Interview by Tarja Virmakari

Just recently, Italian folk metal combo LEGACY OF SILENCE premiered their new video “Torment” exclusively on Metal Shock Finland. The song is taken from the band’s upcoming album “Our Forests Sing”, coming out on May 5th on Volcano Records! Metal Shock Finland‘s Tarja Virmakari had a pleasure to interview the guys, so let’s learn more about the band, video and their upcoming album:

1. Hello LEGACY OF SILENCE, welcome to Metal Shock Finland! How are you doing today?

“Hi guys, we are really excited to be on Metal Shock Finland for the first time. We’ve been working so hard on our upcoming album during the last months, and we are finally ready to give birth to it, so we are experiencing the warm, strong feeling of a blacksmith that after a long work handles for the first time the result of his efforts. We are so proud of the result of our work and we have the desire to show it to the whole world.”

2. Earlier this year you signed with Volcano Records, to release your debut full-length “Our Forests Sing”, coming out on May 10th. What can you tell me about the album and its songwriting process?

“We finished the full length work a couple of months ago. We made it all by ourselves: our leader guitarist Simon directed the works, from the recording of the single instruments to the final mastering. This gives us a sense of responsibility mixed with awe and trepidation. The songwriting process involved all the band members and this working method contributed in creating songs with many influences and forged a strong sense of belonging and brotherhood in between us. We composed almost every song surrounded by the ancient hug of our mountains and warmed by the kiss of tons of beer; we searched for the right inspiration listening to the story-telling of the elders and to the voice of the wind blowing through the woods.
This album was a journey, both inside and outside of us. We discovered so much about our roots, we felt the whispers of the forests on our skins, and now we’re no more capable to ignore them.”

3. First thing that caught my attention in your bio is your band’s leading concept, “the strong love for the fairy tales”. The album title “Our Forests Sing” tells indeed about your love for the visible and invisible nature. Would you like to tell me more about it?

“This concept probably drove our singer Mark to name the band: every fairy tale, every legend, every story is born from the unknown. The unseen and the unknown generate fear, tension and a desperate need to find sense and order where they simply could not be found. And so the solitary call of a barn owl becomes the scream of a fiend, the sound of the branches shaken by the wind make the forest to seem alive and hostile.
Mark collected and read stories, voices, whispers, legends and fairy tales both from our land and from the rest of Europe. Then he wrote his own stories shaping them into lyrics based on the sensations and feelings that he lived treading on the paths of his grandfathers through the valleys of the northern Italy, where we all live.
We all learned to live this kind of wild sensation, but it’s really difficult to explain it through these few words: as a family, as brothers, we walked into the forests and we learned to hear its mighty and silent voice.”

4. Last Thursday (April 11th) we had a pleasure to premiere your new video “Torment”! The song is taken from your debut album “Our Forests Sing”. What is the story behind “Torment”, as a song? and as a video?

“Torment. It would take a lifetime to explain how much this song means to us all. It is one of the first song we wrote and the lyrics mean a lot to us all. It’s the story of a lady, a powerful warrior, who chose to face the impervious and without forgiveness footpaths of the mountains. She’s strong, young and proud. She overcame each and every single man who stood on her way. Now she’s ready to face even the power of the gods: she will enter the land of the wildlands and she will return to her people as the conqueror of the endless mountain. But her destiny is to fail: only those who can understand the mountains’ secret speech are allowed to walk through their paths. A torment rides from the mountain’s top. She gets lost and hunted by the beast of the woods. At last, reaching the true heart of the forest, she fells. And her fate is sealed. But her story and her strength will live forever, as a model and as a warning: the life sometimes leads us to fight battles that we can’t win. Is how we face them to determine who we are and how our story will be told.”

5. What are your plans after the album is out and for the next future?

“We want to travel bringing our music with us wherever the fate will lead our steps. We are working on many interesting events in our city coming on the next months, but we want to spread the stories enclosed in our songs as far as possible, meeting new people, exploring new lands and facing new challenges. The outlines of our project, once blurry and barely visible, are now more delineated and clear. We are discovering who we are and where we come from. And the more we discover, the more we write: we are already working on a lot of new songs.
Really soon our band will look vastly changed: the call of the forest is strong and the beast inside of us is ready to answer. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, because really soon we’re gonna publish a lot of news.”

6. And now the word is yours: what would you like to say to your fans and Metal Shock Finland readers?

“We want to say that to be on Metal Shock Finland is an honour for us. Mark grew up reading the Kalevala and we all listened to a lot of finnish band, such as Wintersun, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Korpiklaani, Stam1na, Amorphis and Turisas. The first song we ever wrote, almost ten years ago, was about the magic duel between Väinämöinen and Joukahainen. Our music was strongly influenced by the culture of your country. We hope that one day we’ll reach your land to share with you the stories and the music we wrote. Until that day, kiitos Suomi, May your swords stay sharp. Stay Folk. Stay Silent.”

Watch the video “Torment” here:

“Our Forests Sing” tracklisting:

1. Witchwood
2. Bloodhunt
3. Misfortune
4. Torment
5. Heresy
6. Inquisition
7. J.A.W.S.
8. Nightfall
9. Rebirth
Running Time: 45’05”

LEGACY OF SILENCE’s target is clear: to join the strong love for the fairy tales and the singer’s land with the guitarists’ will to create a new, melodic and technical genre. The Love for the forests, mountains and its inhabitants, visible and invisible, immediately pushes the formation towards a song writing that recalls the most poignant sensations that man can experience in the presence of the immensity of nature. In 2018, LEGACY OF SILENCE participated the “Entropy Fest 2018”, winning the first prize. They also received special prize of the critics and the awards of best soloist for the flutist Luca Capurso and Best drummer for Alberto Ferreri. The band’s new album “Our Forests Sing” is set to be released on May 5th 2019 on Volcano Records.

LEGACY OF SILENCE Line Up:

Marco Salusso – Voices
Simone Macchia – Guitar Lead
Gianluca Mondo – Guitar Rhythmic
Luca Capurso – Flute
Alberto Ferrero – Bass
Alberto Ferreri – Drum

More information at https://www.facebook.com/legacyofsilence | https://volcanorecordsband.wixsite.com/legacyofsilence