You have just released your debut album, The New Kingdom. Are you pleased with the reaction so far?
Lydie:
Sure we are. We feel very happy, satisfied, and thankful.
Charly:
So far, the reactions are very good. The French press have begun to take an interest in us too. We’re very happy about it.
Marc:
Yep!!! I was more into the AOR side of Metal, and Venturia was the first Progressive Rock band I ever sang with. I have to tell you, the Prog Metal fans are great!!! We are very grateful for that.
Lion Music are gaining a reputation for signing top class up-and-coming bands. Are you pleased with how things have worked with the label?
Charly:
Sure we are, it’s great that Lion music finds out and signs great new talented bands, and we’re proud to be a part of this label. They really take care of their bands and the relationship between us is excellent.
How did you end up signing with Lion?
Charly:
I had the great opportunity to play on the Shawn Lane tribute album released under Lion Music in 2004. Shawn was the most incredible musician I’d ever heard. A friend of mine who heard about this project made the connection between Lasse Mattsson and myself … it was a great honor for me to play one of my favorite songs with my bandmates Thomas James and Diego Rappacchietti. At this moment, I met Lasse in France and talked with him about our Venturia project. He listened to the demos we did and told me that he would be interested in hearing the whole album. When the recording of the New Kingdom album was finished, we signed a management deal with Intromental, a Danish-based company, then we had some labels approach us, but we finally chose to sign up with Lion Music, who’s always kept an eye on us.
Tell me how the band was put together?
Charly:
I really wanted to create my own band after my classical music studies and began to write and record some demos in 1998. I went to ask Diego Rapacchietti if he would agree to put some drumming on my music ‘cos I saw him playing with the band Zero and I was totally amazed by his talent. A strong musical and human complicity began immediately between us. We recorded a demo but we thought we did it too fast and that we could do something better. So, we’ve been worked a lot on new songs and arrangements and recorded a new 4 track demo in 2001 with Bass player Thomas James and our 1st singer. This time, we were really happy about the result and decided to go on this way.
In 2004, as vocalists Lydie Robin and Marc Ferreira already joined the band and as we thought that Kevin Codfert from Adagio could do a great job as sound engineer too, we were ready to record the album in the best conditions. It took us a long time to do the 1st album, but right now, Venturia does exist and we can’t wait to record the new one and hope we’ll be in studio in early 2007.
Marc:
Gus Monsanto (Adagio) was playing with Charly in a cover band. When Charly asked him if he knew someone that could sing on the Venturia album, Gus showed one of my demos to him. After that, we recorded a couple of demo songs back and forward over the internet, the rest is on the record.
Lydie:
We used to work together with Charly in the same cover band and we did some recording studio sessions together too. He talked to me about this project and asked me first to do some backing vocals, some time after he asked me if I would agree to put some lead parts in Venturia too, I immediately liked the songs and agreed.
What are your influences as a band?
Marc:
Old Queen mixed with Korn and Rush ON STEROIDS. I don’t know. You have to hear for yourself to figure it out.
Charly:
Venturia is the genesis of all our influences. But, I think there’s some Muse, Dream Theater, Planet X, Coldplay, Bartok, Rachmaninov, Messhuggah, Kate Bush, Korn, Massive Attack, and Steve Vai influences from my part in the band.
Lydie:
I feel very close to world music, Jazz and North American music. I like the feeling to be free when you improvise in Jazz music, I like the feeling you have when you hear Celtic music … all these things influence me in my singing and you can hear it in Venturia.
France does not really have a reputation for a strong Rock scene. Do you think this is changing now?
Charly:
You’re right but it seems that a good French Metal scene is beginning to develop. I really enjoy the music of our friends from Adagio. Dagoba is a really excellent Power Metal band too. Spheric Universe Experience, Lalu, Hauteville and many more are really good French Prog Metal bands. There’s a lot of talented bands and musicians in every country, but it’s difficult to be signed up to a French record company if you play Metal and if you sing in English. I hope things will change soon.
Marc:
There are a few good bands in France including us, that I’m sure will break this taboo. The French rock scene will not be the same from now on, that’s for sure.
For a debut album it is a very mature, sophisticated-sounding album. Marc recorded an album called Ferreira a couple of years back but what sort recording background does the rest of the band have?
Marc:
My solo album by Ferreira called Fallen Heroes was released by Shire Records who are now out of business. The reviews at the time compared the album with Bon Jovi, Harem Scarem, and Nelson. It’s kind of 80’s Rock, or AOR.
