Urlo & Poia - Ufomammut

June 21 2009 (Hellfest - Clisson)

After looking for them almost everywhere on the HELLFEST site, it was simply in front of the interview area that the three Italians members of UFOMAMMUT were quietly waiting for me (it's sometimes difficult to plan and organize interviews). In spite of technical problems that impeded almost half of their set, they're all smiling like nothing happened, hiding very nicely their legitimate disappointment. Definitely a special band with a special music. Check them out if you're looking for something "out there"…And one thing's for sure, they won't go on vacation together with a certain Silvio B.

Fab : So are you happy to be here at the HELLFEST 2009 ? In spite of the technical problems you just had during your show.
Urlo (Bass/Vocals): Yeah, we don't know what happened with the amps. Three amps in one day! Fortunately they were not mine. So, I'm laughing now (laughter). At the end it was good because the guys from ORANGE GOBLIN gave me their Orange amps that sounded way better. And the guys from the HELLFEST gave us 10 minutes more to play, so. And the crowd, all the people were very good and understanding the situation. I think that the first amp had blown because a guy with a camera moved the cable or something. Well, shit happens. After this little problem, it was all ok.

Fab: What do you think about this festival, in spite of this problem?
Urlo: It was the first time we come here. It's a good festival. It's different than ours, which have more Heavy Metal & Thrash Metal. But here there's a lot of different shows so, everybody can choose and see what they'd like.
Poia (Guitar): And there's very nice people everywhere. I'd say nothing new but Heavy metal people, they'd blown themselves away on stage like if all their aggressive feelings are on stage, and downstage, very nice people. The audience and the musicians are like a big family. It's nothing new, but.

Fab: Could you explain us the name "Ufomammut"?
Urlo: (laughter)
Poia: If it's possible.
Urlo: UFOMAMMUT is a mix of two Italian words; UFO is for U.F.O., Unidentified Flying Object.
Poia: Pronounced the Italian way, "Ufo" (big accent on the U pronounced "oo").
Urlo: Then MAMMUT is for mammoth.

Poia: It's my creation (laughter). I was trying to describe a thinking, it was a sort of ancient and future together. Like LED ZEPPELIN (general mocking laughter from the other two guys), nothing compares to them but it's the same significance: LED (ndlr: for LEAD, the metal) like the Heaviness and ZEPPELIN like air, and over the people. So for us it's the same: Mammut is for heaviness and UFO is for the experimental side. The funny thing is that outside Italy, it sounds really strange. Like a single word with not that particular significance.
Urlo: When you explain it, everybody is like "Yeah! Of course!" (laughter). We're playing together for ten years now. Next year it will be the tenth anniversary of our first album "Godlike Snake"(2000). The first years were different, with less albums. Now, we are more concentrated on the music and doing things exactly how we wanna do them. We always try to do what we love, to find a way…
Poia: The important thing is the goal, the journey.

Fab: Are you happy so far several months after the release of "Idolum"?
Urlo: The only thing that we always notice after the release of our album is that they're a little too long. But this one, that's ok. I'm very happy with it, it is more UFOMAMMUT than the others.
Poia: I think in some way they get their own attraction, but the last album is always the best for the musician, but not for the fans, we know (laughter). We are fans of music so we prefer for instance the first album of PINK FLOYD and not the last one. But it's different for the BEATLES…
Urlo: It depends on the band, but I think that "Idolum" is very different from "Lucifer Song"(2006), different from "Snailking"(2004), and different from "Supernaturals" (2007). You can notice it's UFOMAMMUT but there's something changing. And I hope that the next album that we hope for next year will be the best, or different from the other ones.

