1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little about the band?
M.: Cruelty Force are born from the ashes of Toxic Soda, a thrash metal band that I’ve founded in 2012 with a couple of ex schoolmates. After some years full of trouble with the line up I was completely alone and in 2015 Angelo has joined in the band bringing a real wing of change. In the beginning the idea was to play a classical thrash metal in the vein of the typical thrash master of the 80’s, but with Angelo the ideas stars to moving in a new direction, choosing a violent and raw thrash/black metal with some influence from 80’s, 90’s and 00’s extreme metal.
A: Oh, I think there my mate said it all. I wanna add something to the situation when I joined the band. I were literally carried by his ideas and music because I were so bad at playing. Things changed, I think that the ''wind of change'' came together playing and playing in every place and every way we could. The music is the result of lot of work individually and as a band.
2.So far you have released a demo, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording?
M.: Has I told you before, we want to play an extreme thrash/black metal, also we don’t dislike a bunch of death metal influences, in the vein of bands like Mortuary Drape, Sodom, Destroyer 666, Vomitor, Death, Venom, Aura Noir, Kreator, Destruction, Bulldozer, Motorhead, ecc. Our demo is the result of many and many heavy metal influences, from the classical old school thrash metal to the second wave of black metal and also from the classical heavy metal.
A: The musical sound of our group is something we wanted to make sound different and more raw in the italian scene. To make extremely raw music for extremely raw minds. I don't think I can recognize our sound with some band specific but we got lot of influences like Mario said before. We just tried to play what our sick minds liked to play and hear. We like to experiment on music as well so we made an experimental outro that drives ''The Crueltty Void'' and unleashes it. The thing of starting it with a Gregorian Templar Chant and reversing it then unleashing our sound has a meaning behind. And it's not that hard to understand. The Real Life Cruelty has a place in where it started since the Day 1. And it's religion.
3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
M.: In our lyrics we talk about death, horror, violence, depression and other stuff like that. We are two horror maniacs, we love horror movies and for this we love to talk about horror and violence in our lyrics, but there is also an inspiration from the real life, which contains mast of the terrifying horrors ever. The concept of our demo Cruelty Void is an horror concept made by death, depression and horror (in every possible form). Personally I like to image that like and H.P. Lovecraft tale, full of madness, death and astral horror.
A: For me especially real life horrors. One of the lyrics I wrote personally, it's the Dealing with Death one. Like one year ago, my brother told me about a guy he know, that was born in an hospital and never saw the light of the day. He is still alive right now, but he can't move himself from the bed and he is being feed by a machine. He can't even talk and that's really terrifying. A life like that makes you think about how shit nature and life can be sometimes and how creep and sick nature itself is. When he told me that story I reflected I think for one hour or so on what this guy could imagine of our world, of what is behind that window and then I started writing it.
Life is terrifying in lot of cases, maybe Lovecraft were right about that cosmic horror and negativity.
4.Originally the band was known as 'Toxic Soda', what was the cause of the name change and also the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Cruelty Force'?
M.: The reasons of that change are many and at the same time is only one: The line up trouble were too much, we have meet incompetent people that wants only play in a band without make any type of sacrifice or without put energy in the project, posers and other shit like that. In 2016 we decide to continue as a duo and we start to wrote the first songs (all the demo tracks), and when we complete the recordings we have saw a new horizon for us, so we have decide to make a radical cut with the past changing our name in Cruelty Force. We think that is more appropriate for the new musical direction that we have choose.
A; Nothing to add to what my mate said. It just became Cruel.
5.Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding the line up or do you prefer to remain a duo?
M.: We are looking for a bassist for many years, and now we’re still searching for it, in this period we are made some rehearsal with a friend of us as a bassist and the things are going good, maybe he can be the new member and Cruelty Force can be a violent power trio!
A: Yeah we are having a good experience with the new member, I personally hope that the power trio comes out of it.
6.On the demo you had done a 'Mortuary Drape' cover, what was the decision behind doing your own version of one of their songs?
M.: We start in the beginning with the idea of a cover in the track list of our demo, we had think about many bands that we love (before chose Mortuary Drape we were thinking to make a Venom or a Kreator cover, the last idea was to make a cover of Destroyer 666) but at the and we choose for M.D., we love them and make a cover M.D. was a great idea for made a tribute to the Italian metal scene that personally I consider more rich and full of great bands respect of many other countries.
