Fresh off the release of their excellent I Felt Nothing”, we caught up with the Turin outfit for a wide-ranging conversation with guitarist Morgan , diving into everything swirling around the band right now, from the buzz surrounding the record to what lies ahead for one of the most exciting names to emerge from the Italian heavy scene in recent memory.
“I Felt Nothing” seems to mark a new turning point for If I Die Today, but also a kind of answer to “The Abyss In Silence” (in our review we suggested it might be the answer to the question “what do you do after you’ve hit rock bottom?”). What changed within the band between those two records, and what question did you feel you needed to face this time?
(Morgan) “The Abyss In Silence” was written during a period of deep, serious personal crisis. It’s a concept album about the stages of grief, loss, and, in some way, the meaning of life itself. The songs are slower and more funereal, the atmospheres sulphurous. There’s a dark abyss inside us, and we wanted to look straight into it, no excuses. Right after releasing that record, we started writing “I Felt Nothing”, which comes from a very different starting point: “The Abyss…” looked inward, “I Felt Nothing” looks outward, at the world around us. The physiological response to trying to climb out of an inner abyss and finding that the outside world is even worse is to stop feeling anything at all — apathy. But what if that apathy is actually a consequence of a spreading darkness? What if every glimmer of light is being swallowed by a collective loss of humanity and social disconnection? Maybe then there are still emotions buried under the apathy, and every single song on this record is desperate to wake them up, flay them and make them bleed so we can feel again. “I Felt Nothing” is fierce and jagged in its rhythms, fast, because it wants to shake up this path toward a new kind of awareness. Compared to the previous record, we also brought in Mana on drums, whose playing added enormously to the brutality we wanted to express, while also bringing real value and calm to the band on a personal level.
Your music today is much harder to pigeonhole than it was in your punk-core beginnings. How important was it for you to gradually free yourselves from the idea of belonging to a specific scene or genre?
(Morgan) I think it’s the result of a very natural, not really planned process: over time we’ve explored more and more, and looked less and less for “standard” artistic solutions for a given genre. That’s led us to a kind of versatility we really like — you can find us at punk/HC festivals as much as at metal-oriented events. What will never change is that we belong to the counterculture; we’re a band that stands “against”, and one that favours a raw, physical live dimension. Your ears will hurt, and you’ll probably keep a bruise or two for a while.
Converge, Swedish-style death metal, Every Time I Die: your music brings together seemingly very different influences. When you write, do you start from a precise idea of sound, or do you let the songs themselves take you in unexpected directions?
(Morgan) It all happens naturally, without any real constraints: when we jam or write individually, if we sense an interesting passage or progression, we develop it without worrying too much about where it’ll lead, going not by genre conventions but by the mood the piece is communicating, based on our taste and therefore our influences. Frez, on the other hand, takes a more considered approach to the lyrics: the goal is a perfect harmony between the words and the atmospheres the music suggests. That’s why the lyrics go through a lot of reworking to find the best possible overlap.
One of the most interesting things about “I Felt Nothing” is the contrast between the brutal impact of the songs and the close attention to dynamics, variations and detail. How much work goes into that balance between violence and craftsmanship?
(Morgan) There are a few tracks on the record that were written in those famous “twenty minutes” — on the fly, already almost fully structured and polished. The truth is that most of them went through reworking, mainly aimed at improving flow and how they’d land live. As I mentioned, the live show is our real dimension, and compositionally we want the songs to be gripping and fluid, even when they’re intricate or have twists that aren’t exactly predictable or reassuring. We don’t want to just be “good on record” — we want to be “even better live”. That’s why we like to alternate brutal parts with big, open sections that pull people in. On top of that, there’s a lot of care (or analogue nerdiness) that goes into the sound itself, specifically to heighten the dynamics and emotional tension. For us, that’s part of the craftsmanship too.
“Monster”, featuring Ale of Rope, and “1984” show two particularly dynamic sides of the record. How did these songs come about, and how did you find working with outside musicians in the creative process?
(Morgan) Monsters grew out of a series of riffs I’d written and brought to the guys. It has an almost post-rock feel, at least in the opening part, which I thought was worth developing further. Fat and Mana picked up on the mood and fleshed it out and heavied it up just right, in no time at all. Then, during pre-production, listening back to the track, we all pictured Ale for a feature on it at the same time. We know Ale’s style really well, and his attitude fits Monsters’ riffs like a glove. All it took was one phone call and everything fell into place. “1984”, on the other hand, is an extremely violent track that Fat wrote together with Mana. I filled it out with the guitar parts. The structure is pretty convoluted and intricate, but live it’s an absolute wrecking ball, just the way we like it. Our writing process is very democratic — everyone contributes. That approach lets us bring in more facets. The features serve the same purpose, adding further shades: no part was written specifically for the guests, everyone wrote their own part independently. Giulia Mare, Paolo Papero of Tons, Ale Santa of Infall and Ale of Rope are people we share stages with, close friends and brilliant artists. There’s no better way to celebrate them than having a piece of them pressed onto vinyl.
The title “I Felt Nothing” suggests a condition almost opposite to the emotional violence of the music. Is “feeling nothing at all” really the central theme of the record, or does the title hide a different meaning?
(Morgan) Feeling nothing, in this particular moment in history, is the new normal. The system makes us apathetic, overloaded with stimuli we can no longer manage, hyper-connected and terribly alone, stripped of empathy, dark. Is there a way out of this stasis?
Every listen to the record reveals new nuances. What detail of “I Felt Nothing” do you think is most likely to slip past listeners on a first spin?
(Morgan) The precision hiding underneath the chaos: the massive sound (Dano Battocchio and Will Putney are a guarantee), the vocal aggression, and even the song sequencing, might all disguise, on a first listen, the structures and micro-passages that form the backbone of our songwriting. Small tempo changes, carefully thought-out dissonant bridges, that keep the songs from collapsing into pure chaos. But that’s fine, really: if you pick up on the details bit by bit, after a few deep listens, the chances of the record sticking around on your playlist for longer grow exponentially.
How did the collaboration with Shove Records come about?
(Morgan) When we decided we’d handle the record’s distribution ourselves rather than through one big label exclusively, Shove immediately went on the list of names we wanted to work with. We’ve always respected Shove’s work — a lot of the bands we listen to have the Shove logo printed on the back cover, and it embodies the DIY ethos in its purest form. We clicked with them right away. We’re really happy with this collaboration but, honestly, with all the deals we’ve closed. Every label working with us is run by sharp, serious people who genuinely love the scene — Poison Hearts, Oltraggio Produzioni, Masseria Autogestita, Flames Don’t Judge, Vollmer Industries and Tifone Crew.
If your “second artistic life” has brought you to this record, what do you imagine comes after “I Felt Nothing”? Have you already started thinking about the next step for If I Die Today?
(Morgan) We released the record in June, and the response we got from people was really remarkable. That reception has reignited our creative drive — basically, we’re already writing new material for the next record! At the same time, our sonic exploration has kept moving forward, and we’ve swapped out or added new elements compared to what’s on this record, so the next one is going to hit even harder. Come autumn, we’ll be playing a lot of live shows (including at home, in Turin), so you’ll get the chance to put us to the test on stage. We can’t wait!
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