here comes the sun

it has been a tough period for the band. many things concurred to make it one of the hardest time ever for ATS. i already wrote about this.
well, finally the black clouds are slowly spreading and the sun is approaching our portion of sky. however, it usually happens that crisis brings revolution with it and somehow that's what happened also this time.
you know being in a band is not simply a matter of writing music, planning tours, playing shows. at least it is not for ATS. the band and, generally speaking, music is the way we, as individuals, have been exploring, discovering, talking, living ourselves together. it's a journey we started many years ago. unfortunately there's no defined path, no routes to follow and it's easy to get lost. especially when you are the only one who can define the coordinates.
if "red square" was our awkwardly-drawn debut, "shifting" was exactly the way we wanted it to be. that's quite a result, in my opinion, but what to do now? it's like if wile e. coyote caught beep-beep... the great giant has been defeated, well what to do now, david?
in other words, with "shifting" we depicted our own idea of so-called post-core. no matter how bad, annoying, stupid could the album sound to you, we consider it a reached target. indeed it's not a matter of liking it, we're not on the "receiving side" of the musical flow. we're exactly at the opposite point, at the source of music, where we have to find inspiration, motivation, strength.
so, considering all these things, where to go now?

well, we have some ideas and they all implies some sort of (major) changing.
we have four new songs almost ready for a first demo recording, showing us the ways we wanna run this time. all i can say is that dynamics, singing and structures underwent some strong changings. that is songs are way shorter and, in our opinion, more focused.
are you ready for this? are we ready for this?

moreover, we're booking shows again. in 2011 we'll be playing accross italy and europe as wide as we can. if you wanna see us playing in your town, just drop us a line.

the new year is approaching, this is our last post for 2010.
spend these last days at their best.

The losing game.

It's been a week since we got home from our one concert trip to Berlin (Germany) and I've been thinking a lot about it.
The trip was great. It was quite a long time since last time we packed into a van and travel for like 6 or 7 hours to reach a God's forgotten land. This time it wasn't really forgotten, since our first stop was in München, the city of beer. And, as you can see for yourself, Jesus was on our side, leading our way from the top of a pencil.
Unfortunately (or maybe not?) there was no concert booked there, so we spent the night around the city, eating, drinking, smelling each other's gas and, obviously, puking. So yes, here's the incontrevertible evidence... we're back on the road!
Except this, the night was quite "standard" and even short, since at 1 am we were already sleeping.
The next morning we had a good breakfast, watching an incomprehensible German stand-up comedian on TV, we packed our bag and sit back in the van for another 6 hours run.
At mid afternoon we reached Potsdam, that happens to be a tiny wonderful town not far from Berlin, the town that hosted our concert as the final show of the Potsdamer Jazzfest.
The venue was called Waschhaus, that means laundry, and it was a pretty good venue, with a beautiful stage, great lightings and all the stuff that seems to be normal in Germany but looks quite special for anyone who has to deal with Italian venues: buffet with foods and drinks, dinner, towels, dressing-room, hostel accommodation and so on.
Right after the soundcheck, a quick shower and a quicker dinner, we step on the stage and start playing our show. The sound was terrific, the lights were awesome and we were totally enjoying it. Then everything seemed to turn into what I would call a beautiful failure: we took a look off the stage and there was no crowd. Like ten or fifteen people were relaxing on some couches at the very bottom of the room, comfortably enjoying our sound but commiting us the most difficult task a band can ever have to do: playing a great show for a few people.
I don't know if we made it great but I guess we did good since we also sold some merch to that few listeners, who said to have really enjoyed the show, despite the huge hollow off the stage.
On our end, we had quite a good time, even if the condition were almost tragic. So this is it, you would say. Unfortunately this is not. Here it's were the hard part began, at least for me.
Far before the show, the promoter agreed with us for quite a good fee that would have bear our costs, and at the end of the show my only thought was: "How the hell can we ask for that money?". And I mean not literally asking for the money, but how can we took that money knowing that the guy is probably losing half of it. Yes guys, despite our metalhead habits, we have a heart.
The equation was quite easy actually, we did our show, we did our job so we have to get paid. The promoter probably didn't consider all the risk of hiring a not-very-popular band from Italy and that's part of his business. Yes, that's true, but I felt quite bad anyway.
How did it end? We took our fee, the guy lost his leverage and we couldn't even cover our expenses. So, isn't underground music a losing game?

