Posted on April 29, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

Turn off the volume: a Loud Off Interview

The new Eeardrums compilation (just check it out in case you missed it) has been universally acclaimed with lot of love and true enthusiasm by any living creature on Planed Earth with two ears and an internet connection. Once again this seasonal sensational little worldwide event was a pleasurable excuse to discover new bands and artists. My attention was caught by a song by a band called Loud Off. Surprises didn’t cease, since I discovered that this little indie orchestra is from… Italy! Here’s our chance to talk with Bruno Noaro and Andrea Raccanelli. Here we go.

Mark Zonda: “Loud Off”. Just the name and you can see a whole concept in your music. Does music need a little bit of silence and whispers nowadays?

Loud Off: Yes, “Loud Off” is related to our music style, ambient and acoustic, but it’s a really larger concept too. In our opinion, it’s not music that requires silences and whispers, but rather, the approach to it. We think that, in Italy, this form of expression is too often confused with something that necessarily has to give you fame and profit. We don’t recognize ourselves in this characteristic, because we think that profit and success are rather a result; a wonderful confirmation that everyone likes the music you’re doing. For us, creating and playing songs, is a need first of all and then is a way to express something that lives inside us.
Mark Zonda: Succes from Music: is it really possible in Italy?

Loud Off: Yes, achieve success from music is surely possible in Italy. The only problem is that you often have to meet half way with labels or sign things that you don’t want to sign, in order to make your music a product that can be sold.  So this doesn’t fit us; we chose to follow another road, an own road built by our expectations, our dreams, and our friendships. We believe that these are the only elements we need to make some real music. Probably this is not the best way to emerge, but we think that humilty and strong ideas will lead us through a lot of personal and nice experiences.

Mark Zonda:  How did you managed to gather so many persons around such an unusual music project?

Loud Off: Maybe our project has raised the attention of our public, just because is something quite unusual. Nowadays we all dispose of lots of alternative ways to make music and to communicate it to a large public, and this is a great advantage because we can realize step by step exactly what we want, just being in front of a computer at home. As a band, we decided to make a different choice, playing acoustic instruments and swimming against the tide on a stylistic point of view. We wanted to go back and start again from the very beginning, from the wood of our instruments, from the notes of a guitar, the hands on the strings, the horsehairs..and probably this is our main feature. This is what lead us to become an ensemble of 7 musicians, that have the common desire to propose something a little bit different from the ordinary.

Mark Zonda: Would you move your instruments and musicians to play in a place without technology at all? Where to?

Loud Off: We love proposals and we love music. We also play acoustic instruments so why don’t we play everywhere? We started playing only with guitars and violin. To give colour to the songs we usually used some nice backgrounds made with the pc. We decided to delete every piece of electronic sounds for the moment, in order to test the true essence of seven pure acoustic instruments. To play in an open field like “Vaka” (Sigur Ros – Heima) would be a really big experience and also a nice band test for us. Why do not you invite us?

Mark Zonda: Yellow Capra, Arnoux and Gary Jules. What’s your opinion on these artists (in case you know them) and which are your main influences?

Loud Off: We don’t know them so we can’t say any opinion. Anyway, we’re surely inspired by: Sigur ros, Seabear, Múm and other from the Icelandic area. But our personal tastes have a long range. Just to mention some other bands we love, we remember: Radiohead, Efterklang, Beirut, Regina Spektor, Hefner, Amiina, The Swell Season and many others…(a 7 members band means too much influences).

Mark Zonda: Was it strange to have a singer in your band? How did it happen you met ANT for the new Eardrums Compilation?

LOud Off: It wasn’t a planned choice. Initially we had never excluded the way to get a singer in the band, but then, the musical path we made has never brought us to the need to find one. This way has always allowed us to search external collaborations with more freedom. With our friend ANT (Antony Harding) it was all very natural. He is an artist we love so much, his solo album “Footprints through the snow” is one of our favourite records! Through internet, we had the opportunity to know him and confront us. We asked him if he wanted to sing on one of our instrumental track, and he, with an extreme simplicity, answered “Yes my friends!”. So “Crying no Tears” was born, between humilty and passion for the real music. Then, the norwegian Eardrums label, who collaborated with ANT yet, asked both of us to insert it into “Between two waves compilation”. We have happily accepted. The idea behind this label fully reflects our idea of creativity, free from constraints, from copyright, from contracts…it just want to make people listen and promote and share all music around the world.

Mark Zonda: I’m gonna interview ANT soon… What should I ask him?

Loud Off: We’re pretty jealous of ANT, so, first of all, treat him well…no, we’re jocking…We always want to highlight that (with this collaboration “Crying No Tears”) we feel first of all excited by this tune and then deeply moved by the beautiful person we worked with. We know that he has done a great growth in his music profile and we know that he’s doing a new album too, that will be probably ready the next year because recordings will start this summer. Crying no Tears will be included in his record.

Mark Zonda: What people has to espect from your live shows?

Loud Off: By now, we have been trying to make few but significant live performances. We’ve always wanted to make them different the ones from the other, by searching for something new to include every time, which is not very simple to be honest. A few months ago, for example, we started a collaboration with a couple of actors who have been able to enrich in a very peculiar way our live shows, by reading, in the middle of it, some poems and performing little acts. In this way we managed to create something more than a simple concert. Our shows, from our point of view ,are meant to create an intense atmosphere, able to move our public and to touch their hearts.

Mark Zonda: What do you think ’bout pop music?

Loud Off: We think that the more you move towards northern europe, the more real and true becomes the “pop” music you hear (It’s a Musical – Berlin, Múm – Iceland and Efterklang – Danmark are, for example, defined “pop”, but we think that they’re really one step ahead of other “pop” bands and they have strong ideas too). We don’t love to classify with strict genres. We rather love to recognize good music. Only one final suggestion to everybody : if you’re looking for “pop” music here in italy, “pop” in the true sense of the word, please change your mind and look for it somewhere else.

Loud Off & Ant – “Crying no Tears”

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