CRIPPLE BASTARDS “Frammenti di Vita” Out Now, Giulio the Bastard speaks!
Fresh off a glorious Italian rampage with WEHRMACHT, CRIPPLE BASTARDS have officially released “Frammenti Di Vita” as CD album of TVOR and FOAD Records. The album was presented nationally during the tour with WEHRMACHT and the response was, as always, quite overwhelming. The press already released positive comments, stating that “Cripple Bastards (…) made a GREAT tribute album, because, even if playing in a recognizable way, they remained stuck to the original songs, playing a faithful and humble tribute to the great bands of Italian past“.
You can order a copy of the album directly from FOAD Records clicking here
We decided to talk more about this project asking a few questions to Giulio the Bastard, the mastermind behind CRIPPLE BASTARDS for the past grinding, furious, nihilistic 20 years… this should clarify some of the doubts and major questions the fans had about “Frammenti Di Vita”…
How did the idea for a “Frammenti Di Vita” follow up came about?
Giulio the Bastard– It’s since the mid ’90s that we had a “Frammenti di vita” EP follow-up recording in mind, both because the experience with the first EP was very entertaining and immediately got a really good feedback, and also because being it a 7″EP we had to leave out a lot of great bands that we wanted to cover really badly and deserved to be part of it. I had a 17 song track list written down that had to be the 2nd chapter of F.D.V., but as you know CRIPPLE BASTARDS passed through tons of line-up changes in the 90s, so this plan was always delayed and ultimately became not prioritized. 16 years in the making is a very long time, but for many reasons I think this was the right time for us to do this follow-up… we might be a slow band when bringing our projects to light, but who cares after all..
Is there a criterion in the bands selected? The divide between classic Italian hardcore and thrash metal is quite bold… don’t you think these bands ideologically do not fit together too well??
Giulio the Bastard- Most songs to cover were selected by me and Schintu the Wretched as we both grew up listening and enjoying this kind of bands, and especially in my case, I have also seen many of them on stage when I was a kid. For me the criterion was simply to choose a band or a specific song that had left a deep impact, a mark in my musical counterculture, or simply inspired feelings that I can recall thinking about a sentence in the their lyrics or whatever.. the other CB members have played the role of moderators in my choice; the songs had anyway to be fitting to our current style and tuning, and didn’t have to sound too dull or uninspiring if covered our way. It was a pain in the ass to discard Disper-Azione, Kollettivo, Rappresaglia and some other superclassic bands, but they wouldn’t have sounded spontaneous and equally powerful in such an album. Consider that most of those songs back in the hey-day were so great because of their rawness and instinct, or even thanks to the poor quality recording that made them sound so outstanding and rageful… once you dissect them and try to re-play them with a structure, following a beat etc, they can easily lose the original magic that made them so aggressive and fresh. In some case we had to put them aside. Many may wonder why we didn’t cover Peggio Punx, Crash Box or CCM.. well, the first because I have never been a big fan of their music (even if I live in their same town), the second because they were too melodic to be covered by CRIPPLE BASTARDS, and the third because when we asked to the singer for the lyrics of the song we wanted to cover he told us to go to hell for no reason, not even knowing us in person… you know, probably once you have a reputation for being tough and unfriendly, you probably have to stick to it forever, otherwise people may think that you’re getting too old and losing ground. Anyways, I regret that in the rush of recording this album in time for the shows with Wehrmacht we had not enough time to practice and include also covers of Incinerator, Bloody Anger and Social Mayhem. As for the last part of your question – who cares if the bands don’t match too well ideologically, this is simply the kind of music with which we have grown up and that rooted CB‘s musical extremity. In some ways all of these bands were aggressive, intense and unique… that’s what only counts for us.
- Giulio the Bastard – Taking Care of Grind
Why did you include some of your own songs into the album?
Because they are the most classic songs in our discography and sound like the perfect link between the heritage left by those bands in those furious years and the filthy grindcore mayhem that CRIPPLE BASTARDS introduced into Italy a few years later… Our aim in the early years was to mix furious HC the Italian way with basic old school Grindcore, and those 2 tracks are the best expression of that original idea.
There will be much more coming soon for CRIPPLE BASTARDS, so stay tuned and place your orders, since “Frammenti Di Vita” is going pretty fast… meanwhile, check out a picture gallery of the recent WEHRMACHT/CRIPPLE BASTARDS tour clicking here.
