Hail, No Forgiveness! First of all, can you introduce yourself to Tunisian metalheads?
HS: We are the most insane band of the planet!

Celesh: We are three happy bastards making Industrial Gothic Metal !

Desy: Apart from jokes, we are an italian band active since 2001 playing a good mixture of Industrial Metal & Gothic Metal.

HS: That’s right! We released 3 CDs and some demos during our musical career and played in various Italian & European clubs!

No Forgiveness… it sounds violent, like if you were angry about someone or something… So is No Forgiveness a sort of scream-of-vengeance like? What is the story behind this appellation?

Desy: Violent? No, we are so sweet & tender!

HS: Not me !

Celesh: There are good & bad things in life, someone talks about the good ones, we talk about the bad ones.

HS: The bad aspects of our own lives in particular
Desy: Whisky is a good one! 

And who are the people behind these nicknames? What do these nicknames mean for you?
Celesh: My nick comes from my real name, some close friends of mine used to call me Celesh, and
so... nothing interesting behind my nickname

Desy: The short form of DEStroYer is the secret behind my nick ! It sounds like daisy and it merges the sweet meaning of the flower with the destruction

HS: Holy Smoke comes from .... dunno ! 

I’m sure that many of those who will read this interview have never heard about EBM, so maybe you can tell us about the specificity of this music style?
HS: EBM means Electronic Body Music. The pioneers of this genre are Front242, Nitzer Ebb and Front Line Assembly, Electro-Industrial bands from the 80s.  The particularity of EBM is to combine Industrial raw sounds with pumping techno beats into a fresh and melodic style, especially in bands like VNV Nation, Icon Of Coil or Neurotic Fish. Harsh EBM is the most aggressive subgenre of EBM

Celesh : Eh? I don’t know it at all I just listen to EBM sometimes!

Desy: I just want to point out that we don’t play EBM ;)

How have you had the idea to melt EBM with gothic metal? Wasn’t it hard at the beginning to find a harmony between these two styles?
Desy: I repeat myself: we don’t make EBM... so it was not particulary difficult to find the harmony !

Celesh: EBM? Gothic Metal? 

HS: You take 2 grams of EBM, add 1 pint of Industrial Metal and 2 ounces of Gothic Metal, a little bit of make-up, some mental illness, mix ‘em well and then you have the harmony... and some hangovers!

Celesh: Our genre is closer to Industrial Metal but we also like Gothic and EBM music so we try to add little parts of these genres in our songs
 
Let’s talk about your album now, Deja-vu. By reading its name, we can easily understand that it will be a sort of compilation, like a No Forgiveness “Greatest Hits”. So can you tell us why have you made this album now? I mean, you are just in the beginning of your career, and a compilation is normally released in the middle, the end of a career or even after a split up. So what motivated you to make this compilation ?
HS: It’s not a normal compilation… it’s more like a compilation of re-visited songs: we took our best tracks and made ‘em sound more powerful with new electronic stuff and new recordings. We thought that the first release of these songs was crappy regarding the sound-quality / mixdown and we thought that it was a pity to leave these good (in our opinion!) songs with a poor quality!

Desy: Lots of people asked us to remake these songs ‘cuse our fans of early date were not satisfied by the recordings

Celesh: The truth is that we hadn’t any good idea for new songs... ehehe it’s a joke, we made great steps with Deja-Vu, we learned a lot with this album about the mixing processes

There are eight remixes performed by other bands like the German one Golem 101, so what can you tell us about these bands, and what made them accept to perform these remixes?
HS: All bands that remixed us are bands that we respect and support. A lot of bands were entusiasthic about the idea of remixing these songs for our new release so we received more than 20 remixes. We had to make a selection between ‘em and many good remixes were not choosen… I think you will be able to listen to some of ‘em very soon on a new release !

Celesh: Golem 101 are great, we had a lot of fun in Holland with ‘em, we love to play with other bands, it’s fucking cool !

