Arya Has Discussion on New Album and Further Planning in the Works!

Progressive experimental metal rockers ARYA have an all new album out this fall! With that they have gone into discussion to say much about this release and some bit on themselves as well as their future plannings!


1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.

Hi! I’m Luca Pasini, I play guitar and do backing vocals for the prog/noise/post/gaze/whatever band Arya, which at the moment also features Simone Succi on guitar and vocals and Alessandro Crociati on drums. Arya was born from an EP that I had composed recorded on my own, that later became our debut album In Distant Oceans. I met Simone at a lecture in the music school we both used to attend, I sent him the songs and asked him if he wanted to make music with me, while Ale was the drummer of our very first band when we were just teenagers, and he joined the band later.  The history of the band has been really troubled, with many line-up changes and really tragic turns of events, but despite that (but probably even thanks to that) we’ve managed to release four albums and an EP since 2015, touching many different genres of music. We’ve played shows in many regions of Italy, as well as Switzerland, Austria and the San Marino Republic.

2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?

When we formed for the first time as a full band and were looking for a name, I was studying for an Asian Philosophies exam at the university. I came across the Sanskrit word Arya, which is adjective that means “noble”, “aristocratic”, but is also a short and good sounding word that doesn’t imply any specific genre for our music, and didn’t seemed to be already taken by someone else. However, because of many businesses in any field being named Arya, as well as a character from Game Of Thrones, we quickly added “Italy” to most of our social media pages to make us easier to find.

3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?

We’re based in Rimini, a city on the East coast of Italy that’s quite famous internationally as a seaside resort. However all in all the music scene here is quite small, we pretty much all know each other. There aren’t many good venues that host live concerts because, and this is the main problem, there isn’t really a big dedicated audience interested in underground bands and music outside the mainstream, so we usually always end up playing in front of the same friends. We however tried to move a little around Italy and also abroad, and we had some really good experiences. For example we recently performed in Rome, where I’m studying and living (part-time), and we had a great time.
That said there are some really good bands around Rimini, like Solaris (noise rock), Built-In Obsolescence and Invasion Incorporated (progressive metal).

4. How would you describe your style?

Well, it’s hard: there’s for sure some metal in it, from modern progressive or djent to sludge, hardcore and even some black influences; however there’s also quite a lot of alternative and noise rock and shoegaze, and many jazz influences especially in harmony and rhythm patterns. Most of the people who reviewed our music on blogs have said that we sound very unique and different from anyone else, which is for sure a good thing and it’s mostly intentional, but it’s also a big problem preventing us to get more exposure, especially in this era where playlisting is becoming more important, as you really have to clearly fit into the criteria of a specific style to be included on most playlists and gain more followers on streaming services. Our music has always been many different things at the same time, so it makes fans of most genres feel equally lost and out of place.

5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?

I have to say we’ve released quite a lot of music since we started: in October we’ll officially publish our fourth full length album, called For Ever, but most of the song are already being uploaded on our Youtube channel in advance. This means there have already been three other albums: In Distant Oceans from 2015, Dreamwars from 2017 and Endesires from 2018, but we also released an EP called Zero in 2019, which was composed and recorded together with our upcoming album, but has a totally different style and vibe than our other mainly rock and metal oriented releases.
The main reason why we’ve been able to compose, record and release so much music during these years is that, since the beginning of the band, we always handled the production, recording and release process of our music ourselves: besides obviously avoiding spending money to pay someone else to record us, for me and Simone Arya has been the main vehicle to learn how to be better producers and engineers and to experiment with new recording and mixing techniques. Hopefully the quality of the music has gotten a lot better with time. In addition to that, being able to find stable members has always been a big problem for us; when someone new has joined, we’ve usually tried to quickly compose something new together, in order to perform something that could represent the taste and influences of all band members, and to have a record that each one could call his/her own. Nevertheless, the line-up often changed even faster than our releases.

6. Do you have any new music in the works?

We always have! However, as we’re releasing a new album in October and we’ve already accumulated quite a big discography, we have really no need to rush the composing process: we wouldn’t like to repeat ourselves and we’d like to take some time to find new ideas and new stories to tell.

7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?

Well, we’re living in a very difficult historical moment, so for us it’s difficult to plan anything related to live concerts. Italy is, at least at the moment, in a relatively better situation regarding the pandemic than most other European countries, and we have already played live once since the end of lockdown, even if it was a really special occasion with a seated audience and all the safety requirements. Some other live events have started to appear again as well, but I don’t think it would be a good moment to start looking for events ourselves. We should do at least a festival next year, meanwhile we’ll wait and see, and we’ll also try to find a full, stable and dedicated lineup.

8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?

Surviving in this horrible world could already be considered a big achievement! That said, making memorable music, having a good time together, finding a way to play live again, maybe even touring abroad once again would be wonderful. But I’m aware these are difficult times for all of us, and thinking about the future is more difficult than ever.

9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?

We’re pretty much on every streaming platform like Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/4WfuNd1szecUkB9alBgTdK), but we also have a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/aryaitaly). If you want to support us financially, the best place to buy our music and merch is on Bandcamp, at https://werearya.bandcamp.com.  If you want, it would be great if you followed the band on Instagram or Facebook at @werearya.

10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?

I’d really like to move people that listen to our music in some way, make them feel an emotion, inspire them to create something of their own or to make their life and the world better. I’ve always considered music as some kind of catharsis, a way to tell the world who I am and ask for forgiveness and understanding in a desperate attempt to feel at peace with it and everyone: this is even more true for our new album For Ever, that was created in the aftermath of a really dark moment our lives and is really personal for us. Those events probably also established that all my expectations stated above, about music making the lives of me and the people around me better, are complete nonsense, but we had to make the album anyway.