INTERVIEW TO THY LIGHT

Alex Witchfinder (lyrics) & Paolo Bruno (music and vocals)

Hi guys, thank you for the opportunity you gave us to have an interview with you, and welcome on Sadik Underground Review. It was 2007 when we heard the first Thy Light’s demo, “Suici.de.pression”, then nothing until now. What happened to Thy Light in such a long time?

(Paolo): It’s like I always say, there's no reason for me to write music if I'm not in the mood of what I'm creating, so... I spend a long time without feeling sad, depressive and all that stuff, and Thy Light only exists when we are feeling like that.

(Alex): We’re actually trying to respect the most important Doom Metal rule: the slower, the better.

You are from Limeira, in Brazil, a Country probably most known for Heavy/Thrash Metal than Depressive. What do you think about Brazilian Undreground Scene?

(Paolo): For me, the 90’s Brazilian underground scene used to have a lot of important bands that contributed a lot for my musical development. Bands like Amen Corner, Murder Rape, Mysteriis, Songe D'Enfer, Profane Creation, Mystifier, Miasthenia, Lord Blasphemate, Angel of Light, Blazing Corpse... The fist Black Metal album that I've listened to was Amen Corner's "Jachol Ve Tehila", and for sure this album was the responsable to drive my taste in music until now. I follow the underground of São Paulo, because I play in a band (Desdominus) and we are always playing with other underground bands. I agree that is very rare to see a band here that makes music in the way that we do in Thy Light... I mean, the "slow and depressive" way, but there are some nice bands being created, like Hateful Agony for example.

(Alex): Actually I don’t know much about the nowadays scene, but I use to listen my friends bands like Abske Fides/Shyy (I live with Nihil for about 7 years now, he’s like a brother to me, so in a way I’m always listening to his projects), Infamous Glory, Mythological Cold Towers, The Black Coffins, Death by Starvation, Spiral Guru, Apokalyptic Raids… but well, I think the very first albums from bands like Sepultura, Sarcófago, Vulcano and Dorsal Atlântica will be my favourite music from Brazil forever.

While listening the album we can hear quotes from Andrej Arsen'evič Tarkovskij, a great sovietic film director. What is your opinion about him?

(Alex): Beside Thy Light, I'm also a filmmaker, have a college degree on Cinema, and particularly I feel more close to a cinema than underground music scene. Tarkovsky (both father and son) were always like masters for me. I like to think about art as a concept, for me music/cinema/poetry/graphic novels/et cetera must work like a major thing, like a way to reach another view about life, death and all it comprehends. It's funny how these people from the other side of the world (they're Russian and we live in Brazil) have such a great view about everything, even if they're orthodox and I'm an atheist, I think about their art as a way for a skeptic person like me experience in a way something related to a "metaphysical" sense of life - I think art can reach this level, and if so, it must be an obligation. It's a hard thing to explain, but I'm never interested in regular stuff, I think we can expect more from everything, from life, from makind, or how Tarkovsky Sir used to say in one of his most famous poems: "There has to be more" ('Tolko etogo malo' in a transliterated russian). So, when you expect more from everything, you get frustrated all the time, because people are always fucking everything up (Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts/Snoopy once said "I love mankind, it's people I can't stand", and that works perfectly on this case). This frustration is everything I wrote on Thy Light's lyrics until now, that's what I call "depressive" in a artistic way. So, about your question: if art can be better than our regular way of living (and it can be, I know it!), then it must be. I'm interested in true art, in true forms of expression, and Tarkovsky (just like Ozu, Dreyer, Bresson, Bergman, et cetera) always did something more, they make me think different, and it's positive even when it's sad, because it took you away from your comfort zone. That's exactly what I expect from everything, and that's what I try to do, in a way.

“Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia” (1983) was filmed in Turin, Italy: will you ever come here for a pilgrimage + concert?

(Alex): I hope so, it would be a pleasure! Nietzsche used to live in Turin at some period of his life, right? There was rumours about how this city was supposed to cause him a mental breakdown. That's a funny trivia, isn't it? And even I like more the russian movies from Tarkovsky, Nostalghia (filmed in Italy) and The Sacrifice (filmed in Sweden) are truly masterpieces. 

About new album’s pic, where did you get it?

(Paolo): If you are talking about the cover art, that pic is from a image bank and I just reframed it with some photo manipulation for the cover art. About my personal Picture, it was taken in a city called Salto, on a park called "Rocha Moutonnée" that is a famous park where people found some Dinosaur fossils in the past.

(Alex): If you're talking about our pictures, my pic was taken by a friend, it was an exercise for college, and I wanted to do a tribute to Spaghetti Western with that gallow. It was took on the city I used to live that time, Curitiba.

Thy Light - No Morrow Shall Dawn (2013)

If you had more possibilities in terms of budget, musicians and so on, what would you want to build?

(Paolo): I think I already have these "possibilities". Maybe in a near future, we'll have something "new".

At the moment you call yourselves ‘musicians’ when speaking about your job or your every-day life has not changed so much?

(Alex): I never been a musician, even if I know how to play bass and scratch some tunes at guitar, but nothing compared to Paolo, he's a string master. Actually I'm a film researcher and indie filmmaker, nothing more than that. Thy Light will always be Paolo's band, I'm glad that I can assist him writing some lines, but the fact is the band would never existed without him, but probably would existed without me with another lyric writer, since it's something easier to do.

(Paolo): I have to disagree with Alex when he says that writing some lyrics is something easier to do. I'm very bad trying to translate my feelings into words, so that's the reason that I don't write anything, I just can translate my feeling into tunes. But answering your question, I'm not a musician, I’m a self-taught on guitar, so I don't have a great knowledge in musical theory, et cetera. I work as a graphic designer in a propaganda agency and that's what gives me money. I never earned money playing music, the money that I got from the CDs and merchandise is the money that I spend on the studio, so...

2014, ‘New year, new life’, as we say in Italy: good musical intentions for Thy Light. Thank you for the interview!

(Paolo): Thanks for the opportunity to share more about our essence and avoid people talking about what Thy Light is without knowing it. 

(Alex): We use to say the same here in Brazil... Well, thanks for the interview, cheers to you and all people reading this interview, especially for those in Italy. You all should bring Cadaveria back to Opera IX and make it a decent band once again, I really miss them. And if you have contact with any Frostmoon Eclipse's member, tell him I love their work and they should come to Brazil even if playing for just a few people, it's hard for me to believe I'll never see them live - and their work is really impressive! And a special regard to Mr. Paolo Rossi, for bringing true depression over Brazil three decades ago, cheers!

Interview by -Mørke-

Translation by -Edoardo Napoli-

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