White Skull
Mad For Crazy

24.10.2014

“When we meet in Moscow you’ll understand why they call me Mad”. That’s what Tony Fonto, guitarist and founder of White Skull, promised during our phone conversation. In fact, all Moscow headbangers will have a chance to verify that as the Italians are about to play their first and (for now) only show in Russia on October 27. Considering how much Moscow fans love power metal, it may look really strange that one of the biggest Italian power metal bands hasn’t set foot on the Russian ground for such a long time. Maybe the problem is it’s really power metal in its classic form what White Skull plays. The guys have enriched their music with a bit of speed metal and a strain of thrash and prefer to write that type of complicated lyrics classical heavy metal is usually famous for. Even more than that, they invited a female vocalist, whose voice is… Well, you can still give it a try if you haven’t yet. Just make sure you complete reading this interview!

Hi, Tony, how is it going? You’ve been quite busy recently.

Ah, yeah. We are very busy at the moment because we’re preparing everything for coming to your country.

Great! We are very much looking forward to see you in Moscow. And what about your new album? You have started working on it, haven’t you?

Yes, the new album. We started to write new songs about one year ago. Now we are preparing a promo version of the album because we hope to get some good deal for it. It is almost ready but we wanna add some things to get the best possible result. It is the tenth album in our career, so it’s very important for us.

Do you have a name for the album already?

No, we don’t have the title yet, but we have the story.

Tell it to me, please.

The album is divided in two parts. One of them is about Vikings, while the other one tells about famous women in history. Like Joan of Arc or Boudicca, another severe woman who was really proud and is known as a heros. We are preparing the last songs and we are thinking about a woman coming from Russia. (laughs)

Really? Who is she?

Really, but it will be a surprise for you. Maybe we’ll talk about her when we come to Russia. We are deciding between two women. One of those we wanna speak about was burned like Joan of Arc, and the other one was a witch of the air. You know, a pilot of the Second World War. So there are two different stories, but we are looking for only one. As soon as we decide which is more interesting for us musically, we’ll do the lyrics.

Well, you can do both…

(laughs) Yes, but we wanna embrace the entire world.

A great idea! Though as far as I remember, you already have an album about Vikings.

Yeah. Our third album, “Tales from the North” (1999), was about Vikings and the Nibelung saga. The story is about Siegfried, Brunhild, Gudrun and so on. But we wanna do a little bit more stories about Vikings because it will be connected to “Tales from the North”, which has been our favorite album until now. And at the same time it will be connected to the other part of the new album because we will speak about women of the Vikings.

That’s really interesting.

Yeah. It was Federica (De Boni Lanier, vocals) who chose the ideas for the lyrics. She spoke to me and we were like, “OK, we have to do ten songs and we have to think of something special for the next album. And since we are a female-fronted band we can speak about women who were heroes around the world”. And maybe in some cases they were forgotten so we wanted to revive those women.
 
So, that was Federica’s idea, right?

Yeah. For me, it’s cool. We liked it. You know, every time we spoke about warriors we spoke about men. When you look at the battles worldwide, or the kings, or anything… Always a lot of these people are men. Sometimes women were just forgotten. Now we wanna bring them back.

I was always wondering how you choose topics for your albums, the main concepts…

Usually it’s Federica who chooses topic for the lyrics. We discuss if we wanna speak about historical themes or more current ones. On “Under This Flag” (2012) we spoke about all the wars in the world, there were all types of stories from the ancient times till today. But we really like to have only one theme on an album, it’s easier to have good scenic design when playing live. Like, for example, Iron Maiden did with their albums “Number of the Beast”, “Powerslave”, “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”…  They kept one stage design and one theme for the albums. But usually it’s Federica who decides. She tells me, Hey, I wanna speak about this or that. What do you think?” We discuss a lot, we want all the band to be happy about the new album. But, for example, Alex (Mantiero) is a drummer and he’s interested only in the rhythmic aspect! When he is really happy, he says, “OK, I like this kind of rhythm, it fits my drumming style”. As for the lyrics I prefer Federica to choose.

Who writes the lyrics for the songs?

Usually I help Federica about the lyrics. OK, Federica writes all the lyrics, and I help her with the ideas. For example there is one song on the new album where I gave the idea to Federica, “I wanna speak about this theme ‘cause I like it”. And she said, “OK, of course”. We started discussing and blah-blah-blah… And on the last album, there is also one song… We were talking one night and I said, “Why don’t we do a song about the angel of death?” And Federica said, “Yeah, it’s a cool idea”. We are really connected, really close.

