New Band Q&A: ME7ROPOLIS
Italian Pop-punk Rising Stars
Founded in 2012, Italian pop-punk band ME7ROPOLIS are up and coming on the scene with their debut EP Turn Off The Lights. For fans of Alkaline Trio, Sum 41, and blink-182, they’re gaining popularity with EP single ‘Wrong or Paranoid’. Bassist Matteo Desantis details the working process, band life, and what it’s like promoting themselves in different languages for fans in multiple countries.
Is there a cohesive idea that flows throughout the EP or is each song its own entity?
Turn Off The Lights is our first official work. We’ve selected what we thought to be our best songs so far and it contains five tunes in total. We didn’t think of it as a cohesive album, but three out of five songs are pretty well related to one another and our upcoming music videos will show that relationship.
What was the biggest obstacle you faced when creating the EP?
The biggest obstacle was trying to create a unique sound, which nowadays is a pretty hard task. We know that we’re still evolving our own style, but we had to focus on getting a definite sound out of the EP. We’re trying to get rid of the ‘classic’ pop-punk sound, and focus on getting a personal style, being particularly careful of the song’s arrangements and our own individual sounds.
Now that you have promoted and made a music video for ‘Wrong or Paranoid’, what has the response been like?
We’re pretty happy with the promotion of our first single. We didn’t have a huge budget but we gained some new fans anyway. On the other hand, we might consider applying a different strategy to our next single’s video in order to achieve even better results.
What/Who are your influences and where does the inspiration for your songs come from?
We have some slightly different musical tastes and overall backgrounds from one another. We should say we used to listen to loads of 90s/early 2000s American pop-punk and punk rock, but we think we might have gotten some influences from grunge, as well as progressive and pop music. Just to name a few [influences, we’d say] Green Day, blink-182, and Sum 41, but also Porcupine Tree and Biffy Clyro. The inspiration of our songs usually comes from our own everyday life experiences, and we like to write most of our songs all four of us together.
Do you write songs in both Italian and English? Is it more difficult to do both?
Yes, we do write both in Italian and English, and we’re concentrating more on the English versions of the lyrics right now. It’s tough but we think it can really help us creating a wider fanbase.
You’ve been playing several international gigs - how did that come about?
We’ve had the chance to play in the USA and in the UK, and these gigs we performed abroad have been truly challenging opportunities. We had to get outside our comfort zone, but we’re overall satisfied because we have grown up a lot and we also got a positive feedback – especially in the USA.
Describe your band life - How much time do you guys spend together?
We used to spend a lot of time together, both as bandmates and as friends, but now that we all finished high school and started college away from home it’s a bit harder to find the time that our project needs to move on. We’re all confident that we’ll get a solution soon. We used to be like brothers, and we still are.
What’s next for ME7ROPOLIS? Any new singles, a tour or a record perhaps?
We don’t have a very definite plan for what’s going to come out next. We are writing some new songs for a possible future EP or an album, but setting up a tour after we finish releasing Turn Off The Lights would be awesome. Anyway, two new videos are going to be published, so stay tuned!
Why is making music important to you?
Music is everything to us. It’s the reason we live for, is the best way we can express ourselves and also what we think to be the most beautiful, universal and complete way to make art. We’ve grown up making music together and we hope it could always be.
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