Italian post-metal band SEVENTH was originally formed by two members, Marco (Tum) and Maximilian, who recorded their first full length “The Herald” in 2015 in collaboration with Cesco from the band chaotic, metallic hardcore band ZEIT on the drums. 5 months after the official release via Sliptrick Records and Rip Roaring Shit Storm Records, they now have a complete line-up and they’re ready to shock the world with their monumental, progressive post metallic concept album “The Herald”. It compels the listener to lose yourself in an introspective world of their magnum opus. “The Herald” brought SEVENTH to a wider audience and I am very pleased to dig a bit deeper and give you a chance to learn more about their work. See the full interview below.
“The Herald” is a conscious journey of the mind and soul. It is the story of an ordinary man who claims freedom and denies religion and cultural restrictions of any kind. Most of all, it focuses on the strong concept of will and on the power for everyone to create its own god out of himself.
SEVENTH is: Maximilian Goldberg: Vocals and samples / Marco Tumiatti: Guitar / Fabio Saccardo: Guitar / Luca Soliman: Bass / Marco Nolli: Drums.
Hey there guys! Thanks a lot for your time! How are you? How’s the beautiful Venice?
Tum: Hi Karol and thanks for having us here on IDIOTEQ for this interview!
We’re all fine and we’re continuing to work on the promotion of our record. As far as Venice is concerned, I’m the only one living there for university and I can tell you that Venice is a relatively quiet and small city always crowded with tourists which I constantly try to avoid by sneaking through the narrow Venetian alleys hahah .The other guys from the band live in different cities, but we do manage to rehearse even though we’re all spread between small villages in Veneto and Friuli.
The millions of tourists that come to Venice each year have a specific view of the place. What’s your insider perspective of the city and perhaps a tip for someone visiting Venice next time?
Tum: I’ve been living there for three years now and I have to say that despite its cons such as high tide and crowded alleys, Venice is with no doubt one of the most beautiful cities in the world. You surely have to learn to know it and prepare to wear boots when the tide is too high if you need to get somewhere. It may seem embarrassing but that’s the way to deal with it!
My advice to anyone who wants to come and visit Venice is to get rid of the map and try to get lost in its maze of small roads. It really is a small city if compared with Milan, Florence, or Rome. And if you can’t figure the way out you can always ask one of the inhabitants of the city who are (almost) always happy to help you find your way back to the station or the hotel!
What’s the independent metal and hardcore scene in Venice like?
Fabio: The hardcore scene in Venice is, quite frankly, the best one nowadays down here in Italy.
The constant effort from the kids involved in the bands and collectives is absolutely astonishing: since 2012, it seems like the venetian scene has seen a second life: many great new bands were born, lots of shows have been done, a new festival (Venezia Hardcore) is now a central point on the annual schedule of HC concerts.We’re not really into the metal scene, although we play a more similar genre than HC punk… but we all come from that and we live it.
As a passive viewer, I may say that there is too much non-sensed competition between metal/metalcore bands, who do not support each other nor their own scene: and that’s the first step to let die it in my opinion.
Do you have a permit for playing shows in the old part of Venice?
Tum: There actually aren’t proper live clubs or stuff like that in the old part of the town, and it is also quite difficult to reach certain areas without renting a boat in order to carry the live gear. The “live part” of Venice takes place in Venezia Mestre, on the mainland!
Any specific outstanding hardcore or metal shows you’d like to recall here?
Fabio: One for all, last year Venezia Harcore fest was crazy.
From the lineup (including TRASH TALK, GNARWOLVES, NO TURNING BACK and many more acts) to the attendance, and the participation of the kids that came that day was absolutely incredible. And 100% DIY, absolutely unbelievable!
In these 4 years many great concerts took place in the Venice area, but none of them was comparable to this one.
Please tell us a bit more about the idea of the Venezia Hardcore festival.
Some of us will be an active part in the organization of it, doing something during the fest as staff members, and we’re very excited to do this kind of this as part of the VExHC Family, as the friendship between each other is really unbelievable.
The idea of this and past fests was always to let our favorite bands play near home and do some shit during their shows.
