ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS:

IMPERIO

Building a glorious power

PROFILED FOR SOME TIME AS SOMETHING MORE THAN A PROMISE OF THE LOCAL METAL SCENE, IMPERIO MADE REAL ALL ITS POWER METAL IN ITS FIRST RECORDING IN CD, "ABYSSES IN THE SKY", AND TO CELEBRATE IT, THE SINGER AND FRONTMAN CHRISTIAN BERTONCELLI AND THE GUITARIST JUAN VARELA GONZALEZ (THE REST OF THE BAND IS GUSTAVO GOROSITO IN GUITARS, ALEJANDRO SIERRA BAS IN KEYBOARDS, GABRIEL GONZALEZ IN BASS AND WILLY VARELA GONZALEZ ON DRUMS) WELCOME US FORMALLY TO THEIR KINGDOM.

- How Imperio was born?

Christian Bertoncelli: Imperio appears like idea for june of ' 96, when I was still in Horcas. After we made the tour of the Metal Rock Festival, the first one, I was already resolved to leave Horcas, so we begin to work more in Imperio. And we can say that it was established as a band in october of ' 96. After a month we were playing live and we record the first demo tape.

C.B.: All came from bands, not well-known but with experience of playing live, although we all are very young.

C.B.: That was the idea in fact. All was well in Horcas, it served me very much besides that when they called me to sing I could not believe it. But it was not what I expected. And the idea with Imperio was to make the music type that I like more, classic, more like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

C.B.: No. With Gustavo, one of the guitarists, I already played before entering to Horcas, and we already made the same thing that now in Imperio. We always point to that same side. Now we put keyboards and the thing changed a little bit more.

C.B.: Yes, that continues happening, but it doesn't bother me, because that helped Imperio a lot. Because there are better ten thousand bands that Imperio, and we were lucky because it is "the former-singer of Horcas band".

C.B.: Yes, but there were people which liked it and other ones that dont, because they met with a proposal completely different. The idea was not to put "former members of Horcas"; there were people that made it but it bothers us.

Juan Varela: In this last year many bands arose, but I believe that Imperio is different, it has another color, it is different.

C.B.: A thing different is the topic of the lyrics. In the argentinian heavy scene the lyrics are enough thrashed, all the bands speak to you of the same thing: social problems, the guy that goes to work and that whole history, people are a little tired of that.

J.V.: We also see it, but the proposal is another.

C.B.: Actually, the proposal is that when you listen Imperio you can clear up some all the problems that you come loading during the day. It is not to listen a song that is referred to what you see and live every day, turning your mood worse...

C.B.: I came up with the name Imperio because I liked how it sounded. When we were looking for a name, I was listening the Queensryche album " Empire " ("Imperio"), and I liked it. But in the lyrics you will find everything, histories of fantasy, lost loves, a heap of things.

C.B.: In the first time it was going to be called "Glory from my lost", because it was the first album and we where playing our ass out. Once we had finished the album, the song that we liked more was "Abysses In The Sky", and since it was the opening song, we choose it as a title.

C.B.: If i could speak english fluidly, I would sing in english. If there is an opportunity to release the album in Europe, I would sing it in English, but if we are not going to release it there, I find it unnecessary.

C.B.: I believe that it helped us a lot, because after we played with Gamma Ray there were people that will see us when we played alone, they told us that they had seen each other for the first time there and that for that reason they had come.

C.B.: Since I started up with Imperio that was the idea, but I didn't find one. I knew many but all were playing other types of music. "Why should I will play heavy metal if with this I am doing big money every week", they told me. And this new keyboard player arrived indirectly, he offered himself. One day he asked us if we needed a keyboard player, I asked him if he knew some and he told me that he played the keyboards. And it turned out to be a lot more than what we expected (he won an award on a local heavy magazine). He was very into the recording, he was the sound operator, apart from co-producing. Thanks to him, Imperio sounds better.

C.B.: In fact we recorded a whole album, but the previous guitarist Wan Lee had to leave to another country to had a transplant operation. We didn't want to waste the good year that we had, with good reviews, and after speaking with Wan we decided to record five songs, and when he returns for sure we will record a whole album. And I came up with the idea of including to demos as bonus tracks.

C.B.: I am very happy with the final result of the album, and people at concerts will meet with more speed and aggressive songs. Also with a lot of fun up the stage, there are a lot of good vibes between us and the public.