interview: Temperance

Temperance (Italy) in 2018 released Of Jupiter and Moons on Scarlet Records, an album that is a tour de force in melodic metal, intertwining their contrast of singing voices and highly memorable songs put together coming from a variety of different little angles. The songs are different from each other while retaining the melodic elements that is the identity of Temperance. Of Jupiter and Moons is their fourth studio album since they began at the very end of 2013. Temperance 2018 is: Alessia on vocals; Michele on vocals & piano; Marco on lead guitar & vocals; Luca on bass; Alfonso on drums.

Hi! Who is answering this interview?!

Hi, everybody! Michele speaking, thanks for your interest in Temperance!!!

Of Jupiter and Moons is fantastic! It is like a “greatest hits” album, hit after hit! Who is the band and album personnel? The variety of singing makes Temperance interesting as a sound. In a live concert, how many of you can sing?!

Well, thanks, we really tried to give our best in this album and is great to hear that you had this sensation of listening to “10 singles”, this is exactly what we wanted this album to sound like!!!

The “studio line-up” of Temperance is basically formed by the 5 of us: Alessia Scolletti and me, Michele Guaitoli, on the vocals, Marco Pastorino on the vocals and guitars, Luca Negro on the bass guitar and Alfonso Mocerino on the drums.

Of course, as most of the band does, we’ve had some guest musicians on the album: Luca Zanon took care of the Hammond parts, Simone Campete helped us with some keys sounds engineering, we’ve had a violinist playing all the strings sections - Giovanni Annandi - and some guest vocalist on a few choir parts: Marco Rosa, Mattia Martin and Caterina Piccolo.

The variety of singing is the unique point of our band, live me, Alessia and Marco split the lead vocals as you hear them on the album. Basically, that makes Temperance a band with three lead vocalists!

I have watched the video for Of Jupiter and Moons about a billion times! Do you have any more videos coming? Does it take long to make one?

Well, as we have recently announced on our social pages, yes - we have a new official videoclip coming on August 28th: it will support the upcoming tour!!! I believe it will be already out when this interview will be published but if not…guess the song hahaha

Believe it or not, but the “shooting” side is often very quick. It took two days only to shoot the “Of Jupiter and Moons” video and one day only to shoot the upcoming one. Generally speaking, in my life I never spent more than 3-4 days of shooting for a videoclip. The hard, and definitely longer part, is the video editing on which the video-maker works on: it can take weeks or months depending on the “difficulty” of the videoclip.

Is everyone in the band Italian and speaks Italian? Have you ever done any songs in Italian?

Yes, we’re all Italian even if we all come from different parts of Italy…and yes, there’s a song composed and recorded with the old line-up that is written in Italian: Maschere. I really think we’ll get back on it for some of the upcoming shows!!!

Does everyone live in the same city or do you all live in different parts of Italy? Is it true that everyone in the band is in various bands?

As anticipated before, we come from different parts of Italy: me and Alessia, we live in Udine (in the north-east of our nation), Marco comes from Varese, Luca from Alba (both in the north-west, but not that close) and Alfonso comes from Napoli…where Alessia is born…well…we’re a pretty interesting mix hhahaha.

About the “bands” question: Temperance is our main band of course, but as many musicians, we all have some additional projects. I play in a power metal band called “Kaledon”, Alessia is working on some new stuff in the hard rock panorama, Marco plays in a couple of progressive metal bands where he sings: Even Flow and Virtual Symmetry and together with Luca Negro they also have a metal project called “Light and Shade”. Alfonso plays as touring member for a lot of bands and plays as stable drummer in Starbynary. Luca and Alfonso also have a jazz project together: “The Country Jam.” Well, yes, we’re busy enough!

How important is Temperance as a priority for everyone? Do the other bands cause problems with scheduling albums and tours?

Temperance is our life. It’s our main job, our main passion and our main hobby. We’re always on the road: this year we played more than 50 shows and our goal is to increase the live activity even more! We mainly tour Europe, but in the background of the band there’s also a USA tour and a Japan tour, and we really are interested in heading back to those and even more countries. None of the other bands cause problems with the scheduling and at the same time Temperance doesn’t cause problems to the other band: it’s all a matter of personal organisation.

