Hello and welcome to this Interview for the Rising Darkness Magazine! Since we listened to your music we went curious to become a bit more information about you!

Let me start with the typical questions about the beginning of Hortus Animae! Please tell me about the beginning of the band, how did it all start?

Grom: Well, as you can read in the bio...the band has been around for some years now...it started off as a simple extreme metal project, with the intention of merging all the band's member's musical influences. It's pretty simple actually...a few demo tapes were recorded until we finally decided to self-produce our album and use that as leverage for the record companies which don't really pay any attention to demo-tapes anymore. We did it and signed for Black lotus, who gave us a budget to re-mix and re-master the album to the final product. It's a very normal band history.


What about the members of Hortus Animae? Please tell me something about the current line up and about the past members of the band?

Grom: Well, I also play in Ancient and I used to be in the cult heavy-metal band Doomsword before we parted ways. As for the other members of the band, they are all very talented local musicians who play in cover bands at clubs and pubs to make a bit of money. The line-ups of Hortus Aniame have never changed that much. There were a few line-up changes due to incompatibility with past members, but the line-up now is very much stable and definitive.


Let's go over to the song writing. Does everybody of you take a special role in the song writing process or is it developing out of the parts everybody is putting into it?

Grom: Usually it happens this way...the other guys except for me get together and come up with the riffs and melodies for the tracks. Once that has taken place we will all meet up and work on the structures and arrangements together. It is very much a band effort anyway. 'Waltzing Mephisto' is a blend of everyone's ideas and musical influences.


What are the themes you use mostly in your lyrics? What do you think, how important are the lyrics for your music ?

Grom: Well the lyrics are all the work of Martyr. I think that they are very introspective and talk about normal human occurences and feelings...they are very important because as our name represents 'the garden of the soul', we basically try to explore ALL human emotions, with a dark twist. Music is an expression of emotions and we feel it is very limiting and simple to just explore and express 1 or 2 emotions. That is why we talk about all kinds of human feelings in our lyrics and music, from love to hate and from depression to happiness. The music also reflects that very much.


In my opinion there is a very big variety on "Waltzing Mephisto". Many slow parts and several fast ones. I myself prefer the slower parts, I think they are really individual for Hortus Animae they define an important part of your music! What is your opinion about that?

Grom: : Well, as I said before we express all kinds of atmospheres and feelings...so our slower parts are just as important for our music than our fast parts. After all, could you imagine Hortus Aniame without the fast parts ? It would be a different band with a different musical intention.


Hortus Animae - why did you chose this name for the band, what is the story behind it?

Grom: We always thought that latin is the most mysterious and artistic language, due to it's history. We wanted a name that represented our music as much as possible. Hortus Aniame means 'the garden of the soul', and that's exactly where you can find all human emotions, feelings and experiences, which is what our music talks about.

In Grom you found a real good and as well a not unknown drummer. How did it come that he decided to play for Hortus Animae?

Grom: Thanks for the kind words. I decided to join the band when they played support for Ancient at a gig here in Italy. They said they wanted to record a self-produced album but their drummer wasn't up to it. So they hired me and I went to record the album. In the end we became good friends and their music was very attractive for me, it really gave me the chance to express myself freely on my instrument in many ways. SO I decided to join full time and make it my official side-project aside from Ancient.


Do you think he is a little help in the really hard process getting a more known at the beginning?

Grom: Well probably. Unfortunately things work that way in the music world, especially for the record labels who always need recommendations and references to pay attention to a band, because it makes it more 'marketable'. I don't really agree with this in the sense that I feel many valid bands don't get a chance if they are not pushed by the labels. Look at the new band 'Evanescence'. They play exactly what 'The Gathering' and 'Lacuna Coil' have been doing for 10 years...but since they have a good label backing them up and pushing them, they are selling millions. I really don't like and really don't appreciate most of the European labels...they are not even half as professional and dedicated as the U.S. labels are....and the market clearly shows that.


How would you define your music by your own words?

Grom: Hmm...difficult. I think Atmospheric Progressive Black Metal fits it good...but yet again...who cares about labels.


Isn't it a strange idea to combine Mike Oldfield and Mayhem in one song? How did you come on this?

Grom: : I came up with the idea one morning as I was driving to the studio. I was listening to an Italian prog-rock band called 'Daemonia'. They play all these horror movie soundtracks in rock style. I heard the exorcist soundtrack and thought...that would sound really cool done in a metal style, also, no one has ever thought of the obvious connection between the extreme metal music and the horror movie soundtrack that 'Tubular bells' is. We wanted to cover a typical cult black metal song but add a few things of our own, a few things that represented our style more. I never liked covers that are done totally different, because I feel it kills the original feeling of the track. I prefer to work on the arrangements and sound and add extra parts. Since both musical pieces are in the same musical key, they fitted perfect, and so did the atmosphere. So we just decided tog o for it and worked on the structure....there you go.

As I read you found a real good mentor - Mikael Akerfeldt fromOpeth - suggesting the band! How did you come in touch with him?

Grom: The other guys were in touch with him...they dealt with everything.


As far as it is your fist full album I think that you - sadly - don't earn enough money with your music to live from! So how are you guys earning your money in your private life?

Grom: Well, I can manage to pull along just barely because of all the other projects I have. Although I am almost always broke at the end of the month. Nowadays especially, people are copying and downloading from the internet a lot and no one is buying CDs anymore. The sales have gone down a hell of a lot due to piracy. Major labels have calculated selling 70 million copies less than 2-3 years ago. That's a lot of money that doesn't get to the bands. I hate to seam like the musician that whines because he doesn't make money...but of people keep using piracy, the record labels will keep giving lower and lower budgets to the bands...which obviously results in worst albums and sometimes it will result in bands splitting up because they can't afford to continue. With Ancient our budget for the next album is actually lower than for the one before....this is due to piracy. People must understand that if they don't buy CDs, they are killing music.


When I was searching in the internet about Hortus Animae I found that your website is mostly written in Italian! Will there ever exist an English one?

Grom: That one was the old site....our new official web-site is now online.
www.hortusanimae.com


At least let me thank you again for your time, keep going on your way and I hope to hear you again with your next album!

Grom: Sure...thanks for the attention. Take care!


martin