webzine

1) What happened in H.O.H. after the EP release in 2001?
(Gionata) Well, a lot of things happened after that EP.. In fact our old label (Northern Darkness Records) failed leaving us without a deal. That 7”-ep gave us a bit force to go ahead so we started looking for another label. Unfortunately we got some line-up problems too and we got also some bad experiences with very unprofessional and bad small labels… anyway we recorded a new promotape in January 2002 containing two new songs just to let the name be spread again and finally we signed to Italian Code666 Releases a one album deal in October of the same year. We recorded our new album “ViceCrown” during February 2003. I think you know the rest.

2) When did you start writing the songs for 'Vicecrown'? Has your songwriting changed from the beginning?
(Gionata) Well, “ViceCrown” is composed by some old song coming straight from the 2001/2002 period, like “Vexer’s Kult” or “I Hate”, anyway during the last 6 months before the studio recordings we made a lot arrangements within all the songs and in fact now they sound completely different from the old ones. Some songs like “Hierarch In Lust” or “Carnal Spite (Held In Leash)” are quite young compared to the others, but the youngest ones are “Risen Into Abuse” and “Catharsis In Punishment”. (The 2nd question was misunderstood, I meant if there had been differneces in the way of writing compared to the early yeras, but the answer is kind of interesting anyway/Note of Markus)

3) Was it intentional to be more death metal in this record or is it just a case due to your musical evolution? Will you still work with Peso?
(Gionata) Our sound engineer was called PASO, not PESO, so someone could think we recorded our album to Necrodeath’s drummer but it isn’t so!(How right you are! My fucked up mind can't stand the rhythm; this is what happens when you have shitloads of work and you have to rush out much later than the midnight hour/Note of Markus). PASO is a quite young guy who lives in East central Italy (Alfonsine, Ravenna/Markus) and works in a Studio called Fear Studio... He’s very talented and he’s really able to give every band his maximum. Actually I don’t know if we’ll work together with him again in the future… we spent a very great period with him and his work was the greatest we’ve ever had but who knows? Yes, of course Death Metal influences have been intentional because during this 4 year silence we got different people and our musical tastes changed a bit. We actually prefer defining Handful Of Hate as a Black-Death-Metal band… it couldn’t be different…

4) How many copies did you sell with your previous records?
(Gionata) Actually I’m not able to give you a precise number because as I’ve told you before, our old label failed and so our selling informations and promotional planes… Actually I know (but I’m not 100% sure of that) that our first album should have sold around 2000 copies and the second one around 1600. We can say that our first album went greater than the second because Northern Darkness Records failed just shortly after the release of the second one itself so it got no promotion at all (except some adverts on Italian magazines). This is all about we know.

5) As I don't have any lyrics do youwanna say something about each song? I know it's a banal question, but I'd like to know the meaning of the cover and if there's a hidden message behind it.
(Gionata) Nicola wrote the lyrics so he would be the best person able to explain their deep meanings, anyway they are all about carnality, sexual perversion and violence in general… Lyrics are really extreme and are constantly evolving with the music itself, track by track.

6) What about your live shows? I think one of the main faults of most black bands is they don't move or have a strong presence live... Do you consider yourselves an exception?
(Gionata) I think that just a listener can give an opinion like this about us… I can’t personally judge myself. Anyway Handful Of Hate is a live band 100% and we usually play a lot live our songs… Yes, you’re right the most of the live act out of there are not so great as on CD but I think that you can hardly compare Handful Of Hate to a band like those. In fact we play with the same intensity both live than on CD and we usually take care a lot of our show so we think we usually don’t disappoint anyone.

7) I won't ask you about the Italian black scene, just tell me if being an Italian band has been advantageous for you so far for your career.
(Gionata) No, being Italian didn’t help us so much… definitely. Culture here is wrong for such topics… we can’t compare southern territories to northern ones… Northern Europe is much more opened to extreme-metal music (but mostly to music in general I think) (I agree, man/Markus) and there are serious opportunities to turn your hobby into a passion and a reason to live for. Here there are no chances to anyone and otherwise we haven’t the right musical education as well as other countries. You can study guitar or drums but you should do that by your own, not like Scandinavia, where they usually learn them by ordinary school. So there a musician is skilled and able to play well maybe at 16 years, here not before 22. Anyway possibilities to do something serious are everywhere.. you just have to work hard knowing that your energy should be repaid one day… or better, so I hope! Ha ha ha…