Have you ever played in the United States?! When are you coming to Seattle?

The tour in the USA has been made a couple of years ago with the old Temperance line-up! Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the party yet, but hey, we’re really working on it and I sincerely hope we’ll be back soon!

How are you going to decide which songs to play live? Do you have a personal favorite?

All the songs are great songs and I really think that when this happens with an album, the “mood of the day” makes the difference. Today I may need some epic/symphonic power metal with positive feelings and here it comes “The Last Hope in a World of Hopes”, tomorrow I may need some energy and vintage sound, and here it comes “The Art of Believing”. Yesterday I may have needed some softer and atmospheric sound, and here it came “Empires and Men”. By the way, as I said, I still can’t get enough of “The Last Hope in a World of Hopes”. The more I listen to this song the more I’m in love with it…so I’ve got a favorite one!!!

By the way, I like the keyboards on “The Art of Believing.” There is a little bit of a Deep Purple vibe in the keyboards at 2:21, a tiny bit of Deep Purple, like the Deep Purple album Perfect Strangers.

That’s the Hammond section that Luca Zanon recorded for us! We recorded a REAL HAMMOND in one of our album. This is a dream come true!!

Temperance has several albums now and has been active for some years. Have the European audiences responded well to your music? Are you able to make a living from touring with Temperance and other musical projects?

We always receive a great feedback, luckily. Through the years, mainly playing a lot live, Temperance both with the previous and new line-up has focused its strength in the live shows and that made the name of the band quickly grow in the scene. The band is young, this is the fifth year of “life”, so it’s not that much compared to many of the other bands on the scene. But we strongly believe that this is the way to grow: playing live and of course, playing good music (which we hope we compose ahhaha). That said, being a musician in 2018 doesn’t mean “only playing live”. We all are musicians devoted to music and our regular jobs are part of our “being” a musician. We all teach or work in the events promotion or we play as touring members for other bands. It is really hard to “live” with the band only, I think that today only HUGE names like Metallica or Iron Maiden can say “my job is being the guitarist of that band” only. But yes, we are musicians and we don’t have “other” jobs if this is what you meant.

What inspires you to make your music? Do you care what genre or category people use to describe your music? Is Temperance is getting bigger and bigger each time you tour?

Temperance is hope, joy of living, happiness, the strength you have inside put in music with a metal - but melodic - sound, based of harmonies and catchy lines…all powered up by a strong and fast drumming and a rich and classy bass playing.

About the other questions: no, we really don’t care about the genre ‘cause we believe that music is always evolving! Today we may sound more aggressive, tomorrow we may sound more melodic but when there is a flow coming from our minds and becoming music, there must be no boundaries to “tame” this flow. Here it happens that in the same album you can find a song like “Empires and Men” and another one like “Daruma’s Eyes”. I think this is also one of the points that effectively made Temperance grow through the years. We always take care of the “stats” of the band, and we’ve noticed that - for example - on Spotify the latest album is the most listened now. So yes, answering to your question we actually can say that album after album the band has grown, not only in Italy so I wouldn’t make a difference between the Italian audience and the European audience.

What are some places where people can hear the complete album? What type of merchandise do you have for your fans?

The album is almost everywhere: you can find it on Spotify, on Amazon Music, on Apple Music, on Youtube, you can purchase it in every musical store and even online on Ebay and in the various websites. We also have an official store on our website www.temperanceband.com where there’s also some other merch from the band. We have t-shirts of different kinds, a brand new handmade pendant…and to be honest, the Temperance merch table is always evolving: my suggestion is to like our page on Facebook (facebook.com/temperanceofficial) and follow us there to be always updated!

Do you have any news that I have not asked about?

Well, the only things I’d like to add is a big thanks for your interest in us first, we really appreciate…and the suggestion to follow the band on the road! Our show dates are always updated on our website and on our social pages: luckily we’re announcing new shows extremely often…so keep in touch!!!

No, seriously, when you are coming to the United States?! Oh, actually, just Seattle. When are you coming to Seattle?! (I don’t care if you don’t go to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or wherever!)

Ahahaha! I PROMISE we’ll try to get back to the USA as soon as possible!!!

temperanceband.com

facebook.com/temperanceofficial