Metal Psalter Janvs' Matteo "Vinctor" Barelli Interview Page 1

Jesse: Thank you for taking the time for this interview. It is appreciated.

Vinctor: Thank you very much for your interest in us.

Jesse: First off, tell us a little about the band and how it came to be formed. Also, I’m curious about the name Janvs. Is it pronounced “janus?” What meaning does the name have?

Vinctor: It was back in 2003 that I started the project, after some semi-demo recordings it stopped being a one-man band, Malphas and Francesco La Rosa joined Janus and we recorded together "Fulgures", which got released by ATMF in September 2007. During 2007 the BMIA "Signum Martis" compilation (ww.signum-martis.org) got released too, it included one unreleased track of ours. Then Francesco La Rosa was replaced by m:A Fog (Glorior Belli, ex-Disiplin, Black Flame) behind the drums and we recorded "Vega" during spring/summer 2008 and the album has been released October 2008 by ATMF again. Now to the monicker question, Janus (Giano in Italian) is a god of the Italic/Roman religious tradition, I think that all the most important aspects of the symbolical universe of this very important god, which belongs only to the Italic tradition, really fit my personality and the aims and ways of expression I wanted to develop with the project I intended from the beginning to become my main and deeper effort in music and "art", which could last my entire life-span and could grant me total freedom of expression. I really think that our musicality and language is every day closer to the symbolical way of being of the god we use the name of, delivering the longing for a timeless dimension through a journey made of the constant attrition of opposing and diverse elements. The symbology of Janus is immense. Janus represents the constant strife and synthesis between opposites, all kinds of opposites (its two opposite faces), which work in the sense of a journey towards its third, invisible face which represents transcendence. In ancient Latin the letter "u" appears as a "V" when writing in capitals, so it's always pronounced as a "u" anyway and writing "Janvs" is in fact incorrect, it should be written JANVS or Janus.

Jesse: Vega is quite atmospheric and almost dream-like in its delivery. What kind of process did you and the band go through in preparation to writing the music? Did the album sort of take on a life of its own or did you approach it with a predetermined set of ideas on how it was going to sound?

Vinctor: Both. I always start with some predetermined ideas, then when I actually start filling these abstract ideas with content (i.e. writing music and lyrics...) the inspirational drive starts to co-lead the process. Its always a mix of ideas which I use to start doing things with those things themselves taking life which bring the work forward and its really hard to separate them in a precise way once the compositive process has took the flight. It's not easy to explain. About what I went through with the album...I never liked to do long talks about the things I do myself, judging them for others, it always makes me feels incomplete and somewhat arrogant. I do songs for the very reason I'm not so good at expressing myself in other ways. However, let's say that the overall theme that crosses all the songs on "Vega" consists in the expression of the search for a lost fixed point of reference, in a moment in which a certain sense of loss and confusion doesn't appear to offer any escape option, but that at the same time fails to destroy all the "positive tensions" that have the vagueness, the visionary power, the distance and the strength of a true faith. "Vega" has been the polar star of Earth until 10.000 years ago and will return being it in some others millennia from now, this is for sure. This star and its name are also bound to a lot of different cultural and ethimological meanings across very distant civilizations, and almost all of them are closely related to what I intended to channel through this little work of ours.

Jesse: I haven’t heard the debut album, but in comparing Vega to Fvlgvres, there is quite an abundance of clean vocals on Vega which I feel really adds a lot to the album. Did you feel that this addition was important to help evolve and grow the band?

Vinctor: Yes I think so. You know it was just a natural and unavoidable consequence considering the style of music we play and the fact that we are a band which feels the constant need to improve and try different ways, a band which in short doesn't intend to get stale. What you heard on "Vega" was just a first attempt to it, a lot of work will go in that direction in the future, not in the sense of a quantity increase necessarily of course, I'm talking about new creative uses, better integration and interaction between music and vocals, and so on.

