Francesco Lattes

New Disorder

Italian Metal is a reality on worldwide scene, because from old Metal genres to the new ones, from the most melodic Metal form you can think of to the ultimate brutal Death Metal, you can find bands there. And NEW DISORDER is another very good name from there. Coming from Rome, the quintet unleashes its fury with a strong, heavy and modern Metalcore, and their latest album, "Mind Pollution", is a mighty blow in the ears. The prolific "Metal Mark" Marcos Garcia recently had the opportunity to talk with them, so past, present and future of the band is shown on these words.

By "Metal Mark" Garcia

• November 10, 2019

Francesco Lattes - New Disorder interview

First of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity. As the first question, how about telling us about NEW DISORDER's history? How did you start the band, the prior musical ideas, and all the things back on those days?

ND: Thank YOU for the interest and for the amazing introduction of the band! Ten years ago the former members's main goal was to create something "different", coming from their own personal music tastes as well as the variety of their previous experiences. We must say that the singer Francesco Lattes is the only former member who's still in the current line-up, so the band's style and sound has changed year by year, but still have that kind of strange taste thanks to the "contamination" that new members have put in it.

When reading your biography on the band's site, it's said that the band was formed back on 2009, but the first release was "Dissociety", of 2013. Actually, it's hard to see a band waiting four years to record an album, so is there a reason for waiting for so long?

ND: Well, we had to spend time to find the right partnership to release our debut album (laughing). Anyway, we have to say that we released a couple of EPs before that: "Hollywood burns" (2010) - Wynona Records and "Total Brain Format"(2011) – self produced. Some tracks from these 2 EPs have been re-arranged and become part of the tracklist of the first album "Dissociety" and the second one "Straight to the pain".

Still talking about the past, how do you compare your albums one to the other? Is there something that you feel that is interesting to point between "Dissociety" (2013), "Straight to the Pain" (2015), "Deception" (2017) and "Mind Pollution" (2019)?

ND: The band's style evolved through years since the very first record. The path we walked was a kind of natural consequence of the line-up changes but also the evolution of music tastes and the will to make new sound experiences of each band's member. We do believe this can make a continuous improvement and make the band "alive" in a fast changing music scene. Our latest album, for example, mixes a good amount of electronics with typical modern metal guitars and drumming like we've never done before. And it seems our fans, media and press are enjoying the freshness of the overall sound.

Now let's talk about "Mind Pollution", your latest album. The question is simple: what is the idea or concept about the album's name?

ND: The concept behind the album is about any kind of addiction: to alcohol, drugs, job, people, relationships, etc. Anyone can decide to go on with it, destroying himself/herself or just fight and come through it.

On "Mind Pollution", beside modern Metal genres usually have a "greasy" aggressive sound, your choice resided on sound quality that is modern and shows your musical aggressiveness, but it's clean in a way that everything can be deeply understood. Who produced the album, and how things worked on studio? This sound quality was something planned by you, or it came as the recording sessions were happening?

ND: With "Mind Pollution" we have been totally involved in the sound building since the very beginning of the recording sessions. We can easily say that this album has exactly the sound we had in mind before starting the production, thanks to the great work of a young but very professional producer (Antonio Aronne) who followed step by step from recording sessions to final mixes. Mastering process has been made by a real "master" of modern metal productions: Kuan Chang Chiu from Strong Tones Studio (Taiwan).

Hearing "Mind Pollution" carefully, it's easy to hear that the melodic side of your music is evident. It's subjective feature for some, but it's clear for those who are into music. It's something intentional or it bloomed in a spontaneous way?

ND: We do love writing and performing songs with a good mix of melody and aggressiveness. Maybe our "melodic" taste comes from our Italian roots, but still we are a metal band and we like to put energy in our music. So, this is surely a natural "duality" of our way to make music.

The songs "Riot", "News From Hell", "Mind Pollution" and "Room With A View" were used as promotional videos for the album. The question is simple: Why did these songs were the chosen ones? Was it a choice from the band, from your label, or was the choice an agreement between both parts?

ND: After an agreement with our label, we decided to make videos for the most representative songs of the album in terms of sound and lyrics, with the effort to provide an experience of the whole album. In a second time, we also released a couple of official live videos ("W.T.F. – Spreading Hate" and "Going Down") and a full show of our live performance in Kiev (Ukraine) on June 2019 as special guest of Disturbed. A new video is about to be released, but we can't still reveal details on it. Just be patient and keep follow us 😉

And how about your lyrics? What are the messages you want to spread on your songs? Is there a main concept behind them?

ND: As already said, "Mind Pollution" is focused on the theme of "addiction". But we always write about human feelings, life experience and, sometimes, social matters. Never cared about polytics, we only care about human being.

And as we spoke about labels, how are things working with At the Gates Records? "Mind Pollution" is your first release on the label, but do you feel differences between your old label and the new one? And how is the reception to "Mind Pollution" from the press and fans?

ND: Art Gates Records is a young, dynamic and fast growing reality in the international metal scene, with excellent bands in its roster and massively involved in promoting stuff they really like. It's a great opportunity to work with them in an international dimension and we had a very good feeling since the beginning with these guys.

You're used to make tours on Eastern countries of Europe, as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Baltic Area. But when are you intending to invade Western countries as well? And how was the experience (and reception) when you played with names as DISTURBED, ARCH ENEMY, KORPIKLAANI, and others? And are there plans for shows out of Europe?

ND: We had some great opportunities to share the stage with amazing bands like the ones you mentioned above. Tours and festivals in Eastern Europe showed us that in some Countries metal music is much more appreciated than we thought, with huge and very involved audiences. Our fanbase increased so fast in the last years as well as our professional and "problem solving" attitude on stage. We've been on tour as headliner across Europe several times and we are about to play for the first time a couple of shows in Spain (not announced yet!) this December. Of course, we are heading for Countries outside Europe, especially Japan, where we have a solid fanbase despite we have not played there yet!

Well, that's it. Once more, thank you for your time and patience, and please, leave your message to NEW DISORDER fans and Metal Temple's readers.

Once again, thank YOU for the opportunity you gave us to talk about the band and promote our music. Our goal is bringing our music wherever we have fans and we alaways try to keep in touch with them, driving our pages on social networks by ourselves. So, please keep in touch on them and, if you like what we do, just spread the word.

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