Difficult times bring difficult, questioning minds. The exciting thing about Scarlets is the narrative that surrounds them and their projects, they are the conductors of their own vitalic scene. Anti-dumb age, anti-apathetic, antithesis. Pick up a book. Take responsibility. Find your essence. Grow a voice. Orchestrate an ideology. Get a gang. They’re everything youth today should be, and everything you want in a band. They’re ready to use their voice overseas. This is the time.
Paolo, guitar; Stefano, vocals, lyrics and keys; Alberto, guitar; Ivan, bass; Simone bangs the drums.
Dean Mayo Davies: What I think is exciting about Scarlets is that you’re creating a culture around you. You really understand that the mood, the message is as important as the music...
Stefano: Our attempt is to create a piece of music that can evoke the message contained in the words. We’re all fascinated by some themes and historical eras (like occupied Europe in WWII and Colonialism) and we progressively built ourselves an identity around it. It’s now something deeply-rooted in the band, we don’t really think about it anymore, it’s just a constant inspiration.
DMD: Lyrically, I think you have a preoccupation with heroes. Would you agree? I think this is so relevant an idea at the moment...
S: I think my preoccupation is more with the “heroic” than with “heroes”. I often find myself giving heroic tension to what happens in my life and it necessarily comes to the surface in my lyrics.
DMD: Who are your heroes?
S: The only hero that comes to my mind right now is Tom Courtenay in the last scene of Tony Richardson’s movie ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’ when he glances at the chancellor of the reformatory. However, it is quite a misleading word if used in his traditional meaning and I always try not to use it in every day life; I immediately think about national heroes and stuff in which I don’t really believe. What really fascinates me is the ‘heroic’ way in which things can be done. I also think we developed our own heroic method to write music.
DMD: What were you like growing up? Angry? Passionate? Did you always want to be in a band?
S: Angry. And still we are. We wrote many songs about our anger, like a song called ‘Our Country’. And yes we always wanted to be in a band, but we are potential architects, businessmen and Russian literature professors. Anyway… who needs them?
DMD: How would you describe Scarlets’ music? Or would you prefer not to?
S: Our music is the blending of different intents. First of all: close and dry drums (I’m quite obsessed with drums, I think it’s one of the most important things in a band). We usually add solemn melodies and meaningful lyrics, even if my hidden dream is a record of drums patterns only.
DMD: Can we talk about some of the new demos and what can we expect from the upcoming single later this year? You worked with Martin Dubka of Cazals and Kitsuné...
S: Yes, we recorded two new tracks with Martin Dubka (he plays bass in Cazals and he also produced their debut album). They will be released as a double A-side single in Autumn. Martin’s touch on the new songs was quite impressive; he emphasised some aspects and lightened others. He really understood our lyrics and he ended up believing in them too, I think that’s why he succeed in creating the right atmospheres in the new songs. We’re quite excited about the result, but we keep writing new stuff.
DMD: Are you interested in atmospherics? The more experimental, instrumental pieces like Trümmerfrauen and Deutschland Deutschland showcase this sparser, more Neue Deutsche Welle edge to your sound...
S: Yes, we recently put some more experimental stuff close to our more traditional songs. We all feel very comfortable with instrumental songs and they seem to go arm in arm with our fascination for Europe in the Second World War. We’re trying to create a sense of casualty without using words; we always need new impulses to keep our creative tension high.
DMD: How did you meet the rest of the band? Did you all grow up in Torino together?
S: We all grew up in Torino. I met both guitarists (Paolo and Alberto) at school. Drummer Simone was a friend of Paolo and bass player Ivan joined us last year, when we actually started writing in a proper Scarlets’ style. We don’t actually go out all together for a drink very often, ‘cos every time we find ourselves talking about the band and it can be very annoying if you just wished to have a laugh and a couple of beers.
DMD: Going back to the idea of this culture, you also put on a club called Young Europeans with a blog of the same name...
S: Young Europeans is a club night I run with my friends Luca, Laura and Ivan (who plays bass in Scarlets). It’s kind of a new thing in our town; the music we spin usually comes from the 80’s and we built ourselves a strong identity around the graphics we make for the events. Every week we publish new posts on our blog about cult bands with free downloads and biographies. Our approach to Young Europeans is deep and wide, we take care of every little aspect. We usually take inspiration from literature or history to make our flyers. For example in the last flyer we made, we wrote “Young Europeans, a warm up disco night of Polish novelists, Coppola’s dreams and Russian roulettes” which refers to polish novelist Joseph Conrad whose novel ‘Heart of Darkness’ inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s movie ‘Apocalypse Now’, which is the theme of The Lords of the New Church’s song ‘Russian Roulettes’.
DMD: What’s been the best gig so far? And have you had any surreal experiences?
S: Supporting Cazals when I was just 16 years old wasn’t too bad actually. But I remember having even more fun at our London gigs at 333 and the Macbeth. Honestly, our best gig ever was the last one. I recently started playing keyboards on stage and it keeps me busy even when I’m not singing, which it’s great because I don’t have to stand there and look at people’s faces in a threatening manner all the time.
DMD: What does the name Scarlets stand for?
S: Scarlet is an adjective very often used in late Victorian literature; it just sounded good to us every time we read it on a book. I also think it’s better to have an evocative name rather than a very meaningful one. It has to sound like a gang name, then you can add meaning to what you’re doing with lyrics and music.
DMD: Who or what are your biggest influences?
S: We all come from different backgrounds, but probably ‘Script of the Bridge’ by The Chameleons, 'After the Snow' by Modern English and ‘Vienna’ by Ultravox have been the most influential records. They both shown us how everything must start from a good melody around which you can start experimenting with the sounds, the key and the rhythm. In this sense we can define ourselves a ‘pop’ band. We do create atmospheres, but we will never make noise just because it sounds ‘grand’.
DMD: And there’s an idea of style subculture too...
S: I grew up with the myth of Mods; there was a time when I could only listen to Trojan Boxsets, 2-Tone singles and mod-revival bands (I still adore them all). Gavin Watson’s photography was a revelation to me, at the same point in which Quadrophenia was the biggest style lesson in my life. I think fashion is an easy way to be heroic in a domestic dimension (and this is my idea of ‘hero’ nowadays). We do not need war or national heroes, but we do need to build our own heroism, expressing our feelings through fashion, music or whatever. This heroism doesn’t need any kind of celebration or glorification from the others, it’s such an intimate issue. Sometimes I feel some designers want to catch the same feeling of solemnity and intimate heroism we express in our songs. The last Martyn Bal S/S collection really portrays this sentiment.
DMD: And what’s next?
S: Apart from the new single coming out in September, we’re really excited to play a festival with S.C.U.M. and Lion Club in Italy. There are some movements in the band right now, but we can’t anticipate anything.
DMD
Scarlets support S.C.U.M. and Lion Club in Carpi, Italy on June 28th and will play as part of Shoreditch 1,2,3,4 on 26th July. The band will release a double A-side single later this year.