The Manges
With two full length albums, six singles, four splits and appearances on 14 comps, plus two samplers, they are more than on their way. While many independent bands have a hard time touring out of their immediate area, The Manges (who reside in Italy), have toured their home country, Canada and The US. They are slowly but surely taking over, and if you haven't heard of them yet, I don't know what to say.Let's get on with it...
Andrea took out some time from his insanely busy schedule to do an e-mail interview with Virus this month. Check it out.
Virus: Manges has a long and impressive list of releases, both CD and vinyl. Can you describe what it's like to record after having recorded so much already?
Andrea: We were true beginners with our own instruments while we started the band and we never had big budget recordings...meaning that we have never been totally satisfied by what we had at the end of every recording session. Everytime it seems we're a bit better than before but I still have the feeling I never recorded something I really really think is what I want from my band. So writing better songs and having a better sound year by year still make me excited when I hit the recording studio. Thank God some people think we already are a good band.
Virus: What has been your favorite recording experience?
Andrea: The "Manges 'R' Good Enough" album was recorded in New York City and that was a great experience. And for the first time we worked with a producer, our friend Guru Kowalski. We got invited to see Joey Ramone's birthday bash and felt we wanted to honor his memory with a trip to NYC. At the same time GK told us he wanted to produce our album so we decided to hurry up writing songs and get on the plane. We saw great bands live and had cool parties and huh, we spent afternoons playing our songs.
Leoncavallo Milan, 2/9/2001, with Canada's Smugglers!
Virus: What is the independent scene like in Italy? Do you feel it is generally accepting of all genres, or is there a hardcore bias?
Andrea: The Italian scene has a very old hardcore tradition, a few trendy bands of ska-core and punk that sell tons of records, and a pretty good pop punk scene devoted to the Ramones. There's a crowd for every big American punk band and the underground is alive in all kind of indie music, including punk rock. The media are discovering punk bands more and more and we're going to have an "MTV punk" generation like the States had in the middle of the nineties. We got respect from the whole scene but we feel more like an international band. Now the problem is that we sells our records all over the world, including Japan and the USA and the whole of Europe, but we're not "big" anywhere. We are kind of a "cult" band, kids love our band everywhere and at the same time nobody knows who the fuck we are all over the world.
Virus: Your song, Summer's Gone, makes me want to crank the music and dance around my living room. What was the inspiration for that song, both musically and lyrically?
Andrea: I wrote Summer's Gone starting from the vocal melodies as I use to do, and thought it was a very slow song, kind of a "punk ballad". Playing it with the band it sounded much better a little bit faster. We like many Lookout! bands as the Riverdales and that's the sound we were hoping to have at that time. About lyrics, it's a silly heartbroken love song that refers to my real life... I missed my ex girlfriend. 99% of our songs talks about facts or refer to facts that happens to me and the other band members.
Virus: What is your favorite Manges song?
Andrea: I think I wrote a lot of bad stuff but a few tunes are very good. One called "I Will Always Do" is one of the best, and helped my band to get known by a lot of people since Screeching Weasel covered it on their last album. But I also like "Mandy", "Blame Game", "80s soldier".
Virus: Who are your favorite local bands to play shows with?
Andrea: We often play with Italian bands like Peawees, Retarded, Stinking Polecats and they are all very good friends of ours. We also are constantly in touch with Euro bands like Apers, Sonic Dolls... Our Deutch label Stardumb releases stuff from many of these bands so we actually are like a big family in the Euro punk rock scene.
Virus: What are your favorite clubs to play (both locally and on tour)?
Andrea: I run a club in my hometown and our schedule is 90% punk and rock'n'roll. There's no place better than my club jammed with friends that dance with The Manges. Going out of town, Italy has a good number of squats and some of them are really cool and big, so there's something about Italy that makes playing in a punk rock band so exciting. Then Germany and Switzerland are the countries where you get more respect from club owners and good food and money.
Virus: What has been your favorite tour?
Andrea: Canada-USA, we toured the middle east Canada and The States in 2000 and I had a lot of fun, plus it was the first time I went to North America, after a lifetime of American movies and music to dream with.
Virus: What CD (or record) do you listen to most often?
Andrea: I still listen to vinyl if I can, and I like a lot of different stuff from punk to pop and rock. But if have to pick only one record, I'd say anything by the Ramones. It's the first punk band I ever heard and I still listen to their records a lot.
Virus: I am clueless about Italian politics, but I'd love to learn. What kind of political action is going on within the independent scene in Italy?
Andrea: Italy's politics is so different from yours than I think it's pretty hard to explain. Anyway the independent scene use to be close to a lot of different realities like the left-wing, anarchy, and what you recently can call non-globalization.
European Tour - September, 2001
Virus: Can you describe the band?
Andrea: Argh it's not so easy as I'm answering this interview alone. But I'll tell you who we are... I'm Andrea 28, I'm what you can describe as a positive person. Lazy and absent minded but patient, I use to be very happy and excited during the summer and bored and depressed in the winter. I watch tons of movies and collect records, comic books, magazines and any kind of heart shaped item. I'm actually the only engaged guy in the band. Mass the bass player, 26, is the opposite of me, he can be mean and complain too much, but he's got a very big heart and knows what friendship is about. He's a cool party animal and likes to dj in my club. He collect records and books and is the one in the band who is the most cultured. Manuel, the drummer is 26, he's a pretty strange man... but his appeal works on anybody he meets. He's kind of superstitious, and religious and his opinions are always as surprising as right. He gives attitude to the whole band and has a great sense of humour, which is necessary to avoid Mass and me fighting while on tour. He cares a lot about soccer and collects anything about the Ramones. His collections of records and items makes him one of the biggest collectors in Italy and his Ramones related adventures ended up with all of us having a VIP pass to Joey's birthday Bash. Matteo, guitar, is 25 and the newest Manges. As me, Mass and Manuel formed the band together and changed a few 2nd guitar players. Matteo is pretty nice and funny, you know that kind of guy it's nice to hang out with. He's honest and positive, though sometimes a little kiddy. He listen to a lot of hardcore music and likes soccer too.
