Present yourself to the readers
Hello to all RockYourBrain followers! This is Ivories from Milan, Italy. The group was born in late 2010. It is actually a sort of ‘reunion’ band, composed by Danilo Carnevale and Patrizia Tranchina, members of ‘Jeunesse d’Ivoire’, a legendary Italian wave band active in the early and mid-Eighties. A project stretched in time, from the post-punk of the early eighties to the post-everything of today. A band that lived and played the modern soundtrack of that crucial period. Now, with a renewed line-up, and a new bass player, Lele Bassi. Ivories have been touring extensively ever since throughout Italy, and in 2013 released their first EP, "In Between" and in January 2017 "Light Years", their first full length CD, which is already receiving rave reviews.
Who composes ?...How does it work in the band ?
The songs always come from an emotional state which is mainly expressed through a chords’ sequence or a guitar riff. It’s very important we all get some sort of emotional response from the start. Only occasionally we lay down a sequencer and drums part to fire our imagination. When we have a general atmosphere Patrizia starts singing phrases from a scrapbook each of us brings at rehearsals. Then we work at the melody trying to make the most out of rhythm and harmony. But the whole bulk of work comes from shaping the structure, the arrangements and dynamics of the song.
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
We all write the lyrics individually. They often come at night, probably while our mind is halfway through unconsciousness. Words just start to gather starting from a simple sentence, an observation, or an intuition. Danilo often finds there is always a meaning which sometimes is half hidden even to himself and implies different levels of interpretations. This is one of the reasons why we don’t really like to explain our lyrics. Another reason is that we find the best art has to leave space to the listener/viewer/reader etc., to imagine their own meaning. At least 50% of a work is made by the audience. Does that mean we should grant them some credit ? J Our favourite subjects are often thoughts about existence both universally, as human beings on this planet, and the surprisingly misterious way we react to each other and to ourselves. How we often hurt each other, we build walls and scars (AS BLIND AS WE ARE NOW), how violence on a vast scale and war can blur the line between wrong and right, questioning the reptilian nature of power (DRESDEN) how we live in the past because we are not aware that really what we fear is the present (SHIVER INTO EXISTENCE), hence we are always somewhere else. We are on the web, inside our smartphones, PCs and TVs, often chatting about trivia with somebody we usually don’t know that well. How we like to stay in our little comfort zone. How we don’t take our responsibilities and act as if there were no consequences (CLOCK BACKWARDS) etc. Patrizia often has inspiration through lucid dreams, explaining the oniric traits her lyrics bear (NOVEMBERINE, SWANBLACK).
Why the name IVORIES ?
The original group where Patrizia and Danilo used to play in the 80s was called Jeunesse d’Ivoire. In 2010 we were asked to play a gig for the release of our old material on CD by the label Spittle Records. Our original bass player was not interested so we played with a new one, Francesco Sindaco, and adopted a new name, Ivories. During rehearsals we wrote new songs and we discovered we had a million things to say musically speaking, hence the first new song A MILLION THINGS ARE HUNG TO THE SKY.
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
This is huge. We are quite eclectic and we have gone through many decades :-) For instance, Danilo as a teenager used to be influenced by krautrock and progressive before punk and post-punk started and ignited a whole new inspiration. Patrizia started with punk, post-punk and new wave. And these were their common main influences with Jeunesse d’Ivoire. The thing is we all lived what was new at the moment. And we still like to look forward rather than dwell on an idealistic past. To summarize, we like music that is seemingly simple and almost primitive, from the Velvet Underground to Joy Division or most post-punk groups from the early ‘80s, but really hides a lot more than it apperas on first listen. And there always has to be a strong mood or atmosphere in the music we play or listen to.
Generally, what's the reaction of the public during your concerts ?
We always get a strong and positive feedback from the audience. Our gigs are quite intense and we always feel the energy we pour into our music coming back on the stage. It is really a cathartic experience for us, most of the times there is something strange happening. It’s hard to explain but we often feel like riding on a wave or in the middle of a storm, some of our songs are little psycho-dramas in real time, so there is often some sense of risk implied.
What's your best live memory ? And why ?
A few years ago we played at FOA (Monza, near Milan), a social centre, as a support to an English punk band from the ‘80s, the Mob. The audience was therefore a little more inclined to raw power, basic punk. Despite that, we received a rave response from the listeners, as we were able to win on new grounds and still enjoyed the performance. It was a topic moment where we realised we could play our music even to a more “physically demanding” audience, and that we had a natural inclination to strong performances.
