This is the second of our old hardcore interviews. Yann interviewed Mike on January 3th, 2004.

This is an interview with Mike from The Secret. A new and promising band from Italy. Here is what he has to say about the influences of the band, religion, myspace, and …light !

» Ok let’s do it in a traditionnal way first, please tell us who you are and what you’ve achieved so far in the music industry (records, old bands).
Well, my name is Mike and i play guitar with The Secret. Before doing this band i played with From the dying Sky and recorded an album with that band back in 2001. The Secret has a brand new album out right now on Goodfelllow Records, past and present label of great and inspiring bands like Cursed, Taken, Premonitions of War, Spitfire, Shogun, Disciple, Everytimeidie and many more.

» Why have you changed so drasticly your style of music since “From The Dying Sky”, how have you decided to do so?
I think it’s been something really natural, we never decided to change, we just did it. At a certain point of our lives we just found out that we needed to start something new and to bury our past behing our backs. We were pretty sick of the style we played and we wanted to play something different and new. With the secret we just decided not to be confined in a certain style and to play something that sounded more stimulating for us.

» I’ve never seen The Secret playing live over here, but your shows seem pretty chaotic, do you have one particularly funny story to tell us about that ?
Unfortunately we have a lot of problems with our equipment but we’ve been lucky enough not to be really injured after a show. Our singer has been hit a million times but our guitars have been damaged more than his physical health eheheh.

» Many people call you the European “Norma Jean”, how do you feel about that?
NJ is a great band but i really don’t find so many similarities between us and them. We play the same style of music but i think there is a whole different approach in writing our music, anyway it’s good to be compared to such a good band. It’s weird cause no one made this comparison outside Europe.

» How have you been contacted by the Canadian label “Goodfellow”, how does it feel to release a cd on the other side of the planet?
We came in contact with GF just sending a promo CD with 3 songs. Being part of Goodfellow Records make us very proud cause as i already said, they discovered many talented and inspiring bands back in the days and they’re still releasing great music now. Next releases will be absolutely great so be sure to check out the next Cursed and Purity’s Failure records. It’s very hard for European band to get attention from American labels and this make us even prouder. We’re very very satisfied about the unexpected feedback we’re having there so we’re probably gonna tour Us and Canada next summer.

» The Italian scene is well known for politically and ethically (sxe, vegan, …) involved bands, are you involved in politics,sxe, vegan, animal liberation organisations? Do you try to spread any particular message with The Secret?
We’re not a political band, anyway all of us are vegan/vegetarian and sxe and we all have our own political and ethical beliefs. We just prefer to keep those things out of the band and to focus everything on being creative.

» You guys are on Myspace (www.myspace.com/thesecret), what do you think of this kind of website?
I think it’s a great way to promote our band and to spread the word about us, beside that i don’t really like to spend a lot of time on those kind of websites. It’s cool cause you can communicate very easily with a lot of people around the world but i’m very busy so i don’t have a lot of time to spend on it. It’s weird cause all the girls on that website look like models ahaha.

» I’ve read that some of you are christians, what do you think about bands spreading christian messages in their lyrics? What do you think about christian label only for christian bands?
Yes, some of us are christians but it’s not something related to the band. It’s something very personal that has really nothing to do with the music so we’re not really trying to spread the word about it, it’s just something personal we try to keep out of the band. Some people find some religious meaning behind our lyrics but it’s not intention to talk about it in our songs. Personally i respect those kind of bands even if i’m not absolutely interested about being in a ministry band or something like that. I like my music to be for everyone who wants to listen to it so i don’t really think it’s intelligent to focus your music on a specific target or any other kind of limitation like that.

» Pick one: Dillinger Escape Plan or Norma Jean? And please, explain us your choice.
I really love both bands but maybe i’d choose DEP because of their impact on the heavy music world of the last 5 years. They came out with something very new and fresh and it’s something i really appreciate and respect. I don’t like all their material and maybe i prefer listening to norma jean but NJ has not been so influential. 2 great bands.

» Why the name “Luce” for your album?
After composing and recording LUCE we noticed that the word “light” (luce means light in italian) is mentioned in a lot of our songs. We thought that calling a record LUCE would have been a huge contrast with our music which is very dark. We really liked that idea and Luce sounded much better than “light” so we just decided to go for it.

» Is there any chance you could reveal us what “the secret” is hahaha?
ahahaha no way! :)

» Any last word or commercial message?
Thanx a lot for your interest about The Secret, please check out our website www.weknowthesecret.com and www.goodfellowrecords.com for some of the best heavy music around now. Bye!

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