I had the opportunity to have full hands on the production, from writing the songs, playing all the instruments and vocals and recording myself in my home studio, which was a lot of fun. The CD is still out there, but someone is getting my pay checks. That happens a lot in the Indie scene, it’s a shame.
About the other guys, I had a chance to listen the solo songs from Charly and Thomas, from out of their Myspace.com sites. If you hear the Charly songs you will see where Venturia comes from. He is an amazing guitar player and songwriter.
Thomas plays a completely different style which reminds me of Michael Hedges. His 6 string fretless bass sometimes sounds like a nylon guitar, He has songs with just bass and you don’t even realize that because it’s so full and well-written — it’s great stuff. I haven’t heard any previous recording from Diego and Lydie, but I’m sure it rocks too.
Lydie:
It’s funny because when I was younger I worked with some very good musicians who asked me to put my vocals on one of their songs, it was a Prog Metal oriented ballad. We went to meet some important people in the French music business in Paris with this song, but they didn’t like the style of it and the lyrics were written in English, but the thing they liked was my voice, but unfortunately, this story ended there. When I was 18, I recorded a whole album under the name of Lydia Marine, it was French Pop oriented with beautiful lyrics. We released 3 singles from this album and I began to have good reviews and interviews for some French radios, but the story ended there maybe because I was too young at that moment. Anyway, I learned a lot from these experiences and I met a lot of people too.
Charly:
Diego has already recorded almost 30 records for different artists, mostly from Switzerland and Germany, some of his references include Bpm,Zero, Angi Schiliro, and Paganini.
Thomas recorded some albums too it goes from Jazz Fusion to World music.
Can you talk about the writing process? Who comes up with the ideas and how as a band do you put those ideas into the music?
Charly:
Sometimes I come with the demo of a song then we work on the musical arrangements with Diego and many times we add new parts to it. Sometimes Diego and myself just jam together or sit on the piano and sing along to some cool chords to find melodies and keyboards arrangements that we like.
Diego and myself make a perfect team, it’s great to work with him as he always has thousands of excellent ideas every time we write or arrange songs. Then, Thomas adds some bass parts and suggests some musical ideas and we play together until we’re happy of the result. We also write all the melodies for the singers but Lydie and Marc can bring some cool ideas too.
With The New Kingdom you have taken elements from an established, some may say jaded, genre and managed to give it a new twist. Were you setting out to do something different or did this develop over a period of time?
Marc:
I think every member of the band brings their own signature to the table. It sounds a little bit cliché when I say that it is a melting pot of different styles. A lot of bands say that in an effort to create some kind of buzz. It is not the case here, all elements came together very naturally and smoothly if you will. I was surprised and proud when I heard the final mix. I remember thinking “THIS IS HUGE!”
How would you describe your music to someone who has not heard your album yet?
Lydie :
The Venturia music is a great opening with lots of ideas coming from everywhere at any moment, but all the songs are very strong, rich, and catchy at the same time. It’s a very strong music with power, aggression, hope, melancholy, and most of all, it’s universal as there are all the human feelings expressed in the record.
Charly:
We can describe it as a blend of all the music we like, we mix our Metal influences with strong melodies, some Classical music elements, Electronic Lounge music sounds and arrangements and of course some extremely technical challenges. We try to make very strong songs with all these elements in the most homogeneous way possible.
Marc:
I can say that I only got to know the songs well after the mix, since then I can’t stop listening to them, I guess I’m a fan! The melodies are kind of friendly at some level and I think that helps people to listen to the songs repeatedly, and every time you listen, the instrumental parts become more and more entertaining every time. It’s very dynamic, there’s nothing boring about The New Kingdom.
If you had to pick one song from the album to win someone over, which one would you choose?
Marc:
Uh. I can’t pick one. How about 3. “Take Me Down,” “Fallen World,” and “Dear Dead Bride.”
Lydie:
“Dear Dead Bride,” track 8.
Charly:
Same thing, it’s the most representative Venturia song I think.
One of the main features of the album is the two lead vocalists. Was it always the plan to have two singers?
Charly:
At the beginning, the songs were written for a male singer. I’ve known Lydie for 5 years now, we played something like a thousands shows together and did some recording sessions too. I’m a huge fan of her voice, of her huge talent and of her amazing personality. First, I wanted her to do some backing vocals, but as our 1st singer decided to quit the band some time before the recording of the album, we had at this moment many questions in our mind and as I was playing with Lydie on stage very often in our cover band I was always thinking about her doing some lead parts too.
When she told me she’d be very happy to sing in Venturia, we had to change the vocal arrangements, but we were so happy about having such a great singer with us. So, we wrote some new parts for her and decided to have 2 singers in the band. Marc sings more as a lead vocalist in this album than Lydie, but it won’t be the case in the upcoming albums, it will be 50/50. Everybody is extremely happy about the result.
