By Nicholas Jason Lopez
If you haven’t heard of The Lancasters yet, you’re missing out big time.
Already praised for standout diverse singles “Goodnight” and “Scallywag,” this Italian rock trio has the ability to combine old and new, tradition and innovation in a blend that ranges between the best 1970s British rock and more recent expressions of volume-driven rock ‘n’ roll sounds.
The Music Bugle had the chance to speak with singer/guitarist Dave about their new music and more.
Music Bugle – What makes Italy a good – or bad – place for underground music?
Dave – Italy stands between the good and bad kind of place to be a musician. We actually feel surrounded by amazing bands, which keep throwing the dice, working so hard on every detail in their tracks, videos and other contents. The bad side is constantly shown by the mass media behavior, which sounds like a kind of compromise, always trying to glue together understandable cliches with a huge slice of useless art surrogate, but we feel confident in our own as well as our peer musicians’ strength, which is the true art’s stronghold, the salvation at its purest, always trying to shake and kick hard from every part of Italy.
Music Bugle – What are the bands that influenced your sounds the most in these early years of the band?
Dave – This one’s important to us. We’re deeply influenced by the early 70s tunes from the late swinging London sound: Led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck, Black Sabbath, Arthur Brown and TRex.
Music Bugle – Do you get any influence from Italian rock bands at all? Can you name some good ones to check out?
Dave – It’s quite hard to us because our hands are always digging through the 70s LP boxes. We are more interested in what happened several years ago, so we feel quite selective about what we listen to. Here in this country, we’re kind of underexposed to any “avant-garde” projects, with a few exceptions, like Area, for example.
Music Bugle – Your most recent singles “Scallywag” and “Goodnight” are very different from one another. Which one represents your sound best? What is your most favorite thing about them?
Dave – Nowadays, we feel closer to “Goodnight,” which is darker and deeper. No explanation about it. It is a fact and we take this as it is. One interesting thing about this last single is that we recorded it during the making of the video, so what you listen to is the very first take we’ve ever done to get it on tape.
Music Bugle – Are you working on new material? What is your songwriting process?
Dave – We’re about to record our second LP in September, then we’re going to choose our path, in hopes to do our best for this next work. We’re musicians first of all, so we’re used to composing music before writing lyrics. Most of these were written by me. They are not a collective effort among the band members.
Music Bugle – Who are you listening to right now, music-wise?
Dave – Capt. Beefheart.
Music Bugle – How have you been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic? Is it hard to plan and work on a release now that things are not yet fully resolved?
Dave – We’ve been living far apart since the pandemic started and then we’ve reached our rehearsals room as soon as the government let us move between internal borders. We might say that we’ve never stopped doing what we could to keep it rocking – two singles out and 10 songs to be recorded.
Music Bugle – What can we expect from your upcoming album?
Dave – Darker shades and a weird social lyric concept among the tracks.
Music Bugle – Do you feel any pressure to make music that people might enjoy or do you feel free to explore your creativity?
Dave – We’ve never felt a loss in creativity. We’ve always been trying to celebrate our spontaneous way to generate our kind of art, so we still don’t care that much about other people’s judgment. We feel very free.
Music Bugle – What do you hope for from the rest of 2021?
Dave – Freedom for everyone to be up to express themselves in any possible way and to find the true life values after this pandemic. We hope to see people from all over the world make choices they weren’t making before this worldwide disaster: “Is there enough rock in my life? Should I run to buy the next show ticket?”
