It’s always nice to add another band to the Headline Act Wall of Fame, and today we have a nice, noisy bunch. Wrap your eyes around the words, and your ears around the music, of Nanga Parbat…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are all from Rome! However not everyone is currently living in Rome. One of us, Edoardo, has spent the last 7 years in Paris where he firstly got his PhD and then started to work as an engineer. His work brought him back to Italy in January and he has been enjoying the sun and sea of Tuscany ever since. So close to the Nanga Parbat headquarters! Let’s just hope he won’t replace the Parisian vibes he put on the first album with beach-group-dance songs!
Flavio moved to the cold and cloudy north of Italy instead. He is working as a nuclear chemist of some sort, but we all know that real nuclear power he handles being the metal he plays!
Both of them come back quite often to Rome. That gives us the possibility to spend time together.
How did you meet?
Flavio and Edoardo have known each other since they were young boys. They met during a high school concert. The time when you are fourteen and you start to challenge yourself by playing songs from Iron Maiden, Metallica and Black Sabbath… They built their friendship through the years, growing up together and playing in the same projects from time to time.
Flavio got to know Enrico, the bass player, in a pub here in Rome. They had a good chat and a few beers later Nanga Parbat had found its new bass player, things never changed and Enrico is still the one who brings booze to the studio or in the rehearsal room. Andrea and Giulio joined the band last. Flavio and Edoardo found their vocalist while browsing the internet looking for vocal covers of Opeth songs. Andrea was singing “Ghost of Perdition” and his performance was so good that they immediately contacted him to get him in the band. Everyone since then started searching for a good drummer and Giulio’s name had always been in their minds, after a couple of messages he too was enrolled in the band.
How long have you been playing as a band?
As said before some of the members have been playing together for years, especially Flavio and Edoardo. As for the whole band we have been playing, writing and rehearsing together for 3 years. Unfortunately we haven’t had the chance to play a real show but that will be the first thing we will do once the covid situation is resolved.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
Our guitar player, Flavio Cicconi, is an avid alpinist and climber. He brought the name to the table and we were fascinated by the stories he told us. The “Killer Mountain”, as Nanga Parbat is known in the mountaineering community, is a place full of natural powers and mysteries and we were, and still are, honored to have such an iconic name.
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What are your influences?
Our influences come from different sources. First and foremost we look up to death metal giants like Death and Carcass. Our progressive influences, on the other hand, come from both old and new progressive bands, ranging from the seventies prog rock scene like King Crimson and Jethro Tull to the more contemporary progressive death metal genre like Opeth and Devin Townsend. Our roots dig deep and their reach touches bands like Katatonia, Paradise Lost and Alcest.
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
We try to present our fans and supporters with a solid blend of death and progressive metal, we already named quite a lot of bands that inspire us. To further expand our mission we can say that we never settle for the first riff or drum fill. We endure a rigorous procedure to make sure that our songs are just the way we want them to be from start to finish, we do not compromise with market requirements and we always strive to bring forth our true colors. Our final objective is to represent nature’s strengths and its wrath against the human world.
Do you have any particular lyrical themes?
Pivotal role in our topics and lyrics are the natural forces and animal symbolism as an evolutionary driving force of the earth’s will. On this background sets the struggle between humans and the natural world. From the human point of view, we write about feelings like torment, weakness and suffering. On the other side, we talk on the strength and majestic aggressiveness of nature.
What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?
Our main goal for the months to come are the live shows. We are thrilled by the idea of bringing our music on stage. We have been waiting this moment from the beginning of the song-writing of this album! Unfortunately, Downfall and Torment came out in the middle of the Pandemic, but now we are positive that we will be able to play it loud very soon! Sometime during the summer of 2022 most likely.
In addition, we are working on new music. In fact, our songwriting process is an endless flow. We never stop writing music, since for us it is more a need than a work or a duty. And trust me, it takes a lot of time for us to pick the right notes!
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If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
If we were to play with two other bands, we think that we would love the Edoardo Taddei band to open the evening. He is a young and talented guitarist that we featured in one of our songs. We would play as the second band and after us we would want Fleshgod Apocalypse to play. They are a band that became very popular in the last few years and we know a few of them personally, they are great guys and we would love to share the stage with them.
If you want to check out more new music, then fire up our Headline Act playlists on Spotify and YouTube!
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