GANG BANG Magazine's interview - Greece

GB:Why did you choose the name “Wicked Minds”? It seems to me a protest against Puritanism. Am I right or is it something else?
Lucio: ...it came in 1987, maybe we have chosen because we were more perverted than the Simple Minds, who at that time, were selling million of copies, but sincerely too much time had passed, I don’t remember why we choose that name!!!!

GB:Beautiful girls are the main subject of your covers and video clips. Excellent choice in my opinion, share with us your point of view about women…
Paolo: I have done both covers...the girl on “From the purple skies” cover is my girlfriend...at that time I didn’t know her and so I asked her to take some photos for the cover of the album...she said yes and since that day we are together!! Thought that cover has been appreciated from many people we continued on that direction with the new one. I pick the photo from a learning course of photography, heavy edited and there it is the new one...but a funny story is beside this one too....some days ago a beautiful woman entered the Black Widow record shop telling “Why am I on the cover of that record???”...she was an actress in the ’70, working for Fulci’s movies, and she got that photo session for a movie...she has been so kind and we are happy to have known her, of course we will say a great thanx to her on the next album!!!

GB:Your music has a great 70’s feeling, very strong related to bands like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep. Of course you do play the music on your own unique style and you are not afraid to deal with songs that last 12 minutes or longer, but have you ever been afraid that someone could accuse you as replicas?
WM: Εspecially when the first record came out many people talked about us as a kind of Deep Purple band...of course in our music there’s a lot influences from those bands but what we write is completely different!!! We put many influences in our records, often taken from completely different bands, and the result can let you think about many things but always sounds different from everyone of them. We think that is normal that some people consider us a kind of replica, but we think that this comes from a superficial known of that kind of music...if you deeply know the bands we are inspired by you can hear that we are totally different even if we are talking the same language!

GB:What is your main inspiration for your lyrics?
J.C.: Lyrics on “FTPS” was written by me and Lucio and were more onyrical, more related to the music. We wanted to put in words the sensations the music gave us and so lyrics were more abstract. In the new album we tried to get more concrete. We talk about women, music, time and magic, we wrote some more obscure lyrics this time but everything is more concrete now!! We are happy about the way words filled with music and mood of the different songs.

GB:Italy has a great tradition in progressive hard rock, but most of the bands remain unknown in Greece. Can you recommend a few for our readers?
WM: your question is very in time because we are releasing for spring 2007 a new album of Italian Progressive covers only that will give us the opportunity of confronting us towards a great number of incredible bands. We are all great collectors of this kind of music and we have almost everything has been done, we tried to choose the best ones!!! Here are some of the songs we will perform and that we think are the best of italian prog: Osanna, Nuova Idea, New Trolls, Nico/Gianni/Frank & Maurizio (the record that came after New Trolls split with the great question mark on the cover), Goblin, N.T. Atomic System, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Gleemen, Il paese dei Balocchi, Dietro Noi il Deserto, The Trip, Il Balletto di Bronzo, Le Orme, Museo Rosenbach, Delirium, I Teoremi, J.E.T., I Ricordi d’Infanzia, Procession, Circus 2000, Il Rovescio della Medaglia, L’uovo di Colombo and others more!!

GB:There is a brilliant cover of “Soldier of fortune” in your last album, lasting aprox. 6 minutes. It is a cover that a fan of your music could expect it from you. But “Forever my queen” of the mighty Pentagram it was really a surprise on “From the purple skies”. How did you end up with this choice?
WM: we choose this song because is one of Lucio’s favourite one, then we thought that Pentagram is one of the best Black Widow’s bands and so we wanted to pay an homage to them and to our label for all the help they gave us! We had to change it a little to perform in our style and we were all happy about the result, so we thought to put on the album, we think it has been a good choice!!! Ok Nik, many thanx for this beautiful interview, let there be rock!!! Cheers

Interview by Nikos Stilidis