Onioroshi - interview - White Room Reviews

Leestijd: 4 minuten

Het was een opvallende release die op de redactie kwam, Shrine van het Italiaanse Onioroshi. De langspeler van drie tracks bleek erg fijn in het gehoor te liggen, waardoor de ruime speelduur om was voordat men er erg in had. Dat was een mooie aanleiding voor een interview met Onioroshi.

Het interview met deze Italianen, afgenomen in het Engels, ging onder andere over de naam Onioroshi en over hun muziek. De plaat is overigens uitgekomen via het uit Frankrijk afkomstige label Bitume. Check hieronder het interview.

Het interview met Onioroshi

WRR: ‘First, please introduce Onioroshi, because not everyone is familiar with you and the name doesn’t sound very Italian?’

ON: ‘We are a three men band (guitar, bass and drums) from Cervia (Ravenna Province, Italy). We don’t really like to put genre labels on our music, but to give you an idea, we play something you might call heavy-psych or progressive post-rock. The band was formed in 2018, our second album “Shrine” is out now for Bitume Productions (France).’

‘And about our name, you are right: Onioroshi is actually a Japanese word for a specific type of grater with sharp wooden teeth. They called it like that because they thought that it resembled the teeth of an “Oni”, which is a demon, or yokai, from traditional Japanese folklore. You know the scary, furious faces which Samurai often have depicted on their helms? It was to convey the idea that they were fierce and possibly pitiless as much as these otherworldly orc-like creatures. When we created this band we were trying to connect with our most inner demons and desires, and we chose the Onioroshi, this devil-teeth grater, as our symbolic rod to achieve it. Oh it’s great for grating radish by the way.’

Influences

WRR: ‘Shrine contains a lot of influences from like My Sleeping Karma to Tool, but what did you inspire to write those three songs?’

ON: ‘We never look for something specific. We meet, we play, we record our jams. At some point we are like “Ok that thing was actually very good” and we play it again. Just repeat that until the album is done. It’s not like we were precisely inspired by something, it’s just what lies in our head which eventually comes out. All the music we listen to has a role in this, but there wasn’t a band or genre in particular which inspired this record.’

Lenght

WRR: ‘Your songs are very long. What made you write songs this way?’

ON: ‘It didn’t feel like they could have been shorter when we were composing them, like something was still missing and we had to bring that idea to its peak. But there’s a lot of reasons: long tracks are way more powerful in a show, they have a way of dragging you into the realm of the unknown which no three-minute hit can achieve. And it’s also about the world we live in. Everyone is obsessed with speed, everything has to be easy, fast, clear, simple. But life isn’t simple, the universe is not simple. Keep feeding that glorification of superficiality, and eventually you’ll end up completely brainwashed, a mere number on a screen, not a human. Truth, meaning and love lie somewhere else: if you want to go deeper, you need more time and concentration.’

Cervia and future

WRR: ‘What brings Cervia and Italy to your music?’

ON: ‘Not a lot really, it’s just the place we live in. If this album was a dream, you might say we were sleeping in Cervia while we dreamt it. Is it relevant? Maybe, but it probably could have happened anywhere else. Don’t get me wrong, we have nothing against our city and country, or at least every band member has his own opinion about this topic. It’s just not that relevant to our music in terms of themes and influences.’

WRR: ‘What are the plans for Onioroshi now Shrine is released?’

ON: ‘We want to play it on stages as much as we can, possibly around Europe. We chose a French label to begin reaching out of Italy in the first place, and we are currently looking for a booking agency which fits our needs. Then one day we’ll make another one, maybe sooner than you’d expect.’