PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Voodoo Highway’s second album, Showdown, is out this month and we sat down with bassist Filippo Cavallini to get a little bit more info from them on just what makes them tick.
Hi guys and thanks for taking the time to chat to us today. Before anything else, for those readers of the site who maybe haven’t heard of you can you give us a bit of background about yourselves?
How would you describe the band? Where are you from? How long have you been together?
Hello guys! Our pleasure and thanks to you for the chance to have a little chat! Well… let’s start… I’m Filippo Cavallini, bass player for the band. Voodoo Highway was born about three years ago, in the flatlands of the north-east of Italy, from the medieval town of Ferrara! How would I describe us? Well.. I can just tell you we are a very nice bunch of boys with the main intention to play hard rock n’ roll and have fun doing our things… ok, if you give us a jet and some money we would do it easily, not better, just easily!
Showdown is your second studio album. Did you approach the writing and recording of this album any differently?
Yes, quite differently… The majority of the work comes from the (weird) mind of the guitarist Matteo Bizzarri and myself; he writes the music and I write vocals and lyrics, but there are also some different acts on this album (like the ballad Wastin’ Miles for example) that came from Alessandro Duò (Keyboard) and myself on vocals and lyrics. We have wrote the most in our rehearsal room between July 2011 and February 2012, then in March we entered in studios with producers Eddy Cavazza and Giuseppe Bassi (Dysfunction Productions) and worked with them on the production of the songs. They are really cool producer (they’ve worked with John Wetton, Anthony Phillips and Logan Mader as well…) and helped us out in optimizing the songs. The audio quality is superb as you may have noticed, also thanks to the Sterling Sound Studios mastering by Ue Nastasi. This time we have decided to do our best to have the best quality on our music, and we love what we did actually!
Can you give us a brief description of what each track is about?
1. This Is Rock ‘n’ Roll, Wankers
it’s about rocking with no remorse!!
2. Fly To The Rising Sun
everybody’s got an inner place where he can find again himself in times of trouble.
3. Midnight Hour
actually a blowjob and the related stains…
4. Could You Love Me
some trouble with women of our singer.. you know.. suffering etc…
5. Wastin’ Miles
about an ex-girlfriend of mine whom used to live far from me… as you can guess there is no happy ending.
6. Church of Clay
religious fanaticism in the countries when we were young, old popular lores…
7. Mountain High
it’s about Erich Von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods”. We believe him.
8. Cold With Love
about an old ex-girlfriend of mine addiction to cocaine.
9. A Spark From The Secret Fire
times of trouble, with some cross-reference to Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”.
10. Prince Of Moonlight
as usual about an ex-girlfriend of mine and our troubles…
11. Till It Bleeds (Bonus)
another blowjob, this time by a very chubby woman (ask the drummer)
12. Broken Uncle’s Inn (Bonus)
it’s about a super-cool friend of us that we used to call “Zio Rotto” (Broken Uncle, circa)
Who did you work with on the production and creation of the album and cover work?
As I told you above my friend, we’ve worked with Dysfunction Productions, maybe one of the top series production team in whole Europe. They are just amazing, full of ideas, professionalism and great and funny guys as well! Highly recommended!
On the cover artwork we had the chance to work with Storm Thorgerson, to us the true and only God of graphics.
So sorry to know he has passed away few days ago, our thoughts go to his family and collaborators at Storm Studios, awesome people and professionals.
What do you make of being hailed as the “new Deep Purple”. Do you feel any pressure to deliver because of this?
Actually we are grateful for this quote from the most of the press and Craig Gruber, whom is an idol to us, but we believe Deep Purple are Deep Purple and Voodoo Highway are Voodoo Highway. Sure, we are very influenced by them (who is not been after “In Rock”?), but we are not comparable to them. They are history, we are just all young lads with great passion and our road ahead, quite different uh?
What do you feel has been the biggest reason for your success so far?
Humility. We don’t feel like we are rock stars, we don’t need to evade someone if someone asks us a photo or just some natter! We are friend of the people that like the band, as we are fan of other bands as well. We just want to play true music for the World and make people happy, we don’t need an agent for the toilet paper, another agent for our instruments and another one for our autographs… we just want to play and have fun, seriously.
Do you prefer being in the studio or going out on the road?
Personally I LOVE to work in the studio, composing, writing lyrics and living that particular kind of life but you can’t even avoid to play on the road, as it’s one of the funniest things on Earth! Italy is not the best scenario for live music, but fortunately now we are moving abroad, and we are sure the audience and the venues will give us warmth!
In-between recording and playing live, what do you guys do to kick back and relax?
Relax? Oh impossible my friend… when we are not at work for music we are at work to eat! Ahahah!
Btw everyone here has some different passions… the drummer use to party hard anytime he’s able to, the guitar player loves to create electronic gizmos, the singer lounges about around, keyboardist goes to strange parties and I ride my racing bike soooo far way from home!
What are the plans for the rest of this year?
Now we are going to have some cool concerts around Europe, the first confirmed one is in Belgium at R-Mine Metal Fest. The guys at R-Mine are great and they organize one of the top festivals in Europe.. some cool acts like Rhapsody, Jorn Lande, SymphonyX, Secret Sphere Hell and Freak Kitchen will be there… so if you have the chance…
Then we have some planning for some other Summer Festivals, both in Italy and abroad and some European touring next fall… let’s see! I’d also love to start composing a new album…
Are there any messages that you would like to pass on to our readers?
Guys, always be genuine, never trust morons and live the life at its top.. hopefully listening Led Zeppelin! Cheers!!!