8) If I'm not wrong, you play drums in another band. What about your side projects? Will you also be releasing something with them soon?
(Gionata) Yes, I’m also playing in Frostmoon Eclipse, a Black-Metal band. Our style is completely different from the Handful Of Hate one… in fact FE are much more melodic and there are lots of acoustic breaks within the songs. The whole FE discography is composed by two demos, a MCD, a 7”-ep and two albums. We are much more than a side project, we are a real band… we play live and stuff like that. Take a look to our official web site at: http://deathiscoming.altervista.org. Together with Nicola and another guy we have a side project towards the Grind-Core sound (cool!/MG)… Actually we have just 2 songs and the whole thing is growing out slowly but the band exists. The future shall tell us if there is a possibility to record something interesting with them.

9) What is your opinion about:
a) religion (Gionata) I’m simply not a believer. Religions have been invented to rule ignorant and afraid people and I think they’re actually standing for the same goal.
b) politics (Gionata) Politics should never be crossed together with music… Unfortunately someone thinks that’s great to seem eviler using Nazi topics.. I completely disagree this way of playing Black-Metal music. There are lots of topics to be treated of, why such a bore??
c) capitalism (Gionata) Well, it’s a natural evolution of common society.. It’s not so great for certain verses, especially for consumes, but what can people do? Society and sales can’t be stopped as simply as a car.
d) racism (Gionata) I love to think that every culture and every people have his own traditions and a respectable story. I love to know more about the world and racism is the opposite of my D.N.A.
e) sex (Gionata) Is there something more interesting in this world?? Ha ha ha… I don’t think so. Sex opens your mind and gives a carnal satisfaction to the soul. We all have our perverted tastes and perverted ideas but basically we are sex dependent. Ha ha ha…

10) What, respectively, were the worst, best and funniest episodes in Handful Of Hate?
(Gionata) Our worst experience is surely the “Hierarchy 1999” recording session, our second album… in fact our label chose for us a very bad studio in which any genre couldn’t come out good… The studio guy was totally unprofessional and we were too young and unexperienced to repair his mistakes. The result is not bad at all, we love our second album, but it is absolutely not what we were looking for at that time… the final result is far away from our initial ideas.. I hope to get the opportunity to record again the whole work one day, to give it the right justice because I think that “Hierarchy 1999” is a great album indeed. One of our best experience maybe could be our last show in Rome supporting Impaled Nazarene… they are a living kult for us so it was a dream fulfilled to open a show for them… Our funniest episode? Mmmm… once we were to play live for one hour and half but we were playing with a new line up, unable to learn than a limited quantity of songs… so after we finished our regular tracklist, we started back again for the beginning repeating half of the show! Ha ha ha… it was funny! Fortunately it was a lot of years ago and people who where there that night didn’t know our band so well so we saved our face!!! Ha ha ha…

11) If you weren't a musician, what job would you make?
(Gionata) Well, to be a musician at my level doesn’t mean that I’m earning a living with music. I need to make an ordinary job to live and I’m actually an electronic operator.

12) What are your 2003's fave 5 albums?
(Gionata) Well, I won’t give you just the 2003’s albums but at least the latest 5 ones that impressed me so much and maybe some of them come from 2002… Actually I don’t remember, sorry! Here you are the list: Aborted – “Goremageddon”; Impiety – “Khaos Kommand 696”; Inhume – “In For The Kill”; Rotten Sound – “Murderworks”; Severe Torture – “Misanthropic Carnage”. (I've missed Aborted and Rotten Sound, but I can confirm you the others are definitely killer albums!/Markus)

13) A mistake you wouldn't like to repeat with your band?
(Gionata) Well, except entirely recording our second album again, we’ve lost a lot of time concerning line-ups because of people not much interested in what they were doing… years thrown away just waiting for their stupid and wrong attitude… I really would like to get those years back but unfortunately it’s not possible anymore.

14) Time for closure. Take all the place you wish to tell a message, threat, insult, greeting or whatever to your fans and the readers of our zine. And thanks for your time.
(Gionata) Insults??? Ha ha ha… no no, they’re not in our style! Thanx a lot for your time and support, you rule… Those who just want to know more about our band can keep themselves updated though our official internet website at WWW.HANDFULOFHATE.COM. There you can find also some Mp3, news and a live plane weekly updated. Give “ViceCrown” an opportunity, you won’t lose your time!