Not really more than that! As years pass by, seeing a renewed attention to our DIY Fest is always a joy and a confirmation that true efforts pay, especially the one from collectives and people like Samall from Trivel collective or Swamp and Youth Of Today Collective, only to share a few names.
Are there more festivals linked to independent metal and punk scene taking place every year in Venice?
Fabio: Well, there’s also a lot of shows made bu Trivel collective with a lot of huge bands, also internationals, and sometimes these shows counts more than 6-7 bands so we may call that shows mini-festivals.
Talking about other realties, as previously said there are other collectives as YOT Collective and Swamp Collective that annually organizes their own fest, a more small realty but a funny one too.
Talking about metal, I’ve seen something put up in the last months but I wasn’t well informed, but I hope something is moving also on this side.
Ok guys, so let’s dig a bit deeper into your story.
What inspired you to start SEVENTH and how did your experience and early background shape this project?
Tum: I’ve been playing with Max for several years. We both have had band experiences before starting out with SEVENTH, but none of the past projects went well after all due to line up problems and stuff. We took some months of hiatus, and we individually began writing riffs and ideas. We eventually hooked up after some time and brought ideas together, and started working on raw structures for some of the songs that are now featured on “The Herald”. We both share quite the same background in terms of music influences and we immediately agreed on a post-metal direction with no limitations as far as experimentation is concerned.
After we came up with three songs we decided to go for it even if there were only two of us: we entered Putrefashion Studios (Lendinara, Italy) and began pre-producing the whole record. We thought it would’ve been easier to find a complete line-up once we had the record done in order to let people hear exactly what we were about with no chance of misunderstanding.
What’s there behind the name SEVENTH and how does it relate to the very core of your debut album’s concept?
Tum: Seven is a number with great significance and importance in many domains: it has great value in alchemy, science, literature, mythology and folklore. When we were looking for a name we wanted it to be as simple and evocative as possible, so we thought SEVENTH would’ve been the right choice.
In order to stay coherent with the name and its solemn and evocative aspect we decided that “The Herald” had to have seven tracks, each one representing a step in the journey of the fictional and allegorical character we invented for the concept.
How you want your work to be understood?
Tum: we tried our best to create something coherent in terms of music, artwork and concept. We think of “The Herald” as a journey of the mind and soul, divided in seven steps which are represented by the seven tracks on the record. The man who goes through this path of spiritual death and rebirth is an ordinary man who manages to get rid of restrictions of any kind only by the means of his own will and conscience. We also focused on the artwork realization of the concept, and we came up with the idea of picturing these seven steps in seven tarot cards (thanks to Alessandro Fogo “Le Mort Joyeux” who took care of the realization) which represent each phase of the journey, plus an eighth card which sums up the whole record. We would like this album to be viewed as a whole made up by the concept, the music and the artwork.
What artists do you think exemplify a very similar approach to making art? What are your inspirations?
Tum: We all look at great pieces of work like those of CULT OF LUNA, NEUROSIS, ISIS, FALL OF EFRAFA, KYUSS. We’re then individually inspired by different bands and genres, and I think that’s good because everyone can bring something interesting in.
Ok guys, and one more technical question about the album – can you introduce the labels that you have teamed up with for this release?
Tum: We teamed up with Sliptrick Records for the digipack and digital release of the record, and with Rip Roaring Shit Storm Records who hooked us up for a limited run of tapes.
How is SEVENTH positioned in relation to other practices? What are you future plans with the band?
Tum: We’re surely going to continue the promotion of our first record. Meanwhile, we already began writing some ideas for new songs, and we have some plans about setting a tour up within the end of the year.
Cool, please make sure to let me know as soon as you have some news and new tracks to share.
Thanks a lot for your time! Please feel free to add you final words and take care! Cheers from Warsaw!
We want to thank everyone who supported us since the very beginning and who bought a copy of the record or some other piece of merch. We really appreciate the warm welcome people gave us so far. We’ll keep promoting the record and start planning stuff for the future in the next months. Last but not least, thank you IDIOTEQ for having us and for being interested in our project.
Cheers from SEVENTH!
