Keep up with Davide here:
www.myspace.com/septycalgorge
www.myspace.com/brutal dave
www.myspace.com/putridity
SDM: Did it take you long to reach speeds of 260 bpm?
Davide: I started playing Death Metal with serious life goals when I was 15, joining the band “Halphas”. My aim was focusing on drumming at my best, using metronome, reaching with precision speeds of 180/190 BPM… while I didn’t have the right gear to do that! After a year and a half, I started improving. Following the example of my first inspirations/influences: Derek Roddy & Pete Sandoval. I bought Axis single pedals A Longboard, and a constant training schedule helped me to gain more speed (230/240 BPM). By the way, only when I started being part of Putridity, I aimed to something faster and more extreme (260/280 BPM). After all, I could say 3-4 years of hard work passed, before arriving to my goals.
SDM: How did you train yourself to play at such intense speeds?
Davide: Every moment I would have a little time, I would play, always using triggers and almost always a metronome. Sometimes technical exercises aren’t that necessary. I often play other bands songs, and they’re not necessarily extreme bands.
SDM: What advice can you give brutal death metal drummers out there who want to reach their maximum speeds?
Davide: Just one piece of advice; Don’t get depressed if you are not as fast as your favourite drummers! Don’t surrender! Extreme drumming is based on constant training, exactly like a serious athlete should do to improve in his own sport. Only training, consistency and passion will help you do this. So… a metronome and a lot of effort!
SDM: What sort of technique do you use for your gravity blasts and double bass playing?
Davide: To arrive to slower speeds, I move my legs, fixing the base of my feet on the pedals. That way, the control of the movement is perfect. If I want to do something more extreme, my legs are almost firm. I focus everything on the ankle motion. Only for speeds like 270/280 BPM, will I use the swivel technique. For gravity blasts, generally I use my right hand to roll on the snare and my left hand on cymbals. Rarely are the positions inverted or reversed.
SDM: How important is drum triggering to your playing live and in the studio?
Davide: I think drum triggering is really important for this kind of music. There’s no problem tuning the bass drums, and it values the impact and the violence of the whole drumset. Of course, the song gains more with it. Today, almost every extreme band (not only death metal bands) is used to having drum triggering live and in studio.
Personally, I prefer natural sounds for toms and snare, so only the double bass is triggered. During the recording sessions, a triggered double bass is really comfortable, because you can easily edit and mix it. Drum triggering helps you to have exactly the sound you want, both for recording and for live concerts. Another important thing about training… Triggering makes possible hearing every single beat, so, when I’m training, I can feel if I’m making some kind of mistake!
SDM: Between Putridity & Septycal Gorge which is your main band?
Davide: In these last months I’m playing a lot with Septycal Gorge. The new cd “Erase The Insignificant” is out now, and we’ve got to promote it. I would have to say my main band is Putridity. At the moment, Putridity are recording the new full length album “Degenerating Anthropophagical Euphoria” (drum sessions done!) and looking for a new label to publish it.
SDM: How come you are no longer in “CorpsefuckingArt”?
Davide: Thank you man! I was needing a question like this, because I’ve something to say about that. The truth is I’ve never played with CorpsefuckingArt! Andrea Cipolla (guitarist/founding member of the band) asked me to be part of his band, but I had to refuse because of distance and professional priorities. I told him I could be a session drummer to record the new album. Andrea accepted these conditions and published some official news about my presence in the CFA line up. In the end, their new album was recorded by Raphael Saini. I don’t know why my name often appears with the monicker of CFA.
SDM: What kind of music motivates you as a Brutal death metal drummer?
Davide: Of course brutal death metal! The bands giving me more emotions and motivating me to make some noise on my drumset play this kind of music: Decrepit Birth, Nile, Malignancy (“Cross Species Transmutation” rules!), Origin, Dying Fetus, Defeated Sanity, Suffocation, Necrophagist, Beneath The Massacre, Gorgasm, Severed Savior, Disavowed, Cephalic Carnage, Decapitated, Disgorge, Internal Suffering, Despised Icon and Hate Eternal. These are great bands! Their albums are really well composed and studied, and the drummers fucking rule!
