Interview @ ROCKWAY

1) Though you started at an early age, your passion for music led you, after good reviews and good live performances, to your first Ep. Was the creation of a professional group your purpose from the beginning? Do you believe that it was just luck? How difficult was it to change three different drummers?

TOMMY: At the beginning, it was just a game. You know, we were 13 years old, we wanted to be rockstars like every kid wants to be a football player or an astronaut….I wanted to be a football player until I heard at the age of 13 “It’s My Life” by “Bon Jovi” that summer, so we just started to play this new game.

I do believe that luck is essential in life, but we weren’t special kids who played Steve Vai at 15 years old. I sucked, but I just wanted to sing, so I spend years (starting from 0) studying music. I think we’d be lucky if we were born in Usa or Sweden, where Rock is still on the run and we wouldn’t have had English language problems.

It was hard to change lots of times drummer, cause it means starting all over again with the songs and you need time and we had no time when we had to record the Ep in Germany. Fortunatelly, Matt, who is a long time friend and one of the best young hard rock drummers in Italy, helped us soon with the Ep and then joined us (finally) as our official drummer!

2) How did you feel when you had a proposal from the German producer Heiko Hinze, who had already cooperated with the famous “Motley Crue”, “Metal Church” and "Tom Jones”, to write your first Ep at Munich?

TOMMY: We finally felt lucky! It was a real surprise, because we didn’t send him a demo or anything asking for a production. It was Heiko who found us on myspace. He heard the demo and write a message to us: “Cool”!

The DOC: Very excited from the beginning! We immediately accepted.
It has been a great experience to work with a real professional like him.
Surely, he helped us make a great work and he has emerged the best from everyone of us!

3) After your first EP was released on the 15-th of January, 2009, you went to Switzerland and Spain and you appeared on stage with “Faster PussyCat” and “Bang Tango”. Which is your experience from these performances? Do you believe that a band has to perform with famous musicians only or they can make it on their own, too or, at least, with less perfect cooperations?

TOMMY: I think that the most important thing for a young band is to create a “fan base”, the people who buy your CDs, T-shirts, hear the songs on myspace and most of all COME TO SEE YOUR SHOWS! Then, going on tour with famous bands is a great way to show your music to people that still don’t know your band. When we were in Spain with “Faster PussyCat”, we got thousands of views on our myspace page, we reached people that didn’t know “Knyght”, but now they do! They are our new friends, new fans!

With the “Faster PussyCat” and the “Bang Tango” was a last minute chance for us. We caught it soon, even if they were the days we had no drummer. Matt joined us once again and without (really) any hours of rehearsal we hit the road. It was a great choice, we had great time and a lot of fun, even if it’s not so easy, we lived for a week in our little tour bus!

The DOC: Playing with great bands like these, it’s a very big help: you catch suggestions, tricks and experience that can be very useful….

4) You have some reviews that your music is neither totally AOR nor melodic hard rock. Personally, what's the title that you would give to the music of your first EP? In which kind of music would you include the way you play?

When we write a song we don’t pay attention on what style of music the song is. We’re working on this, we see if the song is good or not and what we can do to make it sounds better and modern.

I don’t want an album that sounds all the same from the first track to the last one. Each song is different.

In the Ep we got: The happy rock start “Goin Anywhere”, the pop/rock midtempo “Heaven or Hell”, the classic power ballad “A Million Times”, the rock n’ roll one with a bit of indie/garage “The Game of Love n’ Hate”, and the modern Hard Rock song which will last, “Shut Up”. This is something completely new for us.

The DOC: “Bet Everything” is a complex object: there is all the genres we like and all our influences. I think that this is its power and it shows that we are versatile as musicians.

5) Some people believed that because of your age, your success wasn’t sure, but you proved the opposite! Do you believe that one of the reasons was the good production, the company that you cooperated with, the promotion you did? What counts more for you, finally?

TOMMY: Thank you! Unfortunatelly, SUCCESS is still a big word for us…It’s a long way, but the little successes and satisfactions we get, came because we didn’t give up, we worked hard and our sacrifices have been paid.

What counts more? THE MONEY!

A good band with lots of money can make it, a good band with not money….has to work harder and pray for luck everyday.

6) Tommy, at the “Destination Unknown”, in 2007, some people say you look like Vince Neil at his early age. In general, do you believe that you are still influenced by your idols? Furthermore, you have many good reviews about Francesco, who plays keyboards. Everyone characterizes him as the melodic boy. Francesco, what’s your opinion about that?

TOMMY: Yeah of course! I’m still influenced by my idols (Vince Neil is not a really idol for me…).What I’m trying to do, is to listen as much music and different styles of music as I can so as to modernize my background.

The DOC: I’m the melodic boy! It’s true! I have a lot of melodic rock and AOR influences since when I was I child. I grew up listening to great keyboarders like Peterik or Giuffria and I always get inspired by the ‘80s melodic school…

Nothing’s better than a sweet piano sometimes!