A: The principal reason we made it after the other ideas it's because Mortuary Drape are an iconic italian band and I think it's the best tribute we could do to them. We added in the credits few other italian bands who influenced us because we think that's a form of respect to pay to them.
7.Currently you are unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
M.: Yes, now we are unsigned and looking for a label. We have received a bunch of request by some non-italian labels.
A: Unsigned, we received some requests but we are still deciding on which move to make next, so we are still looking for.
8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black and thrash metal?
M.: We are still undiscovered for the most part of the fan of black and thrash metal I think, but we have recived some appreciment by south American metalheads (those bastards love any kind of extreme metal!) and also from Italian and European metalheads. Maybe when we came out with some new stuff people will discover us with more interest.
A: Oh I think that the feedback is good. Like Mario said, we received interest from lot of European and South American guys and for me just the start is awesome. You know, when you make your music and you work so hard on it that sometime you just wanna freak off and then you finally make it... You're just pleased by that. The period in which I composed this demo with the Cruelty Force project was really a bad personal period for me and maybe the only thing in which I didn't fucked up it was this THING. We are still undiscovered but for me this achievement it's a big thing. Metal is this, being heard and appreciated by other freaking metalheads.
9.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
M.: We have many ideas for the future, the first is continue to write new material and maybe come out with and EP or maybe with a full lengh. We want that our music will speak for us, and we will show our passion and our devotion at our fans.
A: Playing, playing and playing. We can't wait to make some new music and to release it and we are making some new material there.
10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
M.: We are principally influence by the old school heavy metal (heavy, thrash, black, death, doom). We love the old masters of metal and also some new bands that are now in the metal scene. For example we are two a big fans of Baphomet’s Blood (for say one name of the nowdays metal bands, also Italians!!!!!) and also Destroyer 666, Vomitor, Doomraiser, Vultures Vengeance, Blasphemophagher (many names from many geners!)If I must make a complete list of the bands that really influenced us we can wrote an entire book about it!!! Personally I’ve also an opened mind with music, I listen also other geners like 70’s hard rock and 70’s experimental music like krautrock and library music, I also love psych rock and old electronic music, but I prefer to separate the all that styles from my project Cruelty Force.
A: Me personally, in my instrument I got influenced a lot by Petrozza, Tom G. Warrior, Vikernes, K.K. Warslut and Schuldiner's way of playing the guitar and compose riffs, expecially Chuck's ideas and the way he started playing the six strings. It'sn not new that he was not that technician monster when he started. I remember one of his interview saying something like ''I could not play Exciter riffs when i was young so I made mine''. And this inspired me very much. Also like Mario said we support and love our Italian Bastards like Blasphemophager, Witchunter, Vultures Vengeance, Doomraiser, Baphomet's Blood, Doomsword and especially my countrymen from Sicily Inchiuvatu and Schizo! As a ''vocalist'' i like Attila Csihar's vocals, I'm crazy for his very low tone and sick guttural way he sings and i got inspired a lot by him.
11.How would you describe your views on Satanism?
M.: We love Satanism!!! Ahahahaha No, well the true is that we love Satanism when is made in the Venom style, we are not occultists and we don’t belive in the devil and other demons. The Satanism in the heavy metal (and in rock n’ roll in general) is an important part that makes the game more funny, like a riot of violence!
A: I don't like to talk about Satanism or religion in general. For me, religion doesn't have to exists. Venom's style satanism it's something different like Mario said is something that made history in our genre and something that freaked off lot of Christians as well. Then this is good.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
M.: Thank you for give us this chance man! This is our first interview ever! We hope to continue our road, writing and playing our music without compromise. CRUELTY METAL OR DIE!!!
A: Thanks to every fucking metalhead there who supported us, thank to you guys for giving us a chance and thanks to all the bastards who made Metal a thing. I wanna thank especially my mate for this ''travel'' to make this demo and my girlfriend cause she supported me so much into believing that our music was really A THING. Maybe the reason why i pushed out that hard to make this demo happen. Oh it isn't a credit space? Ok sorry. CRUELTY METAL OR DIE.
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