Flowers of Hiroshima
FAULT: What is it like being a band based in Italy?
Being a band based in Italy today means developing passion and creativity out of the ordinary. Because of Italy’s lack of structure in the music business as well as of lack of professionalopportunities, one has to come up with new ways of promoting himself.
While this is objectively a bad thing, on the other hand there is less competition. As of now Indie music is an unattractive slice of the market in my Country, so without a big, competitive market, there is usually more freedom for artistic projects. Obviously you have to satisfy yourself with very little. However what you get is a heterogeneous musical offer, free from cliché.
Regarding Flowers of Hiroshima, I can say that I lived in London for 2 years but, because of the Internet, any place can be potentially considered good to live for an artist. That’s why I decided to come back to my Country. This is the kind of democracy Internet is bringing to all of us.
FAULT: What sets you apart from other artists?
Some people say that my voice is original. Others say that we have faith and perseverance in what we do.
I sense we have come a long way, and in the process we grew both as artists as well as human beings. It’s nice to receive feedbacks and to get to know people from all over the world.
Perhaps unlike many contemporary bands that sound all the same, we are more sincere. I mean we present a project, we have the ambition to be artists, intellectuals who aim at improving the world in which we all live. We’d like to be a “cultural opportunity” beyond the business, apart from the logic of market.
In this way we also do politics, we work for the people. And I think that’s what you hear in the songs. We are different and not catchy because we follow our feelings, our inner self and nature. We’re not obsessed with making into the charts, we do not care about making money, we just have this creative urgency. Maybe that’s the urgency that sets us apart. We have something to say.
FAULT: Do you have a favourite moment in your musical career, if so what is it?
I deeply love every aspect of the work of the musician: the live set, the studio recording, the songwriting… As an emerging artist I’m living every part of this work like through the eyes of a child. Everything is new and exciting to me. I recently founded a label with a few friends: the Revolutionary Boy Records. We take care of the booking process, PR, advertising, but we are also refurbishing a basement that’s going to be our recording studio: a place where we can also produce other interesting local bands that we love. We are doing it in a low budget philosophy, with passion and a touch of recklessness.
The keyword here is: DIY!
FAULT: FAULT loves the track Dust, what is it about?
Dust is a hymn to life, and to love. But it is also a suggestion to avoid to be attached to it: I mean to our lives, to our bodies. That’s why I say: “Do you remember that we’re simply dust?”
And in the midst of all these things (impermanence, the good things that start and ends, life and death), I declare I made a choice: “I want you who are firewood, I want you my foolish anger, You”.
It’s quite like the sensitive sweetness that’s behind the meaning of the name Flowers of Hiroshima… The first flowers that were born after the atomic explosion, so fragile but at the same time stronger than any devastation.
FAULT: What is your creative process, when writing a new song?
My songs start from music in the vast majority of cases, most of the time from a pattern in my head or a riff or a guitar arpeggio, and in that atmosphere I then insert the words, looking for poetical and musical coherence.
I always write using brainstorming, without worrying about the meaning of what I’m writing, as if I were in a trance. Only then, after several days, I begin to understand the meaning of those words. And these lyrics often take on new nuances as time goes by, as if the songs were living beings who are born, grow up, and breathe their own life.
It is frequent that people – the fans, the friends, the band – they give new life and new meaning to these lyrics. It’s an exciting experience.
FAULT: Do you have a favourite song to play live?
“Dust” is certainly an emotional piece. But it’s the same with “The Beauty of the World”, because in less than two minutes it can transport you in a different place… magic. By the way, I love all my songs because each one expresses a portion of that inner world that I’m trying to make known to the people in spite of my shyness and reluctance.
FAULT: If you were not a musician what would you be doing?
Maybe the farmer, maybe the political activist. In London I worked as a support worker with people who have Learning Disabilities. And I must say, I really enjoyed it. Anyway, it’s better for me to be a musician…
FAULT: What are you currently listening to?
Beatles as usual (Revolver in these days), Fleet Foxes, the last of Interpol (that I interviewed recently for an Italian music magazine) but also the French Pauline Croze and Luis Francesco Arena and the new albums of Anthony and the Johnsons as well as Mark Lanegan & Isobel Campbell.
FAULT: What is your FAULT?
I don’t believe in myself enough… Yet. Plus, I have never seen a Nirvana’s gig.
www.myspace.com/flowersofhiroshima
www.youtube.com/user/FLOWERSofHIROSHIMA