Here’s another interesting band from the mesmerizing lands of Italy. LEFT IN RUINS bring in “the essential predicates of hardcore punk: wrath and disgust against the establishment” – the official press release says it all. They have just unveiled a brand new LP called “Ghost“, which deals with “growing up in a society of shadows running after fake dreams, the lack of imagination passion, boredom and life.”
Thy have recently returned from their Portuguese tour and have just left for their 17-day European trek! Catch them live, get “Ghost” (co-released by Per Koro Records, Ruins Records and Epidemic Records) and see my interview with the band below.
Hey Olly! What’s up man? Thank you so much for taking some time with me. Tell me what are you up to? What’s goin’ on at the LEFT IN RUINS’ camp?
Hey Karol, thank to you, your interest in LIR means a lot to us. I’m quite good, excited to go on tour soon.
So LEFT IN RUINS will have a new Lp called “Ghost” out in late November/early December on Ruins Records, Per Koro Records and Epidemic Records. We will also have a limited tape edition on Sell Your Soul Records. And of course we will go on tour (check our facebook or blog For infos). Can’t wait to be on the road again!!
Yeah man. That looks like a nice collaboration. Why so many labels? What regions do they cover?
Yeah is a great collaboration between amazing guys. The first idea was to release it just on Ruins Records (Portugal) and Per Koro (Germany), then we thought that an Italian label could have been good for having some copies there too, That’s why Epidemic Records joined the ship. I think we will have a wide European distribution.
What about the US and the rest of the world? Are you taking it further than Europe?
Unfortunately we couldn’t find any label from the US interested in “Ghost”. Anyway what we would really love, is to tour outside Europe. When “Ghost” will be out we will start working on something. We will see.
Alright, so tell me a bit about this new outing. How long have you been working on it?
So “Ghost” is a 10-songs Lp. Is short, fast and has a grungy soul. We started working on the new songs last autumn/winter but most of them were written the first months of 2013. We recorded everything in April. So it took us one year to have “Ghost” ready and we are pretty satisfied. We weren’t in hurry and we took our time.
What other releases do you already have on your account?
We self-released a demo/EP in 2011 and in 2012 the German label Aim Down Sight Records released our 7″ called “Breathless, Restless, Hopeless“.
Which elements of your workshop have you tried to develop since the EP era? Which elements of your performance proved to be more successful in your opinion?
In my opinion what makes the difference in LIR music are the riffs and the guitar sound. Especially in the new record, I think Piff did an amazing work both in playing and recording (he recorded everything on his own except for the drums).
I think “Ghost” is something more than a fastcore/powerviolence record. We simply wrote music we like, influenced by bands we like, without any kind of walls or restrictions. For example we love the 60´s and 70´rock and we decided to cover a great song from those years.
Anyway we are a live band, so what we care the most is having the best sound possible and play intense and loud shows.
Exactly! And what about the lyrical content of this new record? You mentioned that it’s about growing up in a society of shadows running after fake dreams. Is it a criticism of the modern society?
“Ghost” is definitely a critique of the society of appearance and standardization. Is about boredom and monotony, illusions and nightmares. Is about the indifference and the lack of passion of our generation. Everyday we wake up and we are forced to run behind something we don’t care for real. Is hard to find our own dimension in this society, a place where we can follow our dreams, a place to call home. We are lazy, we’ve lost imagination and personality: we’re all ghosts.
“Last Dose”, for instance, is an example of the LIR evolution in “Ghost”. Is more melodic and has some of those grungy elements we love. Lyrically, “Last Dose”, is about all those people that face problems and bad moments in life with the help of medicines and drugs. Often the madness of society push people to depressions and mental illness that could be overcome by changing some habits and breaking the routine, not with pills. Musically it was written by Piff (as all the other songs) and I don’t know what influenced him in writing this song, but he was really inspired ’cause it sound great.
What we can do is to be a little less lazy about things in our lives?
I think the main thing is to have a critical view of the society we live in and of ourselves. We can try to develop our imagination and creativity and start doing stuff on our own. We have to dedicate more time to our passions and find the way to make our dreams come true.
Alright, let’s go back to touring. Being a gig-hungry wolf pack, you must be readying another trek for the upcoming weeks. Tell me about your touring plans.
Eheh, touring and being on the road is what we love the most. In the past two years we toured Europe 6 times and can´t wait for the next one. This time we will play some shows in Italy first, then we will fly to Portugal for 3 (maybe 4) crazy gigs and finally from 22nd of November till the 8th of December we will tour Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.
We hope to have the chance to tour some new countries (and continents) in 2014.
Nice. How do you remember you April/May shows? Shoot me a brief report on that trek.
That tour was amazing. In Porto (Portugal) we played one of our best shows: the punk scene there is quite young and kids don’t care that much about being cool but just go crazy and enjoy shows. We are so excited to play there again. We didn’t know what to expect from Spain, Portugal and France and we were surprised by the cool shows we played. We visited some amazing cities and met great people (as always). After that we went on another cool tour with this routine is hell from the Netherlands.
What places caught your attention and why?
As I told above, Portuguese punk scene is incredible. People there are really passionate and still believe in DIY. We had the chance to “work” with guys in Ruins Records (one of the labels involved in the release of “Ghost”) and is unbelievable all the energy they put in all their projects.
Cool.
Alright, so how LEFT IN RUINS’ atmosphere and approach compare between the 2012 and 2013?
Even if we changed two members in the band, our attitude is always the same: we just want to play loud music, have fun, meet nice people and visit new cities/countries/whatever. Probably in the van we listen less hardcore than one year/some years before but we still love the punk/hardcore scene and music.
Ok. Please sum it up for me – what’s the plan for the future of the band, what are your touring and recording plans?
So right now we are in Portugal. We are playing 3 shows here and after that we will tour Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and UK for around two weeks (from 22nd of November to 8th of December). “Ghost” will be out in December. Then we will see what will happen in 2014. We will try to tour new countries for sure.
Great! Thanks so much for your time! Good luck!
Thank you for your interest in LIR, hope to meet you one day. I would like to thank guys in Ruins Records, Per Koro and Epidemic Records. See you on the road.
Live photo by Julian Raggl