Desy: Albano didn’t want to make a remix for us... damned Italian pop singers !

The Album’s artwork is very weird, some kind of scary too. What does it symbolise? 
HS: The girl on the cover has the exact expression of a human that feel a Deja-Vu emotion while looking at something and she is afraid of this sensation… I bet you had the same feeling of a Deja-Vu at least one time in your life and I also bet you began to think something like “Oh my God… I have already been here/already saw this thing!?” and felt so confused ! Things we cannot explain are the things that we fear!

Celesh: Really?

Desy: The girl on the cover is my girlfriend

HS: And the skeleton on the behind is Celesh’s one

Celesh: Fuck you holy fag !

What are the major influences in your music?
Celesh: All great Industrial & Metal bands in the world

Desy: My influences aren’t  correlated with our music

HS: Apart from ‘em, we are also influenced by our life experiences, our thoughts and our beliefs.
 
Did your album have a large success after its release this summer?
HS: It depends on what you consider is a LARGE SUCCESS. Of course it didn’t went platinum or gold as we still do not have a label, but we increased a lot our fans base. I am not 100% satisfied with the sellings, but I must admit they are going quite good for now ! A good distribution would help us with the sellings!

Celesh: 7 euro, wanna buy it?

Desy: We want the groupies that we don’t have

You participated in a “Depeche Mode” tribute album, and performed “Enjoy the Silence” on it, which is also in Deja-Vu. So, was it hard to perform the song of an internationally-known band like depeche mode, and what were critics’ reactions?
HS: “Enjoy The Silence” is a simple and very effective song, but it is also a very well-known musical success and everybody knows the chorus of it, so we had some difficulties… but we choose to make it very different, very raw and fast with screaming vocals, as far as we could from the original. Many people didn’t like it because it was something unexpected, but most of its listeners appreciated the originality we put in it and liked it more than the Lacuna Coil or Linkin Park version !

Celesh: It’s a very nice song, I am glad to have done a cover of it. I don’t give a fuck about critics’ reactions, I like it and that’s enough for me

Desy: I agree with people that says our version is better than Lacuna Coil’s one

I read that you were looking for a serious deal with a big music label, so is there any progress since the release of your album?
HS: Not so many progresses, we are shooting a videoclip right now and we would like to attach this videoclip to “Deja-Vu” CD. I think these 2 things will make the right effect on some labels. A little more wait in the hope of getting a really big deal !

Desy: I want to make one million dollar before my 24th birthday

Celesh:  I want a label so I will be able to tatoo its name on my bottom

You’re also hoping to perform in a big a tour across Europe, so have you made any contacts with big organizers or other bands in order to make it happen?
HS: We played a 3 days gigs in Holland and we are going to Switzerland within some weeks. The problem is that is difficult to attract people in a foreign country without having a serious booking agency and a label that promote your material in the right way… anyway I think that very soon something big will happen regarding at least Spain, France and Slovakia.

Celesh: You are a clairvoyant! Yeah I’d like it so much

Desy: Me too

What was people’s reaction during your summer shows in some festivals, especially that you weren’t known that much then?
HS: People are usually scared ! Some friends told us that a father with his little son came to a festival where we were playing .. as soon as we got on stage he closed with his hands his son’s eyes and brought him outside the festival ahah !

Celesh: Yes I like summer festivals especially when we play during ‘em

Desy: I like ‘em too mostly because I like topless girls (and tanga too!)  

Finally, do you have anything to say to your fans, in Tunisia and elsewhere?     
HS: I am really happy about the possibility that Dark Noise gave us with this interview ! I know Tunisia as a beautiful place for summer holidays but I am sure that it worth a visit also for many other things…. maybe for a gig of No Forgiveness in some Tunisian club ??? 
Desy: I hope we will conquer (in a good way!) Tunisia !

Celesh: Ciao!

Dernière mise à jour : 27-06-2007 18:59

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