Interview:


Although the band's name may lead you to think you're dealing with an Italian band, Omicida are actually from the city of angels, Los Angeles. After a successful debut album, Certain Death, released in 2015, the band is now gearing up for the followup opus. Let's find out more.

Your band name and track titles are all somehow related to social themes, right? What do you want to express through your music and lyrics? Is the band just a valve for your anger, or do you have a certain message, too?
The band name itself means "Killer" and it is not necessarily linked to our message in our music. I said "not necessarily" because in our next album there will be actually our self titled track "Omicida". But besides that it would not be linked to our music. So far our lyrics have been a balance between today's social \ political issues and darker topics closer to the evil sides of our lives.
We really enjoy doing what we do with our music stylistically speaking. I would not say that anger is the predominant aspect in our creative process, but definitely helps. I guess lyrics are coming out of a certain darker view we have of our present and future.

How far off am I if I say you're heavily influenced by Slayer? What (other) bands influenced your music the most and how would you characterize it, how would you "sell" it to someone who never heard of Omicida?
Not that far at all. For sure one, if not the biggest influence on our sound. I mean we did not try to come up with a recipe of bands and sounds we wanted to emulate to "sound good". We just felt in the right spot mixing all our influences and this is the one sound we got. We all have different metal backgrounds but I guess other influences definitely could be Kreator, Overkill, Testament just to name a few. What we came up with is a mix of thrash with balck hints here and there. The new album that will be out in Summer 2018 will be a great example of our development \ growth in sound and techinque.

You've all played or still play in other bands, too, from Heavy Metal to Doom to Death, it's like you enjoy Metal in all its forms, right? Then what's the place of Thrash Metal in your hearts? Do you feel like the band has a real chance to "succeed"? And talking about this, how do you value success in this area?
As I said earlier, yes we do have different metal backgrounds but we all love what we do. This whole thing started at the very beginning with Giovanni (the drummer) wanting to play thrash metal. And so this whole project started with the first release of our EP "Certain Death". We really do not know what will happen to us in terms of making it or not with our band. Especially in this nowadays tough metal industry. But definitely we do this because we love it. It is before anything else a project we really love and do it for the music. Everything else comes second. The moment you play and create music just to go after success, you lose the true beauty and feel of music. We are anyway working hard especially for our next release of our debut full lenght to make this band a working one. Hopefully it will happen. If not, we will be still proud of our efforts and keep making music.

On your debut and so far only album you used falsetto vocals (a la King Diamond), too. Will you use them again on future releases? Was the vocalist replaced before or after the recording of Certain Death?
Unfortunately we could not record again vocals on "Certain Death". Giovanni, our vocalist (there are two Giovanni in the band just in case people are getting confused with that), came on later and just re-recorded the single "Disobey" for our video release. He is a great singer and great fit for the band. Yes, in our next release this Summer 2018 there will be more room for him to explore more with his vocal range.

After the debut album you released 2 singles. So are you close to recording a new album yet? What would it sound like, what would be the main differences between it and your debut opus? Any tentative release date?
Our debut full lenght has been recorded already and being mixed as we speak by the one and only Ralph Patlan (Megadeth, Flotsam and Jetsam, Bonded by Blood, Michael Schenker to name a few he worked with). Our plan is to release it next Summer 2018. The date will be released soon early next year. With this album we did explore more into a blackish sound but still maintaining thrash metal the core of our music. It will be an interesting new relaese for sure. "Certain Death" was our first try and experiment. With the new album we definitely matured and developed more our thrash origins and brought to life even more our black metal influences.

As far as I know Certain Death was released only in digital format. Do you plan on release it on physical format, too, or do you feel like the physical material age is gone by now?
Not at all! "Certain Death" is ALSO on physical!!! You can actually buy that on our website www.omicidaofficial.com where you will find links to both digital and physical copies.
On the other hand though with our new album we will not release CDs but instead we are planning only on printing vinyls copies of it along with a digital release. CDs are getting obsolete nowadays. Nobody is buying those anymore, while vinyls sales have been increasing exponentially in the past few years.

December 2017


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