Fab: Is it a concept album?
Poia: Not really. But after playing it, we realized that the things were going together like if it was a single story, so, let's say, it's a concept album. After we realized there was something in common in it, we find like a railway where you put the record, and it goes by itself. It's all moving around for itself.
Fab: As far as songwriting is concerned, how do you proceed?
Urlo: "Idolum" for instance was really quick. We did it in two months, we kept some parts and then went to the studios where we decided the album title and the lyrics of the songs. It was running in a strange way but at the end it went good because we realized that "Snailking" was too long, too much.
Poia: Yeah, very painful, too many things, lots of sounds put together. Idolum was a very quick production, we are very proud of this.

Fab: What are your main influences and inspiration to deliver a music with such a strong identity?
Urlo: I think we have two bands in common, PINK FLOYD & THE BEATLES.
Poia : and BLACK SABBATH !
Urlo: We're listening to all kinds of things, not only metak?
Poia: We all love the bands that are very originals. They all have distinctive sounds, and when you're listening to them, you can always say "ok they are implied, no doubt"…and maybe this was the influence we get from the biggest bands of the past. Just be yourself, not try to be someone else, and that is our main goal, our main inspiration. We love these bands.
Urlo: We try to do what we like to do, not to say "let's play like…". Obviously, we have influences, because we love these bands.
Poia: But we don't try to make a cover of "let it be" for example (laughters).
Urlo: Why not

Fab: A word about the meaning of the cover artwork? As I know you're deep into art, I saw your stand at the Extreme Market with the posters and everything. You also designed a special HELLFEST tee-shirt! (note from spirit : "added to my collection ^^")
Urlo: We work, me and Poia with Lu (a girl, my friend) in Maleus. We do artwork for other bands, posters, t-shirts…We've been hired from UFOMAMMUT to do so.
Poia: About the cover artwork, it seems complicated, but there are all the titles of the record transposed into images. It's difficult to show and explain it to you without having it here. There's all the titles mixed into an image. Symbolic and stupid at the same time.
Urlo: Sometimes it's more difficult to work on your bands than other bands because you are more critic with what you do.

Fab: And the visual aspect is very important in your live performances.
Urlo: Yeah. Today, we didn't had the visuals that we always have. We consider that we're 5 in UFOMAMMUT: there's three playing, there's Chicho the sound engineer, and Lu who does the visual parts. Every time one part is missing is like when we play places like here. With the visuals, I think it's more easy. I don't know, we think it's a little empty (without the visuals). Something's missing.
Poia: It's not complete. Visuals are very important.

Fab: Concerning the presence of the voice on stage, is there a particular work on these live shows?
Urlo: I try to hide the fact that I'm not able to sing in all the way possible (laughter). I only use a Flanger and a Delay on the voice, to make it more "spacey" and more like an instrument inside the others. I like to think that the voice is not more important than the other instruments. That's why we mix the voice not too high, to be on the same level than the guitar, bass, to hide in the music…Except if it has to do something special. I use effects just to make it more into the music, because if it's too much clean, I don't know…It's good because when I'm out of tune, you just hear distant things (laughter).

Fab: What are your plans for the close future?
Urlo: We're gonna play with DOWN in Italy and do another festival in August. And then everyone will stop and work for the new album. We hope to have it done by April of next year. We have some ideas that we wanna do…
Poia: We can't say how we're gonna do it, it's a secret (laughter).
Urlo: We wanna do this album for April, just to have another album out after the ten years of "Godlike Snake", just to have a celebration. And we'll like to do a dvd too, or something to celebrate these ten years. We would like to go to the U.S.A. next year. We hope. Other plans… ?
Poia: Make money (laughter)…girls …

Fab: Lots of girls and coke?
Poia: (laughter) Just continue to play and make more music. It's not new but for us, it's important to express ourselves in some way through the music, so.

Fab: A last word for the readers of BSPIX?
Urlo: Thank you for your time, we hope that you enjoyed our gig at the HELLFEST, and hope to see you all, friends, in Italy maybe (general laughter). It's now a difficult place to come now Italy, thanks to some people like Berlusconi, so, help us, bomb Italy (more laughter), invade Italy!