Interview with Aura

Aura are a very talented progressive hard rock/metal band. I recently reviewed the impressive album "Deliverance" and had the pleasure of interviewing them as well.

MM-Tell us a little about the history of your band.

We’re from Sapri (Sa) and we formed the band in 1996 because we wanted to give vent to our creativity.We have made four demos and we went from the old paper fanzines to the modern webzines with no difficulty and we signed a contract for our first album in 2008.We did a lot of live gigs either in small venues and in more important festivals, in example the l'Agglutination Metal Festival, the I-tim tour and The battle of metal bands.


MM-Tell us about your new album “Deliverance”.

Our new album “Deliverance” came out on April, 15.It’s a concept album where the protagonist talks about a dream wherein he lives the sorrows of the Israeli people during a journey to Palestine.It’s not simply a spatial trip, but mostly an intimate journey to reach his own final redemption.
We tried to be more direct and concretes than in our former record and we gave more space to the melody and to a more mature songwriting.


MM-What are some of your favorite songs off the album and what do you like about them?

We think that Deliverance is beautiful as a whole because the tracks are connected among them musically and also lyrically,so we don’t have a favourite song.


MM-What has been the response from fans and critics to “Deliverance” so far?

Every review has been positive until now,and that’s really unexpected, we are really curious about next ones.


MM-Who did the cover art for “Deliverance”?

The artwork has been done by a Chilean artist, Claudio Bergamin, who worked with us in the past.


MM-What would be your answer to someone who asked “why should I buy your album”?

First of all, to buy all album means to help music and this is a general discourse especially today when bands are no longer promoted. Then, we’d like you to buy our album because it’s delighting and interesting and done by heart; so if you want, you can buy it so that your money will be spent to make new music.


MM-What is the music like where you live?

Easy to ansie:there’s none!


MM-What bands have you shared a stage with?

During past years we played with some famous italian metal bands. Some days ago we played with DGM in Rome, in the past we played with Athena and Fabio Lione was the singer,also with Glacial Fear,or with Le Vibrazione,which are a pop band famous in Italy.



MM-Who would you love to share a stage with?

Whoever from the rock of the seventies.


MM-Do you have many shows lined up for the upcoming months?

We don’t have many because we don’t have enough money to throw into the hands of a profiteer…ahahahaha you see, my dear foreign friend, promoters do gain on the concept of “tour support” and I could give you their names if there was a great echo.


MM-Are there any great unsigned bands in your area that you would like to mention?

There were many in the past but most of them gave up because they didn’t receive the right support from Italian labels, most of them have even been used by labels.


MM-As a band what would you say are your greatest strengths?

Our strenght is honesty. We just want to express ourselves with music,that’s fundamental for a band,every other thing is secondary.


MM-As a band in what areas do you think that you need or would like to improve upon?

If you’re not critic with yourself you can’t grow .We have read what they wrote about our two albums and we’ve seen the differences . Obviously there’s a lot to do but we’d like to improve the sale of the album…ahahahah.

MM-What are some of the best albums that you have heard so far in 2011?

We didn’t have the time to listen to new music because we spent all our time working at the cd. Then again music is not a competition so there aren’t best and worst ones.

MM-Pick the band from each of the following pairs that you prefer and tell why you picked them.


Porcupine Tree or Spock’s Beard
Rush or Yes
Dream Theater or Queensryche

Rush or Yes with no doubt, because they have given a lot more to music than other bands.


MM-Is there anything else that you would like to say about your band, your music or anything else?

We want to thank you for the space and time you’ve given us and we’d like to invete your readers to visit our page "www.auraprog.it". There are all the links to our social networks’ pages and the link so buy our cd if they’re interested.

Aura on Myspace.
http://www.myspace.com/auraonline


My review of their album Deliverance.
http://metalmark.blogspot.com/2011/03/aura-deliverance.html