
Hi Karol, thank you for this interview. We’re so glad you liked our record.
Have you been in other bands before? Apart from MORE LEMONADE, do you have more active musical projects?
We’ve started and played with quite a few bands in the past – ranging from punk rock to psychedelic rock: bands like MINDFIELD, OUT WITH A BANG, ON A BRIDGE OF DUST, LOVE IS THE ANSWER, and GREVE.
One of us is currently a member of FARGLOW, an instrumental post rock project, with guys of DEBRIS HILL and FUTBOLÌN.”
What encourages you to keep pursuing more music?
Money. Yes, money. Because we need money. And selling our music is our plan to make more money. You know, that was our first name, MORE MONEY. Then we got through MORE MONKEY, MOREMONS and now we are MORE LEMONADE, just because our marketing research showed that we could sell more music playing emo songs using the word “lemonade”.
Haha! Great! I knew it!
When you started working on “Like falling in love in September ’96”, did you consciously try to make it sounds exactly like it feels today? Tell me abit about your songwriting process.
We are an ordinary emo band in an ordinary emo world: emo guitar part, then other emo instruments and then emo voices and emo lyrics. Nothing special.
We wrote “Like falling” songs with this kind of process maybe three or four years ago. We played them so much that the sapling inside our rehearsal room grew into a tree. But we didn’t have any idea how they would sound on a record. So we grabbed a couple of our favorite APPLESEED CAST’s albums and said to our friend Matteo Bissoli at Epsilon Studio “Our drums should be like that” and that’s it.
Seriously, it’s so full of experimental recording stuff, maybe too much. But it was our first record, and we were excited to be able to do everything by our own hands. It has been amazing, but we won’t do it anymore. We just want to play and write emo songs.
How about the lyrical content. How personal is this record?
It’s super personal. All seven tracks are basically stories about the last three years of our lives. We wanted to write something that would be easy to follow: a few lines you could like, a simple story, or a couple of words that might make you remember something about yourself. Actually, we started writing down a big concept album, with a lot of characters and deaths and swords and magical stuff. Then we thought it wasn’t a good idea for a 2010’s emo band (maybe we were watching too much Game of Thrones).
Haha, interesting…
Are there already some plans to record more stuff?
Yes, we are writing something new. We already have three or four ideas. But we don’t know how will they sound. Let’s see. We don’t have so much to play together, so things change a lot from one version of a song to another. And we don’t know if this is just a matter of memory or wrong habits or bad organization.
When you were writing for this record, did you feel it was important that it was kind of important for you personally, to open up and share your thoughts?
No. We played for a long time just to know ourselves as musicians. Then we wanted to act like a real band, with a real album with real songs inside. So we wrote a bunch of songs and put them together.
Given the changing definitions of what an artist is these days, do you consider yourself one?
No, we’re not that kind of people. We’re just four friends and a tree in a handmade rehearsal room.
If you were forced to perform a completely different type of music, what would it be? What are your non-emo inspirations and some of the styles you’ve always wanted to perform?
Maybe free jazz, or better some kind of indie rap. We have a lot of influences, we always listened to very different things. Mississippi blues, Italian 80s songwriters, prog bands, new wave, a lot of rap stuff and many other things. All united in our emo non-emo style.
How about live shows? Can we catch you guys somewhere sometime soon?
We will be in Trento with Debris Hill, on April the 8th. Nothing else soon.
Then you can meet us in our rehearsal room. We will concentrate on our new stuff
Will we see any surprises in your scene presence? How do you party on tour?
We don’t party because we don’t tour so much. You know, we’re a poor band with a lot of ideas for songs and no money for touring.
But if we were touring then there would be a lot of card games, pyjama parties and natural drugs.
Ok guys, let’s get serious :)
Compared to other cities you know, have you benefited from being a part of the Verona alternative music scene? How supportive and vibrant is it?
We actually don’t know how the Verona scene is. Maybe because we don’t know if there is a real Verona scene, actually. We can only tell you great things about some great friend’s bands (DEBRIS HILL, FUTBLIN, FLAG OF ESTONIA, ENIDD) and labels (DiNotte Records).
Ok guys, I guess that would be it! Thanks so much for your time.
The final message for the world is yours :)
Thank you, Karol. We’re very happy to have been on IDIOTEQ.COM.
Let us say one simple thing: guys, support your local scene. And support Terence Hill, too. He needs your help.
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