Kekko

Interview By Ali Blackdiamond

Italian metallers ARTHEMIS were formed by guitarist Andy Martongelli back in 1999 and are the epitome of a hardworking metal band, with their thrashing, catchy heavy music! The band’s most recent album, “Live From Hell” was released in 2014 and recorded at Hard Rock Hell VII.

ARTHEMIS are now well into the “We Are The Fire” European Tour with GUS G. I caught up with guitarist Andy and drummer Kekko before the first show of the tour in Nottingham on 20th February. We discussed everything from the band and live music to cakes! Check out some excerpts below and the full chat on the audio player:

Andy Martongelli, ARTHEMIS, With Blackdiamond
Nottingham 2015

Discussing ARTHEMIS in general since the release of last studio album “We Fight” in 2012, Kekko stated:

“We had some line-up changes – the rhythm section – bass and drummer (me!) and we recorded the live album “Live From Hell” with the new line-up which is great, very tight.”

Andy continued: “Me and Kekko were in Powerquest back in the day so we’ve known each other forever. JT the bass player is my good friend from 2002. This time it was so easy to get the real deal, the real Arthemis back as we wanted.”

The guys talked about what’s going on with the band at the moment and their views on playing the live circuit:

“We’re just writing a bunch of riffs here and there, putting together ideas. We’re working on the album, trying to find the right direction, cos we got so many ideas.

Five years ago you would see a tour, some gigs and studio album. But now, you see two years of touring sometimes. Probably, the proper album is not considered that much these days compared to the past, but the live scene is amazing now!

It makes it more like back in the seventies – where you had to see the real deal and see if the band is really good – they had to prove it straight away. We’ve been confirmed for a festival with Obituary and Angra for the summer and some more news to come soon. We keep gigging, so that’s good!”