Do you need a lot of time to study whatever you are writing songs about?

Yeah, that’s the main part of Federica’s work and I’m also involved. When she discovers something she shows me pages from the Internet and says, “Hey, Tony, this is really interesting, read the story and tell me if you like it or not”. This Russian woman pilot was my idea. I was looking for one more story and the first one I caught from Russia was these female pilots, the “witches”. You know what I mean, right?

Yes, the “night witches”.

Right. And we thought, “OK, this is a good story, but there is another good story about another heroine who lived in Russia in the 17th century…” We do study a lot. It’s easier to speak about the normal life of the band, that we want to have a drink… (laughs) Drugs, sex and rock’n’roll (laughs) It’s a normal way for many bands, but we prefer to be a little bit different. When people listen to a White Skull album, they say, “Hey, there is a piece of history in this album”. For example one teacher from England wrote me once, “Hey, I’m teaching history of the Roman Empire with the help of your “Public Glory, Secret Agony” (2000) album”. I was really happy to read that.

That’s cool! By the way, you have already mentioned Iron Maiden and actually I was going to ask you if they have something to do with your passion for history. I know it’s your favorite band and they also have many songs dedicated to history…

Oh, no, no. We didn’t want to follow Iron Maiden. OK, it’s been my favorite band since my childhood and it’s also the favorite band of some other members of the band. That’s true. But we don’t think about them, about their lyrics. It’s completely different. Federica just likes to write in a complicated way.

I know you changed the singer several times, even from female to male voice and back. Did you have to change the songs every time, to adjust them to the new singer?

Well, after Federica left we decided to bring a male voice to the band. Gus (Gustavo Gabarro, - ed.) was a good singer, he came to the band and started to sing these Federica’s songs. Then we wrote some songs with Gus. When Gus left the band because of personal problems we decided to turn back to a female voice because all the people said, “You’ve been born with a female voice, so turn back to it. We want White Skull with a female voice”. We said, “Ok, we agree with you”. Before Federica came back there was Elisa (de Palma) with us. She came to the band and started to sing both Federica’s songs and Gus’s songs. When Federica finally came back she sang some Gus’s songs and some Elisa’s songs. We didn’t change the way the songs sounded, but only the tuning, because Federica usually works in E sharp, and Gus prefers D. So it’s only about the tuning of the guitars and it was not difficult, it doesn’t really matter. All in all Gus and Federica have similar singing styles. For example in the song “The Dark Age”, which we will play in Moscow, by the way, you’ll see Federica singing Gus’s song, and her interpretation is very much alike Gus’s one. Federica has a lot of respect for the work of Gus. She likes him and always says that Gus was doing a good job back then.

OK, and why did you decide to continue without a keyboard player?

Because it was an experiment for the band to have a keyboard player, first of all. We used keyboards for all the albums except for the first two. “Tales from the North”, “Public Glory,..”, “The Dark Age” (2002) - we used keyboards for all these albums, but every time the keyboard player was like a special guest. When Elisa came she started running different politics within the band. She said that she needed keyboards for her voice. And I agreed for this experiment to have six people in the band instead of five. So we invited a keyboard player as a full-time musician and not as a special guest. But by the time our work with Elisa was over, Alessio (Lucatti), our keyboard player, had already left the band. It was because Elisa and Alessio were together, they were partners. But in April of 2010 they split and Alessio left the band at the same time in a really friendly way. He didn’t want to see Elisa any more. During the summer of 2010 Elisa left the band, too, because she had a lot of… problems. When Federica came back to the band and we recorded “Under This Flag” Alessio called me and asked if we needed a keyboard player as a special guest. Sure, I said yes and Alessio played all the keyboards that you can hear on the album. We spoke with Alessio five days ago by phone. We are working on the new album and Alessio asked if we need keyboards again. He said, “Tony, if you need something, I’m here”. I thanked him, so we are really friends. But we don’t want to have a keyboard player as a member of the band anymore. I think, five people are enough. (laughs)

Ok, thanks for such a detailed answer. Also you seem to have really strong connections with some German bands. Grave Digger for example. How did you get to know them?

Well, it all started in 1998 when I met Chris Boltendahl (Grave Digger vocalist) for the first time…

Wait, how did you meet him?

