Diane fires questions at SHAPE OF WATER’S Rox Capriotti 

Hello Rox, nice to catch up with you – Hi Diane and thanks for interviewing us. 

How did you guys meet, was it back in Italy? We’ve been knowing each other for such a long time now. I believe it was 2004 when we first started playing together. Our old band was called The Lotus and we have never stopped since then!

What made you decide to relocate to Manchester? The idea of moving to the UK has always permeated our bodies and souls since the beginning. Then planets aligned and in 2015 we decided to move here together and start this adventure. We weren’t immediately sure that we wanted to move to Manchester: in fact, London was our first choice. But then my partner at that time was studying here and she asked us to come to visit, and we fell in love with it!

What’s the best and worst thing about living here in the UK? This is a very difficult question! If I had to pick something I don’t like about living in the UK is maybe that summer and spring could be a little bit longer and slightly less rainy but honestly, I love it as it is already. I’m not a huge fan of warm temperatures. The best thing instead, is literally the reason why we moved here: music. Britain has an incredible music tradition and culture. We basically grew up with British music and nothing else!

The Electronic/Techno sound of Shape Of Water is pretty unique, how did you become interested in this kind of music? The truth is that we don’t really have a specific genre we focus on. Our sound comes naturally when we compose our music. Our idea is to try and deliver what the band’s name actually means: we have no shape and no boundaries therefore our music has no genre. Amor Fati has definitely a more electronic feel but our first album Great Illusions is more prog and hard rock oriented. Who knows what our third album will be? 🙂 

Did you start to play musical instruments from an early age and what was the first you learned? I started playing classical piano when I was 7 and basically never stopped since then. I always say that I only knew music for all my life so if I weren’t a musician I’d probably be dead!

You recorded the Ultravox hit ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’, which was your first single, is that a band who have influenced your career? Ultravox weren’t really a huge influence in my life but that song absolutely yes. I remember listening to it over and over and also watching the video on MTV. We wanted to make a cover of it with our previous band at least 10/15 years ago but for some reason it never happened. Then when Shape Of Water born, we finally decided it was time for us to record it. It’s crazy how just a song can influence your entire career.

Your album ‘Amor Fati’ or Love of Fate, alludes to Nietzsche’s philosophy that our future is already determined, is that something you believe strongly in? Amor Fati was written mostly during the pandemic and the several lockdowns; it was written in a moment of uncertainty for us and for the whole world. What we really want to talk about is not the future which may or may not be written already, but about accepting what happens and dealing with it, no matter what.

What’s your favourite track off Amor Fati to play live? I personally love playing (well, singing, lol) Don’t Leave Me In The Dark just because I love how the crowd reacts and sing it with us. It’s a simple and uplifting song and it actually relaxes me when we play it live! If I have to pick a song we all play then I’d definitely say The Snoot, which is the first song off Amor Fati we’ve ever played live. I love playing it, especially the metal outro.

You have announced more dates and festival appearances for this year, ( SEE POSTER AT FOOT OF PAGE) do you get nervous before playing to a large crowd? We do, I do, all the time! I am a bit weird though, the smallest the crowd the more I get nervous, and vice-versa! With time and experience, we’ve overcome a bit of some silly fears we used to have when we were younger but that beautiful and horrible feeling is still there and I guess it will be there forever. 🙂

Do you include older tracks on the set list, any from your first album ‘Great Illusions” for instance? Absolutely, at least for now. We try to make our set lists balanced so that our fans can enjoy the new songs but also the old ones such as Scar, Perfect Love, Still Karma or The World Is Calling Me.

I love the artwork on Amor Fati, which Luca (guitarist Luca De Falco) designed, did he go to Art school or is it a natural talent? Thank you! He did go to Art school but only for a couple of years so I guess it’s also natural talent. During lockdown, we weren’t obviously able to promote our first album Great Illusions and we couldn’t meet anybody even to shoot a video. So Luca started several online courses and he improved his drawing, photography and especially video-making skills.

The design work doesn’t stop there, Rox I noticed your hair matched the colour of your pendant and triangle logo, is adding this kind of personal touch important to you? It is very important indeed. We are constantly working on how to deliver our music and our message in the best possible way and looks and clothing are also part of it all. The interesting fact about this is that sometimes even these things come naturally and then we make them part of the ensemble. For example: I’ve been wanting to colour my hair green since I was very young but never had the chance or the guts to do it until last October. For some reason which I can’t really explain, when I coloured my hair, the green wasn’t what I was expecting it to be and it became this green/turquoise which is basically the colour of water. This is another example of accepting your fate and using it to your advantage 🙂 

The CD comes in a round tin, which is also a nice change, who’s idea was that? The idea came primarily because we think that CD is obsolete or at least not as cool as vinyl. We wanted something different that could be used for other purposes if needed. So we looked online and found this beautiful round metal tin and immediately fell in love with it. You can use it to keep our CD but if you don’t like it, then you can store anything you want inside it. Even drugs! Lol.

You had several artists guesting on the album, including several drummers, is there a more permanent third member on sticks now or are you happy as you are? For the moment, the band is still Luca and I, but we can’t deny that we love having our live drummer Tom with us. He’s such a talented musician (he plays drums but also bass, guitar and keys) and a lovely person so who knows, maybe something will change in the future!

Any plans for another studio album? When we were writing Amor Fati we actually realised we had ideas for at least another 2 albums so technically we’re almost ready for album n.3! We’re planning to start actively working on it this summer and then we’ll see where the wind blows.

Anything else in the pipeline for this year? We will be adding more shows to our Amor Fati tour and we will keep on promoting the album by releasing new music videos, which are incredible and we can’t wait for our fans to see them!

Thanks again for taking time to talk and good luck with the upcoming shows and new album. 

SHAPE OF WATER – FACEBOOK  TWITTER  INSTAGRAM 

Merchandise and Music available – HERE

Photo Credits – Neil Jackson of Flaming Pint 

Special Thanks to Eclipse Records & Sarah Furbey of Epic Venom Rock Band Management