SDM: What is the Italian Death metal scene like? Are there many bands, or much competition on being the fastest?
Davide: Italy doesn’t have a good tradition about death metal music. Most of the music has always been of a really low quality, but, there were some exceptions. Particularly recently, there are new great bands with high musical standards, such as Hour Of Penance, Blasphemer, Vomit The Soul, Tools Of Torture and Exhumer. In Italy the number of the death metal bands is increasing (and, of course, there are many useless bands!), but I don’t think there’s any kind of competition.
SDM: Who are some of the bands you have opened for?
Davide: Because of my collaboration with Putridity and Septycal Gorge, I’ve performed with bands like: Malignancy, Devourment, Condemned, Cephalotripsy, Prophecy, Rottenness, Infernal Revulsion, Disconformity, Beheaded, Inveracity, Insidious Decrepancy, Cephalic Carnage, Misery Index, Dead Congregation, Defeated Sanity, Carnivore Diprosopus, Despised Icon, Kataplexia, Rompeprop, Hate Eternal, Psycroptic, Beneath The Massacre, Sarcolytic, Human Mincer and Unmerciful… just to name the more important ones!
Really soon I’ll share the stage at Neurotic DeathFest with Aborted, Abysmal Torment, Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Dawn Of Azazel, Dew Scented, Dying Fetus, Immolation, Insision, Lock Up, Napalm Death, Origin, Putrid Pile, Rotten Sound, Six Feet Under and Enemy Reign.
SDM: Is there a lot of hype about the new Septycal Gorge album “Erase The Insignificant” released on Permeated Records? What bands or drummers influenced your playing on this album?
Davide: Well, I’m hoping for it! It’s more than a month the cd’s been out and we have had a lot of props from the fans, and we’re selling so much, particularly merchandise. We’re trying to promote our music at our best and the results are arriving.
I don’t think there are some peculiar influences on that album. When I listen to it, my first thoughts are about Suffocation, Inveracity and Deeds Of Flesh, but I’m not a “copycat” of those bands, lol!
SDM: Are you very specific in the way you wanted the drums recorded? Was there a certain thing in particular that you wanted a lot of in the mix? How did you decide on what sort of snare to use?
Davide: When I have to mix the drums, my attetion is mainly focused on snare and double bass sounds, because they’re the most important parts in the kit. I try to be careful about everything, but I’m really punctilious about volumes and sounds of every single part.
My snare is always the same; a 6.5×14 Mapex Black Panther. I bought it in 2005 and after trying it, I was really enthusiastic about its sound, as its so different from the other snares I’ve tried in my life. I’m still using it live and in the studio today, tuning it in different ways, if I’ve to play with Putridity or Septycal Gorge.
SDM: On Putridity "Mental Prolapse Induces Necrophilism”, how long did you have to record the drums?
Davide: I recorded that album in 2006 and I was 19 years old. Those were my first professional recording sessions. I recorded it at my home studio, so I was feeling really calm and relaxed and I could do it again and again, every single part, to arrive at the result I wanted. If I remember well, I recorded everything in 5 afternoons. In that period of my life I had a part-time job, so my afternoons and the most of the evenings could be dedicated to my music and my hobbies.
When I recorded the new Septycal Gorge full length, I spent 2 days and 3 evenings after work. I was always relaxed and calm about it, because I recorded everything in my home studio.
SDM: What made you get Jon Zig to do the artwork for your last album? Do you think artwork plays an important role in selling a death metal album?
Davide: Permeated Records was used to working with Jon Zig, and when Putridity needed cover artwork for the first album, they told us about him. We knew his talent and we had our own ideas about the cover, thinking that with his personal touch, the result should be sicker and cooler. We’re really happy about that!
I think cover artwork is really important, because its the first thing you see when you buy a new record. The goal is communicating graphically what the band proposes. I hate seeing cover artwork that has nothing to do with title, lyrics and style of an album. In my opinion, an amazing cd with a bad artwork has less quality. The band has to follow every single detail, from the title to the running order of the songs, from the cover to the lay out!
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