We met at “Gods of Metal” in Italy. Chris was doing a meet&greet with the fans. I came to him and said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Tony, I play in White Skull, an Italian band, and this is my album. When you get home maybe you’ll have time to listen to it, and if you like it write me”. /Laughs/ Chris arrived home, listened to the album and wrote, “Hey, you’re a good band. When you are doing next album I wanna take part in it, to do one song as a special guest”. From that moment our friendship with Chris and all Grave Digger was growing. Chris was our manager for five years, until he stopped working in management and we split in a friendly way. I’m still in contact with him, we’ll play together in Italy on December 6. Also last week I went to see Edguy, Unisonic and Starchild near my house in Bergamo and Jens Becker, the bass player from Grave Digger, played in Starchild. So I phoned him and asked, “Hey, man. Do you have two tickets for the festival?” And he said, “Yes, my friend. No problem”. So we are really friends and I like it. After Iron Maiden, Grave Digger is my second favorite band.

You know, they played a great show in Moscow in August.

Yes, I know. Before they went to Moscow I wrote Chris, “Ok, man. Have fun, have a great show and everything.” Usually I write him a message every ten days.

Do you know anything about Russian heavy metal?

No, not now, because Russian bands don’t come here. But I remember a really good old band, Gorky Park. It’s really old, maybe the end of the 80s, but I remember this band and I remember I bought their LP.

And what’s the situation with Italian heavy metal? Do you have any new great bands coming up?

Yeah. We keep contact with all the bands from Italy and the situation here is quite good. It might be not so good for playing concerts in Italy because some clubs, big clubs are closing and we don’t have as many places as we used to 10 years ago. But it’s OK, we are doing good in Italy because we are lucky to be one of the big bands in Italy and we can find work easily, we are requested. There are also some great bands we play together, for example, Domine, Rhapsody, Lacuna Coil, Labyrinth, Vision Divine… Do you know them?

Well, not all of them, but some I certainly know. Thanks, and I have several questions for you personally, if you will. I know you have two nicknames. Who gave them to you and why?

My first nickname was “Mad” and that’s how Federica called me since the beginning of the band. She always says that I’m totally crazy, because I’m always joking. “Captain” is my second nickname; Gus and the other guys from the band gave me this one. It’s because I’m like a captain of the ship of White Skull. And also because I’m the oldest member of White Skull, I make all the decisions about the band… OK, when we have to make a decision, we do it all together, the entire band. When it’s time to make a decision I say, “OK, guys. Come here, we have to pick a decision”. So, I’m the Captain. (laughs)

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Oh, I don’t remember. (laughs) A lot of things. (everybody laughs)

Just name a few.

Usually I’m joking with the band before the show or when we are in a rehearsal room. They look at me and say, “Hey, you are totally crazy”. Oh, for example one day I pretended to be totally drunk, just before the show. I said, “Ahh, I can’t play the show”. It was about ten minutes before the show and the guys were struck with panic. “What we’re gonna do?” – “I don’t care, I’m drunk”. (everybody laughs) I’m joking like this all the time. Ok, when we meet in Moscow you’ll understand why they call me Mad. (laughs)

Yeah, I’ll try not to miss the show. Also I know you’re collecting skulls…

Yes, I have more than 60 now in my house. That’s too much, yeah. (laughs)

Are they real?

No, they are not. In Italy it’s not possible to have a real skull at home. Well, looking around in my studio, I’m in my recording studio now… So, looking around myself I can count about 20 skulls. (laughs) When I see a skull I buy it. I have only one real skull. It belonged to a deer. I have a friend who is a hunter, so he gave me a head and I made a skull out of it. So I have one real skull, yes.

Do you have any other hobbies?

I like to collect skulls, I like to play my guitars, play the PlayStation (laughs) and to drive really fast. I’m a motorcycle man so I love to ride my Harley.

Oh, I though you drive a car, Ferrari or something.

No, I don’t have that much money. But I have driven a Formula-2 car on some circuits here in Italy. I don’t have a lot of money to drive too fast every day but it was fun.

What kind of souvenirs do you want to bring home from Russia?

Oh, the best souvenir that I’d like is to have welcoming people in front of me. That’ll be really great. And also maybe some skulls or magnets to put on the fridge, all these kind of things. (laughs)  

So thank you for the interview, it was really fun to talk to you. Hope to see you soon in Moscow.

Yeah, we are really happy to come to your country to play for the fans for the first time in our career. We also have prepared a special show for you that embraces all our career and all the best songs. We’ll play the best of White Skull, as if you buy “The Best of White Skull”. We changed the show we usually play in Italy or in other countries especially for Russian fans. We are looking forward to see you on the road.
 
White Skull on the Internet: http://www.whiteskull.it

Special thanks to Ilya Zinin (Eventful Agency) for arranging this interview

Ekaterina Akopova
October 16, 2014
© HeadBanger.ru