MARKUS GANHERRLICH - 25/11/03

-------------------------

	Handful of Hate INFESTING THE WORLD WITH DISCORD... .Questions answered by skin-torturer Gionata Potenti after the release of 'Vicecrown'



	1) What happened in H.O.H. after the EP release in 2001? (Gionata) Well, a lot of things happened after that EP.. In fact our old label (Northern Darkness Records) failed leaving us without a deal. That 7”-ep gave us a bit force to go ahead so we started looking for another label. Unfortunately we got some line-up problems too and we got also some bad experiences with very unprofessional and bad small labels… anyway we recorded a new promotape in January 2002 containing two new songs just to let the name be spread again and finally we signed to Italian Code666 Releases a one album deal in October of the same year. We recorded our new album “ViceCrown” during February 2003. I think you know the rest. 2) When did you start writing the songs for 'Vicecrown'? Has your songwriting changed from the beginning? (Gionata) Well, “ViceCrown” is composed by some old song coming straight from the 2001/2002 period, like “Vexer’s Kult” or “I Hate”, anyway during the last 6 months before the studio recordings we made a lot arrangements within all the songs and in fact now they sound completely different from the old ones. Some songs like “Hierarch In Lust” or “Carnal Spite (Held In Leash)” are quite young compared to the others, but the youngest ones are “Risen Into Abuse” and “Catharsis In Punishment”. (The 2nd question was misunderstood, I meant if there had been differneces in the way of writing compared to the early yeras, but the answer is kind of interesting anyway/Note of Markus) 3) Was it intentional to be more death metal in this record or is it just a case due to your musical evolution? Will you still work with Peso? (Gionata) Our sound engineer was called PASO, not PESO, so someone could think we recorded our album to Necrodeath’s drummer but it isn’t so!(How right you are! My fucked up mind can't stand the rhythm; this is what happens when you have shitloads of work and you have to rush out much later than the midnight hour/Note of Markus). PASO is a quite young guy who lives in East central Italy (Alfonsine, Ravenna/Markus) and works in a Studio called Fear Studio... He’s very talented and he’s really able to give every band his maximum. Actually I don’t know if we’ll work together with him again in the future… we spent a very great period with him and his work was the greatest we’ve ever had but who knows? Yes, of course Death Metal influences have been intentional because during this 4 year silence we got different people and our musical tastes changed a bit. We actually prefer defining Handful Of Hate as a Black-Death-Metal band… it couldn’t be different… 4) How many copies did you sell with your previous records? (Gionata) Actually I’m not able to give you a precise number because as I’ve told you before, our old label failed and so our selling informations and promotional planes… Actually I know (but I’m not 100% sure of that) that our first album should have sold around 2000 copies and the second one around 1600. We can say that our first album went greater than the second because Northern Darkness Records failed just shortly after the release of the second one itself so it got no promotion at all (except some adverts on Italian magazines). This is all about we know. 5) As I don't have any lyrics do youwanna say something about each song? I know it's a banal question, but I'd like to know the meaning of the cover and if there's a hidden message behind it. (Gionata) Nicola wrote the lyrics so he would be the best person able to explain their deep meanings, anyway they are all about carnality, sexual perversion and violence in general… Lyrics are really extreme and are constantly evolving with the music itself, track by track. 6) What about your live shows? I think one of the main faults of most black bands is they don't move or have a strong presence live... Do you consider yourselves an exception? (Gionata) I think that just a listener can give an opinion like this about us… I can’t personally judge myself. Anyway Handful Of Hate is a live band 100% and we usually play a lot live our songs… Yes, you’re right the most of the live act out of there are not so great as on CD but I think that you can hardly compare Handful Of Hate to a band like those. In fact we play with the same intensity both live than on CD and we usually take care a lot of our show so we think we usually don’t disappoint anyone. 