walking backwards

"shifting", our latest album, was released like two or three months ago. the record is awesome, we love it and we think it deserve at least a couple of spins in every openminded rocker cd player (so if you fit, don't waste time and do it now!).
on about a hundred and fifty reviews we got from all over the world, like 90% are good ones and most of these are even enthusiastic, getting marks from 8 to 10 on a 10 point scale. so also journalists seem to agree with our (non-objective) opinion.
we also toured a bit accross europe, playing in austria, hungary, poland, germany, denmark and sweden. we have also been invited to wave gotik treffen, the most important gothic/dark fest in the world, where we performed supporting caspian, junius and good is an astronaut. considering this, you might easily think that our career is ready to start at full throttle. well, you're wrong.

the record is not selling really good. no real people is getting into the band. even in our homeland (beloved and behatred italy) ppl is not really giving a fuck about what we do. we have some warm but gaunt fans here and there around the world. they surely make us happy, but this doesn't help in taking the band on, facing everyday life accidents. indeed we have some major problems with our jobs. italian economy is almost sinking and we are not in the condition of leaving a comfortable job to follow a mere dream at almost 30. we are still waiting to get some money from some of our partners, but it seems like they have just the same problems we have and everything seems to be fucked up in the business. last but not least, we had to cancel a tour in germany because we got no real interest from the venues. not bad, uh?

well, on the other hand, we have a big label that released our previous albums and it's gonna release also our next one - and this is something really precious nowadays, trust me. plus we are actually able of planning short tours over europe, despite the german failure, and we're lucky enough not to waste too much money in that. so let's say we have quite a rewarding and unique hobby!

unfortunately the thing is that there are many successful bands out there, with right the same history that we have, playing a kind of music that is equal or worst to ours, but somehow (maybe beacuse they are british or american, maybe because of their superfashion-alternative look) they have the tons of fans that we don't have - and i am not only talking about the emo kids, i am talking about our scene, the so called "post-rock/metal/hardcore". this awkward thought is stuck in our minds and it's hard to let it go.
we have been playing for so many years, spending so much time, so much energy and so much money in it. we have a good pro-level album with many good reviews on the most important magz all over the world but we still have to fight to get like 250 euros for a show that cost like 300-350 euros to us. wtf. sometimes it really seems like walking backwards.

is it all about us? about the music? about the band?
is there a way to fix things?

your mighty warriors,
ats.

living the band, building the band

hi there people.
in case you're wondering, the answer is: "yes, this is our new website".
in case you're still wondering, the answer is: "no, you won't find any music, pics or video of the band here".
this, as you can easily see, it's just a blog, nothing more than that. why did i choose this form instead of making a proper site?
mainly for two reasons. the first one is that, if you are looking for medias from the band, you have proper sites like myspace (click here) or youtube (click here) or even facebook (click here).
the second one is that we decided to share our whole band life with you, honestly, deeply and totally. why? because we feel that myspace, facebook or whatever site is not enough. depsite their purposes, they are just another filter between the band and the people. however, today more than ever, we feel the needing of sharing our band life with you. the thing is that music is not enough anymore and there's so much work, so much dedication and also so much sorrow just to put a song together that we think you deserve to share it all with us. it's a big part of the band, maybe the biggest one, and we don't want it to get wasted as we don't want you to miss it.
that's why (if i properly set this blog up) everyone will be free to comment our posts, to give us a feedback and to interact with us. we will let you publish any kind of thing except spam or not-related-to-the-band stuff. anything else is welcomed and hoped for.

so this is it. don't expect for correct english because i am not english. don't expect to get always politically correct posts because it wouldn't be honest.
this is just me, this is just us. the band with no filters.
welcome to living the band.

a./ats