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Berbicara mengenai hard rock 80-an, sama dengan berbicara mengenai salah satu masa paling mengesankan dalam sejarah musik rock, banyak lagu-lagu rock 80-an yang masih sangat familiar sampai detik ini, dan mungkin akan terus dikenang.
Sebut saja secara acak, Livin` On A Prayer (Bon Jovi), Sweet Child O` Mine (Guns N` Roses), The Final Countdown (Europe), 18 and Life (Skid Row), When The Children Cry (White Lion), Home Sweet Home (Motley Crue), Alone Again (Dokken), Honestly (Stryper) dan seterusnya, semua merupakan lagu-lagu legendaris 80-an yang rasanya tidak pernah basi.
Saat ini, sebagian besar pecinta musik rock 80-an mungkin mengharapkan band-band lama mengulang kembali masa jayanya. Tetapi tidak berarti band baru tidak dapat diandalkan untuk mengusung jenis musik ini. Salah satu yang patut diperhitungkan adalah HungryHeart, band yang berasal Italy dan pada tahun 2008 ini merilis debut self-titled album. Sayangnya album ini belum didistribusikan di Indonesia, tetapi kita harapkan hal tersebut dapat terealisasi nanti.
reviewmusik.com berkesempatan melakukan interview yang diwakili oleh bassist mereka, Lele Meola. Berikut cuplikannya:
ReviewMusik (RM): First of all, thanks for taking the time to interview with reviewmusik.com, also congratulations for your debut album: HungryHeart. The name itself is quite unique, is there any story behind the name?
Lele Meola (LM): Thanks to you, for your nice words and for giving us the chance to promote our music in your beautiful country. Now I quickly introduce the band: I’m Lele Meola, bass player, then Josh Zighetti, Lead Vocal, Mr. Mario Percudani (MP), lead & rhythm guitar and vocal, who has written the most of the lyrics and the music of the album, and Emilio “Pingo” Sobacchi on drums.
Actually, the choose of the name “Hungryheart” hasn’t been so difficult… we think it’s the right name for what we want to express in our songs, the on-going need to “gas up” our passions.
RM: I was just surprised when I found you guys are from Italy, I know Labyrinth and some power metal bands recently, but I couldn`t remember a hard rock band from Italy since Alex Masi - Downtown Dreamer (1988), actually what do you think about music scene in Italy these days?
LM: In our opinion the Italian Hard Rock Scene never passed away, even if it’s very difficult to stand out here, playing a kind of Rock like the one we play.
In the last period maybe the things are changing a little bit, considering the good feedbacks we are receiving with our album in Italy, in Europe (and not only), both in terms of selling and press.
RM: Which band excited you guys and influenced your music?
LM: I could list several and several artists who influenced us and from which we took inspiration; just to name a few, Giant, Europe, Danger Danger, Whitesnake, Tesla …. and obviously we couldn’t forget great bands such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin. Actually, we could stay all day long talking about bands and artists who have been our main influence…
RM: Get into the music deeper, your songs have a lot of catchy guitar riffs along with vocal lines, at least that`s the thing came up to my head from a first listening. Is this what you guys expected from audience while listening to HungryHeart ?
LM: Luckily we have a great songwriter in the band, Mario Percudani, who always makes a good job in writing the tracks, as well as being an awesome guitar player!
Melodies and harmonies are very important for us and our music. If they reach the heart and the ears of our listeners and fans, it means that we did a good job!
RM: What are your favourite songs on the debut album?
LM: Actually we don’t have personal favourite songs because each one can give us different emotions and we hope that our fans can feel the same way.
Anyway, I can tell you that our song “The Only One” has been included in the compilations of the UK magazines “Fireworks” and “Powerplay”. Moreover we have found that our fans love so much songs such as “Stealing the night”, “Hang on to me” and “Innocent tears”.
RM: What do you think about ballad song, do you believe every hard rock album should have at least a power ballad?
LM: I don’t think that every hard rock album must have a power ballad, but it remains a fact that it always happens and we can say for sure that the Hard Rock ballads have always obtained great feedbacks from the listeners, also from the ones who usually don’t listen to our genre.
I guess that a ballad like “Hang on to Me” has been able to improve emotionally our album and to transmit something that it’s usually difficult to reach with other songs.
RM: I found "Gina" at YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oouOF4coskU), they said it`s a Michael Bolton Cover. Though I never heard the original version before, I think you guys did a great job because that song is sooo HUNGRYHEART, why did you pick that song?
LM: Frankly speaking I don’t know who has made and uploaded that video, but he highlighted our cover version of the great Micheal Bolton, who was surely a huge hard rock / AOR artist at the beginning of his career.
We always loved the song “Gina”, we have played it live for many years and… yes, it’s soooo “HungryHeart”! That’s why we decided to put it in our album.
RM: Could you provide some links related to HUNGRYHEART and/or the members?
LM: Of course! Here some links:
http://www.hungryheart.it
http://www.myspace.com/hungryheartofficial
http://www.myspace.com/mariopercudani
http://www.myspace.com/joshzighetti
http://www.tanzanmusic.com
At the moment our album is not available in Indonesia, even if we are working hard to increase the distribution and reach your country. Meanwhile, this is another link to order the album:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/hungryheart
RM: What do you think about Indonesia? There`s a lot of hard rock fans here! Will you consider to arrange Asia/Indonesia tour someday?
LM: Indonesia is surely a country which is worth getting to know better and it would be great to have the chance one day to tour out there! It would be a dream come true for us....
RM: What are HUNGRYHEART upcoming projects?
LM: Firtstly we would like to thank our Label Tanzan Music for the great work in promoting our first album e for giving us the chance to clear the ground for our next album. We are already writing and preparing the new songs and we can anticipate that our next album will be probably ready within the summer of ’09.
RM: Any message to our readers and HungryHeart fans in Indonesia?
LM: A great “Thanks” to ReviewMusik.com and to all the readers who’s enjoying our music; we hope to see you soon under the stage!
Always listen to your Hungry Heart…… we love you
Rock on!!!!
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