7) I won't ask you about the Italian black scene, just tell me if being an Italian band has been advantageous for you so far for your career. (Gionata) No, being Italian didn’t help us so much… definitely. Culture here is wrong for such topics… we can’t compare southern territories to northern ones… Northern Europe is much more opened to extreme-metal music (but mostly to music in general I think) (I agree, man/Markus) and there are serious opportunities to turn your hobby into a passion and a reason to live for. Here there are no chances to anyone and otherwise we haven’t the right musical education as well as other countries. You can study guitar or drums but you should do that by your own, not like Scandinavia, where they usually learn them by ordinary school. So there a musician is skilled and able to play well maybe at 16 years, here not before 22. Anyway possibilities to do something serious are everywhere.. you just have to work hard knowing that your energy should be repaid one day… or better, so I hope! Ha ha ha… 8) If I'm not wrong, you play drums in another band. What about your side projects? Will you also be releasing something with them soon? (Gionata) Yes, I’m also playing in Frostmoon Eclipse, a Black-Metal band. Our style is completely different from the Handful Of Hate one… in fact FE are much more melodic and there are lots of acoustic breaks within the songs. The whole FE discography is composed by two demos, a MCD, a 7”-ep and two albums. We are much more than a side project, we are a real band… we play live and stuff like that. Take a look to our official web site at: http://deathiscoming.altervista.org. Together with Nicola and another guy we have a side project towards the Grind-Core sound (cool!/MG)… Actually we have just 2 songs and the whole thing is growing out slowly but the band exists. The future shall tell us if there is a possibility to record something interesting with them. 9) What is your opinion about: a) religion (Gionata) I’m simply not a believer. Religions have been invented to rule ignorant and afraid people and I think they’re actually standing for the same goal. b) politics (Gionata) Politics should never be crossed together with music… Unfortunately someone thinks that’s great to seem eviler using Nazi topics.. I completely disagree this way of playing Black-Metal music. There are lots of topics to be treated of, why such a bore?? c) capitalism (Gionata) Well, it’s a natural evolution of common society.. It’s not so great for certain verses, especially for consumes, but what can people do? Society and sales can’t be stopped as simply as a car. d) racism (Gionata) I love to think that every culture and every people have his own traditions and a respectable story. I love to know more about the world and racism is the opposite of my D.N.A. e) sex (Gionata) Is there something more interesting in this world?? Ha ha ha… I don’t think so. Sex opens your mind and gives a carnal satisfaction to the soul. We all have our perverted tastes and perverted ideas but basically we are sex dependent. Ha ha ha… 10) What, respectively, were the worst, best and funniest episodes in Handful Of Hate? (Gionata) Our worst experience is surely the “Hierarchy 1999” recording session, our second album… in fact our label chose for us a very bad studio in which any genre couldn’t come out good… The studio guy was totally unprofessional and we were too young and unexperienced to repair his mistakes. The result is not bad at all, we love our second album, but it is absolutely not what we were looking for at that time… the final result is far away from our initial ideas.. I hope to get the opportunity to record again the whole work one day, to give it the right justice because I think that “Hierarchy 1999” is a great album indeed. One of our best experience maybe could be our last show in Rome supporting Impaled Nazarene… they are a living kult for us so it was a dream fulfilled to open a show for them… Our funniest episode? Mmmm… once we were to play live for one hour and half but we were playing with a new line up, unable to learn than a limited quantity of songs… so after we finished our regular tracklist, we started back again for the beginning repeating half of the show! Ha ha ha… it was funny! Fortunately it was a lot of years ago and people who where there that night didn’t know our band so well so we saved our face!!! Ha ha ha… 11) If you weren't a musician, what job would you make? (Gionata) Well, to be a musician at my level doesn’t mean that I’m earning a living with music. I need to make an ordinary job to live and I’m actually an electronic operator. 12) What are your 2003's fave 5 albums? (Gionata) Well, I won’t give you just the 2003’s albums but at least the latest 5 ones that impressed me so much and maybe some of them come from 2002… Actually I don’t remember, sorry! Here you are the list: Aborted – “Goremageddon”; Impiety – “Khaos Kommand 696”; Inhume – “In For The Kill”; Rotten Sound – “Murderworks”; Severe Torture – “Misanthropic Carnage”. (I've missed Aborted and Rotten Sound, but I can confirm you the others are definitely killer albums!/Markus) 13) A mistake you wouldn't like to repeat with your band? (Gionata) Well, except entirely recording our second album again, we’ve lost a lot of time concerning line-ups because of people not much interested in what they were doing… years thrown away just waiting for their stupid and wrong attitude… I really would like to get those years back but unfortunately it’s not possible anymore. 14) Time for closure. Take all the place you wish to tell a message, threat, insult, greeting or whatever to your fans and the readers of our zine. And thanks for your time. (Gionata) Insults??? Ha ha ha… no no, they’re not in our style! Thanx a lot for your time and support, you rule… Those who just want to know more about our band can keep themselves updated though our official internet website at WWW.HANDFULOFHATE.COM. There you can find also some Mp3, news and a live plane weekly updated. Give “ViceCrown” an opportunity, you won’t lose your time! MARKUS GANHERRLICH - 25/11/03 -------------------------