After five long years, the Italian „suicide pop“ dandies SPIRITUAL FRONT finally released new material on their latest record „Amour Braque“ – cooperating with Prophecy Productions for the first time while also releasing a re-release of their successfull „Armageddon Gigolo“ album. In the following interview, frontman Simone Salvatori tells us about the band’s reasons for changing their label and for the re-release, about the dark sides of love that are the subject of their newest album as well as the band’s conncetion to metal music.
The name of your band, SPIRITUAL FRONT, seems to contrast your rather sensual lyrics. What reason lies behind this contradiction?
Contradiction, the thing that our life is made of. Apparently there’s a contradiction, but if you analyze it deeper, you can easily discover that nothing is 100% pure or vice versa, we grew up with the useless idea of good and bad, but these two terms are never separated from each other.
Your music has a lot of variety but also a certain catchy pop appeal. What is your opinion on the pop music that Italy is usually associated with?
We always wanted to keep something of our cultural and musical roots in our records, especially when it’s referred to those great composers as Morricone, Umiliani, Ortolani, Nicolai but hell noooo if you meant shit like mainstream pop, no way! Just now I’m watching one of the biggest musical events in Italy on TV which is organized each 1st of May, well, except the main national stinky stars, there are a dozen of useless, disgusting rappers who belong to the wave of diarrhea hip hop.
Your music is sometimes compared to that of Nick Cave. Do you also see some similarities? And what other musicians have influenced your creative output?
To be honest, I’ve never been a Nick Cave fan, he is a great and unique artist, but I can’t say SPIRITUAL FRONT was influenced by him; talking about gigs, he’s definitely one the greatest performers I saw live in the last 20 years. The main influences, probably, were: Scott Walker, Johnny Cash, Calexico, Dead Can Dance, The Smiths, Lloyd Cole, Marc Almond, Ennio Morricone, Death In June.
Your fanbase seems to be really mixed when it comes to musical taste. There are also some metal listeners. Do you yourself have some kind of connection to metal music?
I grew up with metal too, especially with thrash and death, and I still consider some metal albums as some of my all time favs: ‘Into The Pandemonium’ (Celtic Frost), ‘Leave Scars’ (Dark Angel), ‘Leprosy’ (Death), ‘Kill For Pleasure’ (Blood Feast), ‘Persecution Mania‘ (Sodom), ‘Cause Of Death’ (Obituary), ‘War Master’ (Bolt Thrower), ‘Harmony Corruption (Napalm Death) and many more.
It has been five years since your last releases, now there’s a new record called „Amour Braque“. What has been going on with you in the meantime?
We played a lot around, we spent a lot of time in the studio, experimenting, but above all, what took so long, was changing labels during those years. This thing stopped us from releasing the album earlier.
As the title says, you are once more singing about the dark side of love. However, the album seems to be a bit more gentle than your previous records. Would you agree with that and if so, what is the reason for that?
The sick nature of love keeps killing people (laughs), probably I just dealed with it, but I still can recognize its terrible, ambiguous nature. I prefer to face this theme cause, in a way, it takes a large part of our existence ‘cause it’s more than a tender feeling, it is the masked will to submit and possess the other.
Why did you choose the French title „Amour Braque“ for the album? Don’t you think Italian would also be fitting as the „language of love“?
Both ‘braque’ and ‘balordo’ perfectly express the nature of this kind of rotten love, probably better than the english term for it! And yes, braque could probably be translated as something sick, filthy, low, but as said both in Italian and French it has a more intense and complete meaning.
Would you say that you feel positive towards love in general or do you rather view it as a burden because of its negative sides?
As I said in the beginning, nothing, especially when it’s referred to human nature, can be considered 100% pure or corrupted, love can easily be put in this category, more than any other feeling, contains elements of submission, prevarication, abuse, regret… we try to hide these aspects, but deep in our heart, we know we accomplice of this decadence, and we love it.
In your opinion, what is the difference between kitsch and genuine romance?
They are desperately linked.
Your lyrics are usually written in English. For what reason do you prefer singing in that language instead of your native language?
We prefer English just because it could work as a code, everybody can get the sense, we never pretended to be English or American, we are not interested in that.
Musically, „Amour Braque“ is quite varied. „Children Of The Black Light“, for example, almost sounds like a dark musical. Was that your intention and if so, why?
We are influenced by many things from soundtracks to folk, from country to new wave, everything is mixed and reanimated by our hands, we never wanted and we never felt like following just one genre, it s not for us, music should reflect our personality, boring people make boring music, that ‘s all.
You new album was released on Prophecy Productions, before that you were signed by Trisol, right? What made you decide to switch labels?
Yes, after Trisol we supposed to release the new album via Out Of Line, then we changed again, but at the end we chose Prophecy, they seemed to more straight and more correct that the others. In the past, I had the chance to talk to Stephan, but I was under contract with the previous labels, so nothing happened, but thank god, after many boring and unpleasant tribulations we ended up with Prophecy, so no escape from Germany, in a way or another.
Apart from your latest record there’s also a re-release of „Armageddon Gigolo“. Why did you choose exactly this album to be released again?
Originally it was meant to celebrate the 10th year anniversary. It’s also one of the most appreciated and popular SPIRITUAL FRONT albums.
On the deluxe edition there are also a few demos and alternative versions of album tracks. Did you record them especially for re-release or have they already been existing for a while?
Some were forgotten in a drawer, some were re-recorded on purpose, some were composed during that period but never officially released.
You even released a cover of Venom’s „In League With Satan“. How did it come to you covering this particular track?
I love Venom, one of the greatest metal band ever, I remember when I discovered ‘em , I was a young kid, I was totally shocked and amazed, they were super… We wanted to pay our respect to them.
Do you think that one of the bonus tracks might even be better than its original version?
(Laughs) I don’t dare to say that much.
How will you continue next with SPIRITUAL FRONT? Do you have any plans for a tour or something like that?
We are always around, against any trends, against the mainstream shit. I will also come out soon with my new project named The Lust Syndicate, the album will be licensed by Trisol.
Let’s end our interview with our traditional Metal1.info-Brainstorming:
Censorship: It depends, kids and adults can’t have the same perception of the world.
Fetish: Too old school
Western movies: My fav
Neofolk: It’s dead.
Tourism: Keeps us alive, but stay away from the standard and globalized tourism.
Politics in Italy: Shit like everywhere else, it’s a masquerade, power belongs to the financial elite and few other globalist groups, politicians just obey. Money talks and people listen.
Thank you once more for your answers. I would like to leave the final words to you:
Follow your heart, free your sexuality and free yourself.
16. Juni 2018 Stephan Rajchl