7) Do you believe that as far as the vocals are considered, pronunciation should be perfect, too, like many people say or the voice itself is more important? You are from Italy and it’s reasonable that your pronunciation isn’t, for example the American pronunciation. Have you ever influenced by that?

TOMMY: As I told you before, unfortunatelly we weren’t born in the USA, the UK or in Sweden where people have no problem with the English language. In some places of Europe, like Italy, English is far from being a second language. So it’s hard to learn it well and harder to sing with a perfect pronunciation.

I know some people from the USA or the UK argue about my pronunciation. I know it’s still not good and perfect, but the only thing I can say is that I’m working on this, too!

8) In the old days, in the English language, the title of your name was written “knyght” and after that, it became “knight”. Basically, you call yourselves knights. Does this result from somewhere, from experiences you had, for example? Why did you choose the old writing of this word?

TOMMY: This is a big question that still doesn’t have an intelligent answer…

We didn’t know when we chose the name that “Knyght” means “Knight” in English. We wanted something that didn’t mean anything, so we took the word “Knight” and changed the “I” with “Y”, thinking that it would be something new….

We also wanted something easy for the people to remember and write, so I really don’t know what it came to our minds that day and why we chose “KNYGHT”, which is not so easy to remember or write. By the way, we’re attached to the name and we have never changed!

9) At each live performance, the poster that you print is different from the previous one and you have a big variety of photographs! Tommy, you told us that each time you would like to show something different to the world. Could you please explain it to us? Do you believe that the same thing applies to the music, too or someone has to be steady in what expresses himself?

TOMMY: I love music and want to be a musician, because I don’t want to have an “everyday is the same work”. When we go on stage, we play what and how we feel in that moment, even if we could play the same setlist every night, our shows wouldn’t be the same. I can be sad, happy, hungry and my feeling reflects on my performance.

We’re not a Britney Spear ‘s show, a super show with the super effects, where each step and dance is studied before and every night they do always the same…

10) At your appearances, we can make out that your clothing is clearly influenced by the older days, musicians and many people compare you to “Bon Jovi”. Do you appear on stage like that because you would like to keep this style?

TOMMY: Of course, there is a big influence by “Bon Jovi” and classic rock, but nowadays we realized that those days are passed, so we’re trying nowadays to modernize “Knyght”. Everything, from the songs to the look…

The DOC: Now we are determinate to leave our ‘80’s style. You can see it already on our Ep, which is more modern than our past demos You will listen more on the new songs we are working on.

11) You are very alive on stage and you seem that you are never tired! How do you feel after each live performance? In addition, you sing arrangements from other artists. Do you believe that this is necessary, as you have already had your own lyrics and music?

The DOC: After a live performance we are a mix of tiredness and adrenaline!
And… we feel a big need of fun! We like having parties…

TOMMY: All that I want is to be on the stage to play, so everytime I’m on a stage I don’t care if there’re 1.000 or 10 people watching me. I don’t care if I’m fine or ill that day. I do whatever it takes and whatever I’d like to do to make a great show and let people enjoy the band and have a great time.

After the performance, I might be tired but happy if the show went well, something which means it was worth the cost…

Or, sometimes, the show could be not good. In this case, it would be better for you not to talk to me for a while…

Play covers from other bands is a way to break the setlist and let people take a breath from your songs. So, we let them listen to something they already know so that they can sing with us, too. We usually do a couple of covers during our shows.

12) Are the titles and the lyrics of your songs influenced by your everyday life, from experiences you had in the past? Do you believe in Love or you think it’s difficult for someone to have this feeling nowadays (from your song “The game of Love and Hate”)? You have had many performances, as we mentioned before. Which are your next plans and where would you like to appear more? Could you tell us with whom and why?

TOMMY: Our lyrics are influenced 100% by our everyday life, we talk about our life, our experiences, our thoughts, our beliefs. Some people don’t think that lyrics are important, but I think lyrics are so important! I can’t sing anything without any sense, I always believe in what I say and sing.

“Love it’s only a feeling” sang “The Darkness”. Yes, it’s only a feeling, like Hate. “The Game of Love n’ Hate” talks about how much these two feelings, sometimes, can be so close…

The DOC: We all believe in love even if it’s surely difficult to have a real love and a real relationship nowadays, even harder than writing a successful EP!

TOMMY: Next plans: Don’t give up, keep on the promotion of “Bet Everything” for all the year. We are writing new songs (we already have some new stuff) for a new project in the future.

We also hope to go another time in tour in Europe with a famous band after the summer. We’re working on it and we have already got some offer, but we can’t say anything until it is official.

It’d be cool to appear in some big festivals, but it’s hard. You got to have the right contacts and money, of course!

The DOC: We thank Marina and Rockway for this interview and to all our (if there’s any…) Greek fans! Stay tuned on www.myspace.com/knyghtband and Keep on Rockin!

Thank you, Knyghts! Good job!

Good Luck and do what you always wish and feel!

Best,

Marina Veneka for www.rockway.gr

original version: http://www.rockway.gr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=325:4bitten&catid=47:2008-12-24-07-30-07&Itemid=65