hey guys,
we are so happy to let you know that , as a result from our SXSW showcase and US trip, we are featured in one of the most important music magazines worldwide: Billboard!! We are featured in the SXSW Special that you will find in March 21st issue ( FLO RIDA on the cover ); there's an amazing article written by AYALA BEN-YEHUDA about the new wave of English Speaking acts from non English-Speaking countries. You should definitely buy the issue asap!

from "BILLBOARD MAGAZINE":
The Electric Diorama is on to something. A pop-punk wave is sweeping the
band's native Italy, and who better to blow up than a quintet of guys with
cute haircuts, infectious melodies and energetic guitar playing as tight as
their pants? Only one thing could derail their dreams of becoming the
Italian Interpol‹the band sings in English.

Signed to the Rome indie Nerdsound and distributed in the United States by
Oceanside Records, the Electric Diorama decided not to pursue a relationship
with a major label in Italy when one such company asked the band to sing in
Italian, bassist Helio Di Nardo says. With 30 Seconds to Mars and Panic at
the Disco among the group's influences, Di Nardo says the choice to sing in
English was a natural one‹even if it meant struggling career-wise.

"Italian people don't speak English and they don't understand English so
they won't sing along unless they are big fans," Di Nardo writes in an
e-mail. "But I could never imagine our songs in Italian." Since childhood,
he and his bandmates have dreamed of performing in the States, the United
Kingdom and Japan. "Our biggest musical influences come from those countries
so we don't want to miss the chance to be able to spread our music to people
from all around the world," Di Nardo says.

The Electric Diorama is hardly the only band from a non-English-speaking
country approaching South by Southwest with that ethos. The Right Ons, the
Moog, the S.I.G.I.T. and the Black Box Revelation (who hail, respectively,
from Spain, Hungary, Indonesia and Belgium) are just some of the bands
playing SXSW that perform in English  (....................)

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Here you can find the full text of the interview:
1. Is it more difficult to sign to a big label or get on radio in Italy if
you don't sing in Italian?

Well, I would say that you are NOT going to sign with a big label if you
don't sing in Italian. We have really few exceptions , bands like Lacuna
Coil are now pretty famous worldwide but they really had to wait a while
before starting to sell a lot of copies of their record. Usually Italian people do not
get interested in Italian bands that don't sing in Italian , but if
those bands make a big hit abroad, then they can come back as the big
succesful artists and all the radio and tv start playing their music.
But now, we had a really massive dose of pop/punk Italian bands singin
in Italian, and this seems to be the trend of these past 2 years: so
there's a lot of people now getting closer to this genre but it's mostly
little kids and they're probably more enthusiast that the singer looks
cute than the music being good. So we happened to have contacts with
major label, but they started saying that wheter the band was awesome,
they would have need us to sing in Italian to break into the Italian
market. That's the reason why you won't see us on a major label now, or
never if nobody is going to accept that we won't sing in italian :)

2. How does it help your career to sing in English?

Well I guess that the only help given from the fact we are singin in
English is that the songs and the words actually sound good :) I could
never imagine our songs in Italian, I think our language won't fit with
the music, it's too different cause we have different accents on the
syllables and we felt very stupid when we tried to translate or to adapt
some Italian lyrics into our songs. So if on one hand we aren't having a
easy career in Italy because of that, the real PRO of singin in English
is that you can reach to everybody in the world. We had this dream to
travel and to bring our band and our music in as most places as
possible, when we all were kids we always dream to perform in foreign
countries and someday to have a show in USA or UK or Japan. All our
biggest musical influences come from those countries so we don't want to
miss the chance to be able to spread our music to people from all around
the world. That's why we believe so much in our project and, even if
sometimes it feels like taking the hard way, it always pays you back in
the end. Now we have a US release for our record on March 3rd for
Oceanside Records and we will be performing at SXSW in Austin and San
Antonio, I mean, just the fact we're taking a plane, going somewhere to
promote our album it's a payback. A big one :)

3. When the band was starting, how did you decide to sing in English?

You know, all the setting up process of the band was quit messy and
complicated. We didn't start as a real band, me and Francesco (
keyboards ) own a recording studio and we were writing some songs about
a very bad period of our lives. As we tracked the first 2 or 3 demos, we
thought we really had some good stuff and we thought it was worth to
take a shot and record it professionaly. So we called some talented
friends with whom we shared some experiences in the past and we called
Andrea ( singer ) , who was recording in our studio with his band cause
he seemed to be pretty in tune and to have a good voice. After we
recorded the first 4 songs, we got an indipendent record deal and
everything started to happen all of a sudden. That's why we didn't
really decide to sing in English, we just wrote those songs like this
and in 3 months, everything has changed and our career as a band
started. So we kept the English language and we tried to become
professionals :)

4. Do you think there is a limit on the level of albums or concerts a band
can sell in Italy, if they don't sing in Italian?

Well , there is a limit, I would say there is a huge limit. And if
anybody will ever tell you that it's because the business has a great
crisis, because only the kids are buying the albums and so on, well,
that's a lie. You will never make something good if you sing in English
because Italian people don't speak English and they don't understand
English so they won't sing along unless they are big fans. And this is
because we are one of the few European countries where people don't get
a proper education in English and where we don't have the possibility to
hear the language from any media: if you go to the cinema all the movies
have been translated and you will hear voices of Italian actors instead
of the original voice. If you do a statistic and ask how many people in
Italy have ever heard Tom Cruise's real voice, you will be amazed to
know that's about 10%. So in this kind of culture, that I personally
hate, it's normal that people , and with people I mean the big masses,
will consider you best if you sing in Italian, cause English is just a
bit more common then German or French, but most of the people, overall
over 30, don't really speak a word.