Exclusive Interview: Coiled Around Thy Spine talk “From The Ashes”!

They always say expect the unexpected and if you’d told us before we reviewed it that “From The Ashes” by Turin Italy based Melodic Death Metal project Coiled Around Thy Spine would be a heavyweight contender for our Top #5 albums of 2021, we would have done a double take. Not that their 2018 debut “Shades” isn’t a mighty fine piece of work in its own right but with this new effort the words “they have outdone themselves” make for the understatement of the year. We consider ourselves as ever fortunate to say the least to be able to bring you an exclusive interview with the seasoned musicians and song writing partnership that is the backbone of the band in guitarist and bassist Sergio Costa and vocalist Daniele Rosso…

You released a track a week in advance of the album appearing, how have you found the reaction to those songs so far?

[Sergio] “Well, we released one track each week for 8 weeks – we wanted to be sure to bother people a lot lol, and well, let’s say that we didn’t get negative comments so far!”

The first record, 2018’s “Shades” was recorded as a trio with a US drummer who exited after the recordings were completed, so this time out who graced the drum stool? We suggested it was Gene Hoglan given how technically impressive the drumming is!

[Sergio] “Having Gene would be a dream lol! Finding a drummer for this genre is pretty though, so we had to hire one. I kept looking for a while and eventually I found one awesome drummer in Japan, he is also a music producer and the name is Tomi. Basically I had already composed all the drum beats and stuff and I just sent the tracks to be recorded by a human being, to avoid that kind of drum machine feel. About David, as for 99% of the drummers around, he has 3 jobs actually and didn’t have time to do this, sadly”

We’ve mentioned comparisons to the likes of Children Of Bodom and  in the style of Melodic Death Metal that you have created but who are your influences and heroes?

[Sergio] “I grew up listening to heavy metal and thrash metal, Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Loudness of course, Judas Pries etc… then I started to listen to death metal, bands like Death, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, In Flames, Dissection… yeah, I guess that Marty Friedman, Chuck Schuldiner and Dimebag Darrel were a big influence for me back then. And Paul Gilbert and Akira Takasaki obviously. Thanks for the comparison by the way, we like Children Of Bodom obviously, and it’s a pity Laiho died last year, he was such an influential and skilled guitar player and songwriter: I remember when I listened to Hatebreeder for the first time back in the 90s, that record was mind blowing!”

[Daniele] “My influences for my vocal style are mainly death metal bands like Children Of Bodom, Dark Tranquillity and especially Death, I think I can consider Chuck Schuldiner, Alexi Laiho and Michael Stanne as my mentors. I even like more blackish singers like Dani Filth and Shagrath, I think my style is a mix of all the sings I like in those singers”

You’ve been in a wealth of bands in the past, including Gotland, Eyes of Hydra, Winter Lament, Unforced, Art Of Darkness, Dying Awkward Angel and Six-Point Lead so what keeps you creating new music?

[Sergio] “It’s all about passion, that’s it, I love doing what I do and I don’t really want to stop, even if we have families, day jobs and whatever, I cannot really think of my self not writing or playing music!”

Do you see Coiled Around Thy Spine as purely a Studio project at this time or do you have ambition to perform these songs live? If you could chose any musicians to flesh out the line up for that, who would you like to join you on stage?

[Daniele] “For the time being, it is a studio project, but maybe in the future we could try to play it live, even if I don’t think it will be strictly necessary. We want to do it, considering that the stuff we made for these two records is good, but we’d need to hire new people up to the job to do it… but well, who knows”

What made you decide to record “Like Hell” by Loudness and “Bite The Pain” by Death and then include them on the album? We’re you nervous about fans not liking your rendition of such classics?

[Daniele] “We recorded a few covers of bands that were very influential for us, and we hope that our fans will like the way we did it”

[Sergio] “A bit nervous. of course, especially for Bite The Pain, the original is so good that the risk of ruining it is very high. We didn’t see negative comments so far, but you never know!”

Where next for Coiled Around Thy Spine?

[Daniele] “Well we want to see people reaction to the new record first, than we’ll see, maybe a new record, the third one!”

“From The Ashes” by Coiled Around Thy Spine is out now everywhere that’s good!