At Graspop Metal Meeting we had the chance to ask our questions to Ricardo Amorim (guitars) from the Portuguese gothic metal outfit Moonspell. This is what follows:
Hey Ricardo, how are you doing? And also important, are you enjoying Graspop Metal Meeting?
It’s going fine really, thank you. We just came from Brussels. We just spent the night there and had a two hour drive because of the traffic. That makes you a bit sleepy but everything is going fine. We’re quite enthusiastic again to be here in Belgium.
Yeah, it’s your eight time here on Graspop Metal Meeting. The first time was in 1997.
Oh is it? I was thinking maybe the seventh or the eighth. So it’s nice to be here because it’s been three years since we’ve been at this festival and we quite enjoy it!
Do you miss the warm Portugal when you are on tour, especially here in this rainy Belgium?
Oh I barely have to miss it really. I was there yesterday and will be there tomorrow (laughs).
On my fourth birthday, on the first of April in 1995, Moonspell’s first album Wolfheart came out. Now we hear a huge difference in the music, and especially in the voice and genuine sound of the songs. Is there also a difference kind of inspiration for the music you create nowadays?
We are different people now than we used to be back in the days. We grow, we mature and we always try to refine our sound. And of course naturally we grew up as musicians and our vision towards music improves. It doesn’t change that much you know, but we still try to keep what kept us motivating to write music and share art with people. I think we just became a lot better. It is like old wine: the older you get the more refined it gets.
I saw on the Moonspell facebook page yesterday that you were working on some new material. Is there something you can tell us already? Is there a new album coming out?
I wouldn’t say it’s a new album coming out. I think it’s like an ‘extra’ because we are planning to record a DVD very soon. DVD’s usually come as these extra’s with the usual backstage scenes, what people keep on doing all the time. And instead of that, we decided to come up with a few more songs. Not a full album. So it is something that we had in mind already and we are very enthusiastic about it. It will be a very nice extra.
And what was the inspiration for the new work?
The inspiration for the new work was an event that happened in Lisbon almost three centuries ago, which was a big earthquake. So we are trying to relate that to our usual apocalyptic vision. So it’s quite fresh and we are very enthusiastic about it so let’s see how it goes.
What also caught my eye on the facebook page is that you announced that Moonspell was going to perform of the entire Irreligious album (your second album, from 1996), while the title of the tour (Road to extinction) suggests that we were going to hear the latest album Extinct.
We were playing the latest album for two years now and we’re going to keep on doing this. We have a couple of more tours coming till the end of the year, so ofcourse it will be based on that album. But now we like to play the Irreligious album.
I assume it is the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Irreligious?
Yes, this is 2016 so it makes twenty years that Irreligious came out and we did the same with Wolfheart already. We thought we should do the same because it was such an important mark and step in our career as a band and I think we should celebrate it. Some of these shows like Graspop and some others that we might have in mind should be special because of the set. It’s good, especially for the people that have been following us for such a long time, to bring them back to that era you know? It is pure nostalgia. We try to make them all feel like teenagers again.
Do you have plans or time left to check any other bands here on the festival?
I have to prepare for stage now and if I have time left I will definitely do that!
I saw you guys have a week off in between Graspop and the next gig in the Netherlands on the 25th of june.
We do? (laughs)
Yes! So you have any more plans while being in Belgium?
Actually no. We are going to be back home soon and work on the new stuff. It’s festival season so we just basically play off-shows on weekends and then return home, back to Portugal. We are not doing this like most of the bands are, and we usually don’t tour in between the festivals. Cause also we have the priority of preparing this stuff we just talked about. So it is touring combined with going into the studio. That’s our lives. It’s crazy!
Good luck with that! Thanks for the talk!