What is particularly refreshing to hear is that the singers Marc and Lydie are not clones of Geoff Tate and James Labrie, the type of style that is usually associated with this genre, nor do you go for the gruff male/soprano female combination that many other bands seem to favor. How was it working with two different, yet complimentary, vocal styles when putting the music together?
Charly:
We really enjoyed it, you just have to know the singers very well, their tessitura, the things they do the best, the things you guess they’re able to do even if they’ve never tried it before. Just imagine what they can bring to the music and work with them on the vocal lines you want to hear and of course listen to their advice and ideas. I can say to you that the vocals on the next album will be really great as we have learned a lot from each other during the recording.
Lydie has a really beautiful voice but she has never sung Rock music before. Do you think that this has actually brought a freshness and vitality to the music?
Lydie:
The good thing is that I didn’t know a lot about Prog Metal until the recording of the songs. I liked the songs from the first listening and I worked and sang it with all my spontaneity as I wasn’t influenced by female Metal vocalists.
Charly:
Sure it did. Everybody in the band has a different musical culture, we’re all friends and we all like the music we play together, this is one of the strongest points of this band. This is a very exciting experience for everybody so, I think you can hear freshness and vitality from everybody too.
Marc:
It sure brings freshness to the mix, no doubt about it. She is not trying to imitate any other Metal singer. It is always a pleasure to work with producers that know how to get the best out of you without trying to change your natural qualities.
What actually made Lydie try something so different to what she usually sings?
Lydie:
The first thing that helped me decide me was because Charly asked me to do it. I’ve always liked him as a person and of course as a musician too. The second thing was that I truly liked the songs from the moment I heard them and I really wanted to bring my contribution to the music with my own feelings.
Is she now going to go back and catch up on all of those bands she has missed out on?
Lydie:
The guys made me listen to Dream Theater, Symphony X, and Adagio (who are my friends too). I was really surprised to discover so many great musicians in a style which I didn’t know much about before. I was a huge Queen, Europe, and Extreme fan when I was younger. Steve Vai is an amazing musician too. But I really want to discover new, talented bands and people like that.
If you were going to recommend 5 albums to her as must have albums what would be your choice?
Marc:
Opaline by Dishwalla, any Queen (before ’76), Ocean Machine by Devin Townsend, the new In Flames album, and anything by Tori Amos.
Charly:
First, I would ask her to recommend to me some artists I don’t know ‘cos she has a huge musical knowledge and listens to thousands of different things from all over the world. Then I would recommend her the bands and singers she doesn’t know yet and the artists who bring me so much pleasure, musically speaking. So, I would recommend to her: Muse, Dream Theater, Kate Bush, Devin Townsend, and Meshuggah (laughs).
Kevin Codfert was a guest on the album. How did you get him involved?
Charly:
Lydie and myself have known Kevin for 4 years. I’ve always had the biggest admiration for his great talent. He was often talking to me about his will to make his own studio and to become a producer too. He learned a lot during the recording of the Adagio albums with Denis Ward. Kevin is an amazing worker who always want to learn and experiment with new things. My proposition for him to record the album was very exciting for everybody. I knew he was the man to do it. He did a great job as a producer and I really wanted him to put some keyboards parts too on the recording first because I wanted him to add his talent to Venturia and because I wanted to do this piano duet with him that you can hear in the song “Candle of Hope.”
The album has now been released, what about touring? Have you got any dates lined up?
Charly:
We were asked to do some shows in Europe and even in the USA, but we cannot say anything more precise at this moment as nothing is officially confirmed yet. But, we really hope it’s gonna happen, we’re ready as ever as we’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time now.
Lydie:
I can’t wait to play these songs live with everybody.
If you could hook up a support slot with a major act, who would you like it to be with and why?
Marc:
I always like to play with bands that I can hang out and have a good time with. I think I would like to play with Adagio — I love hanging out with Gus, and we always have loads of fun. Also, Shaman and Angra, so I can speak some Portuguese with my bro’s.
Lydie:
Venturia and Adagio together on stage would be great as we are friends. But, in my dreams, I’d like to sing with Robbie Williams and Sting. These great artists can play and sing all the kinds of music they want and they excel at doing it.
Charly:
Opening for Dream Theater would be great. I have the biggest respect for those guys. Anyway, playing with great musicians and bands is just a great experience, but there’s just too many great people to mention. Hopefully you’ll see us on tour soon then we’ll be back in the studio to record our follow up to The New Kingdom.
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