Here’s a chance for you to tell our readers about your new album: "
Kingdom of Rust".
But could you
please start off by introducing the readers to the band?
Rustfield –
Hello everybody, we are Andrea and Davide, the two leaders of Rustfield, a
newcomer progressive rock/metal band of Massacre Records’ roster! We come from
Torino, Italy, and our style of progressive is shaped on a multi-atmosphere
sound, we mix heavy metal with electronics and some psychedelic spice. We
released our debut album “Kingdom of Rust” on December 6th 2013, it
is featured by some special guests such as John Macaluso (Symphony X, ex Y.J.
Malmsteen) on drums, Federica De Boni (White Skull) on vocals and Douglas R.
Docker (Docker’s Guild, ex Biloxi) on keyboards.
Could you
please give us some info on the album: Where did you record the album and who
has produced and mixed it?
Rustfield –
We, Andrea and Davide, are the singer and the guitar player of the band, but we
composed all the songs on the album so we wanted to be our own producers. We had
a clear idea of the way the songs must sound and so it was impossible for us to
take in account the possibility of having a guy outside of the band to take care
of the album’s production. We recorded the album in different studios because of
the guest appearances, John recorded drums at Rock-Lab in Torino, Federica
recorded in The Basement Studio in Vicenza, Douglas in own home studio called
Planet of Freedom, in Luserna S. Giovanni. The rest of the stuff was recorded
partially at Rock-Lab and partially with our own equipment. The final processes
were done by Andreas Polito, who mixed the album at Rock-Lab, and Mike Lind who
mastered it at Masterplant, near Stockholm.
And now onto your new album track-by-track, what inspired you, and what do what
to express with this song etc.
01. Among the
Fields of Rust
Rustfield – It is the most representative song of our style because it contains
both the heavy and soft souls of our music. The first half of the song is pretty
heavy metal with fast and aggressive guitar riffs and powerful chorus, the
second half is then calm and melodic, both are featured by electronic sounds and
sequences. This duality is also reflected in the lyrics that are about the
contrast of two environments, a rusty city suffocated by armoured concrete, and
a wheat field caressed by a fresh breeze. Rust is often present in our lyrics,
and of course you can notice it in the band’s name and in the album’s title. It
is a metaphorical symbol of thoughts decay, of all the lies that we tell each
other in order to live what we’re used to call a “civilized society”. We think
that this song is very good as album opening and as well for gig’s first piece.
02. Waxhopes
Rustfield – This song follows the same way of the previous one, it is a
mid-length song (about 7 minutes) with the same duality between soft and heavy
music. This is the only song on the album where all the special guests play
together. Federica sings the most heavy verse, it’s pretty cool! Many reviewers
told that this is the best song of the album and is the one that Massacre
released on YouTube as album preview. On the lyrics side, it tells the story of
Icarus seen from his father Daedalus point of view. Daedalus was a wise man of
science but, despite of all his knowledge, he was not able to save his son from
death.
03. Losing Time
Rustfield – It is shorter than the previous twos and is a little bit more into
progressive rock style. Bass guitar and drums create an odd tempo pattern where
vocals of both of us entwine. It is a nice song for progressive rock lovers,
there’s a lot of odd tempos and peculiar drumming but the whole song is melodic
so that it is not just music-math! The lyrics are quite metaphoric and are about
a dialogue between someone and it’s best friend about the relentless running of
time.
04. Love Moan
Rustfield – This piece is totally different to any other song on the album
because it is an acoustic song. Our band mates, Alessandro Spagnuolo and Luca
Spagnuolo, are also classic trained musicians and they play contrabass and
classic guitar. Douglas played piano on this song and they all arranged it with
us shaping it in a wonderful way and making it sound very interesting. The
lyrics tell the story of a mother that takes away her new-born child’s life and
her own one in order to protect them from all the danger of this world. This
story is partially inspired by a real fact that was in the news some years ago.
The combination of all these acoustic instruments really make a very melancholy
atmosphere that could perfectly fit as movie soundtrack.
05. Burning the Air
Rustfield – It is the first song of the “Compromise Trilogy” a sort of
mini-concept about compromise. In all these three songs the electronic side of
our style is very important and, in this piece, it is fully melted with heavy
guitar riffs. Lyrics are about war and the way everybody as to compromise his
own way of living to face war. It is a very important argument and, perhaps, one
of the most dangerous to handle.