Jesse: Are you inspired by your environment and the natural landscape of Italy? The song “Mediterraneo” is of course inspired by the Mediterranean Sea and the poetic lyrics would lead one to assume that there is a much deeper meaning to this song as well as the rest of the album in which there are other references to the ocean.

Vinctor: Yes of course I'm inspired by my surroundings, by what they represent and represented through our history, culture and "spiritual dimension" through the ages. The sea is of course a very strong symbol, which represents the ever storming and ever changing nature of existence, among other things. "Vega" expresses the longing for a lost fixed point of reference which has to be searched in the sky (metaphorically of course), which is a really different element compared to the sea, as air is very different from water. It's a beautiful contrast, two very different kinds of azure.

Jesse: Who are you inspired by on a musical level? What other musicians, metal or otherwise, do you like to listen to when writing your own music or do you prefer to distance yourself from music so that you don’t let it subliminally influence your writing?

Vinctor: I prefer to get to a certain distance, I think that the obvious influences that we all have can work in a smoother way, mixing more effectively with the most inner creativity of a musician if kept at a certain distance in certain moments. However, I really listen to a lot of different music. I like a lot of metal bands of course, '70 progressive rock and cosmic music, '90 "alternative" rock such as grunge in the form of outstanding bands like Alice In Chains. Soundtrack music, classical music, some trip-hop music too. Probably I'm a bit focused on the most melancholic sides of music but I think that I'm not saying anything particularly surprising here.

Jesse: How often does Janvs play live? How would you describe a live set? Is it a very emotional and serious thing or do you guys just like to have fun and work the crowd?

Vinctor: We never played live. Our current daily lives would simply not allow to do so in a decent way. In addition I'm not really interested in the live dimension, I'm not saying we'll never do a concert but its not a priority for us, Janus will always be a very studio-focused band. This is where we can deliver all our creativity with the lesser quantity of boundaries and limitations.

Jesse: Speaking of live shows, how realistic would a North or South American tour be sometime in the near future? Maybe a one-off at a festival or something? Talk about the challenges of getting proper exposure and distribution to other countries around the globe.

Vinctor: As I said in the answer above, I don't know, I would enjoy that so much. Let's say its not impossible but to organize such a thing would require an overwhelming response from the USA to our new record. Getting distribution deals is not our job but our label's one, however I can say it's not easy at all, good distribution costs a lot of money and investing large sums of money in the music business is extremely risky today, especially for small labels. For example our label just signed a deal with Red Distribution for the USA and managed to guarantee us some good radio play in your country for a while starting from the near future, but that's not common at all, and that's quite an hazard. Because of file sharing and such things most people simply don't buy records anymore, big bands mainly relay on extensive touring to survive and get bigger. Studio bands like ours are pretty much screwed because selling records and growing is really much harder than say 10 years ago without pushing hard on the live dimension.

Jesse: You and the other members of Janvs are currently involved in other bands. Do you find it difficult to separate yourself from the frame of mind you put yourself in when writing music for different projects? Can it be challenging to manage everyone’s time when it comes to recording or playing live?

Vinctor: I can't answer to the first part of your question because I play only in Janus at the moment, so does Malphas, and for us it's almost always been this way. I noticed that Metal Archives reports a lot of erroneous things about me, it actually appoints me the band history of F. La Rosa. m:A Fog plays in a lot of bands but being a drummer he doesn't have to write this much in different bands, I think he really focuses writing on his main band Black Flame. I can answer much better to the second part of your question, being the organizative soul of the band...yes its a real pain. Everyone has his own priorities and his own life going on, so coordinating a massive effort like recording an album in a precise and tight way can be really unnerving. And doing an album doesn't stop to the "musicians" part of it, then there are also the graphical design, unreliable audio engineers, factory issues, and so on...At times doing "Vega" really gave me an hard time, and I fear I wouldn't be able to finish it the way it is if we didn't make it in a moment of my life in which I was able to concentrate a lot of time on it. Fortunately our label and some cool friend supported us and in the end it was a tougher work to do but it has been a much more enjoyable experience than realizing the previous album was.