06. Sacrifice
Rustfield – This is the most melodic song of the trilogy, it is less heavy and
it has a very catchy guitar riff as well as a very melodic chorus that make it
one of the most successful songs to be played live. Lyrics face the compromise
issue on a more personal point of view where all the compromises that people
need to do to fit society become a heavy burden, a sacrifice.
07. Social Contract
Rustfield – The last song of the trilogy is also the heaviest and it is about
the social contract, the biggest compromise that everybody has to do in order to
live in society with other people. Beside a fast shredding guitar solo, this
song is featured by a very intricate instrumental section where the instruments
are surrounded by electronic sounds and audio samples. All these three songs are
played with the same guitar tune, drop C, and there is no silence between them
so that they could be played on stage one after the other as just one longer
song.
08. The Secret Garden
Rustfield – This is a very peculiar song where the electronic sound are used not
to create an aggressive atmosphere but an smooth and ethereal one. A handful of
sound effects are looped in a sequence to create a strange but effective
drumbeat. The vanishing verses climax into a chorus where, again, the contrabass
creates a special atmosphere. The lyrics tell about a fortress that stand out
far away, where the desert meets the sky, locked inside it lays a secret garden
full of blooming plants and flowers. This is a very nice song to play live
because it creates a completely different atmosphere that all the other songs
do.
09. Run With
Me
Rustfield – We usually play this song at the end of our short concerts, like
festivals. This is an explosive piece, short, melodic and heavy. The lyrics are
about the feelings and thoughts coming in mind when facing the mystery of human
mortality.
10. Out of the Blue
Rustfield – This is an instrumental piece about 9 minutes long! We know that
this could sound a little bit awful to many but we think this is one of the most
interesting songs on the album. Even if it is long, it very diverse and explores
many sounds, from classic progressive metal with odd tempos and solos, to
psychedelic intermission with no drumbeat, just sounds that lead to a final
reprise and an ending arpeggio of all the instruments in unison. Definitively,
one of the most interesting songs of the album.
11. High Waters
Rustfield – The final suite, as every progressive metal album deserves! ;) This
song is a final mix of all the styles we like to play. There are a calm and
smooth psychedelic introduction and first verse that then turn to a heavier part
full of solos and electronics and, then, to an epic finale as a conclusion of a
more or less 70 minutes long debut album! The lyrics of this song are bout
changes and about the way they can suddenly come into our lives forcing us to
change our point of view and never come back to what we had previously. This
issue is exposed in a metaphorical way picturing a sailboat that navigates along
the coast following routes that are known by heart, then a storm suddenly comes
and pushes the sailboat far away from the coast forcing it to navigate on high
waters where sailing is completely different than previously. This song is one
of the most appreciated by the critics, we love it as well and we usually play
it as last song when we have the chance to make longer gigs.
Tell us
a bit about the artwork – who made it etc. and how important do you feel it is
to have a cool artwork?
Rustfield –
The artwork was made by Candace Hoeckley, a young American graphic designer. We
noticed one of her works on DeviantArt and we contacted her in order to know if
she could be disposed to do some changes to that artwork to fit it best to the
idea we had of “Kingdom of Rust”. She accepted and the result was wonderful! The
artwork depicts an immense wheat field and rusty city on the background, a road
sign on the foreground welcomes the listener to Kingdom of Rust and the whole
landscape is dominated by dark rusty clouds. The artwork is strictly connected
to the lyrics of “Among the fields of Rust” but can be connected to some other
songs such as the “Compromise Trilogy” and “Love Moan” because that concept of
Rust, the decay of human thoughts in our society, is present in many songs on
the album. We think that this artwork is perfect for our album and we think is
also important to give to the music a good artwork package. Perhaps we are too
much attached to the old fashioned CD but we think that giving to an album a
nice graphic design is a way to tell the listener <Hey, take your time to listen
to music. Turn on your stereo, sit on your sofa, open the booklet and read the
lyrics. Enjoy the music as a piece of art and not just as a background of your
daily life!>.
Any last words
you want to round this interview off with?
Rustfield – Thank you guys of Powermetal.de for giving us
the chance to talk about our work and thank you to all the website’s readers to
spend a little bit of your time reading about Rustfield. If you are open minded
listeners of progressive rock/metal, take a look to our website (www.rustfield.net)
or Facebook profile and listen to some of our music, if you will support the
band perhaps we will see each other on the road very soon… Ciao!
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