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ХудшийЛучший 

What is common between the words "Dope", "Stars" and "Inc." ?? Seemingly nothing. But there are people who succeeded in blending these terms to form the name and reflected it in music. The mixture of cyber-influenced lyrics, rock'n'roll appearance and electronic and guitar music is the first feature of the Italian band "Dope Stars Inc." Having heard Victor's voice once it's impossible to  mistake it with somebody's, having witnessed their performance once it's impossible to turn a deaf ear. So, DSI turned to be exactly that band I decided to interview. Victor Love - DSI's voice, guitarist, band manager and just a good man told us about the name, the new video and the old problem.
 
Why is your group called Dope Stars Inc.?
 
Victor: We were looking for a name and made a list of possible names that we combined then together to form this name. We choose it cause it represent in a way the mix of music and concepts we have in our albums. Dope stands for the direct to your veins attitude and sound of our music which is always very straight in your face. Stars stands for the rock’n’roll/punk attitude of our style and image and Inc. is connected to the industrial and cyberpunk concept behind the lyrics.
 
Before, you looked like Cyber Goths. Now you look closer to rock and roll. What caused the change of image?
 
Victor: Because everything evolves and we do not like to dress up the same way for years. Besides we got quite tired of all the hype going on about cyber gothic stuff, especially cause we have nothing to do with gothic music to be honest. Besides we always customized our outfits by ourselves and depending on the concept and the music of the album we figured out what kind of image would fit better time by time. Because an album is a work of art at 360 degrees for us and everything should be at it’s proper place.
 
Tell us about interesting points of the touring life?
 
Victor: Touring is the best experience for a musician, especially when you tour with other bands that are so cool like we did all the times. Last tour with Deathstars has been awesome for example and we become great friends. These guys are so lovely and we spent an amazing time together. Touring life can vary depending on the person I think. It depends on how you live it and what you want to experience out of it. The overall mood, during the shows is always about party, but touring is much more than this. It is about work, new friends, breakfast time, lunch time, beer time, getting your dress washed and dried, getting along with the other guys of the staff, checking instruments, soundchecks, cold nights and unsafe travelling on the bus but what I like the most is usually the very after show, when everbody is on the bus and it leaves overnight for the next show. That is the time to relax and have a nice chat with all the other guys in the bus, other bands, your bandmates etc and think or laugh about what happened during the day.
 
Which groups are friends of DSI? Are you familiar with the works of Russian groups?
 
Victor: We are in touch with many bands cause we toured with them or we are from the same label or for other reasons. We’ve been in touch with London After Midnight, Kirlian Camera, ASP, Deathstars, Zeromancer, Gothminister, My Dying Bride, The Birthday Massacre, Mortiis, Samsas Traum, L’Ame Immortelle, Project Pitchfork, IAMX, Spiritual Front, KMFDM, Emilie Autumn, Entwine and many more. About Russian band we have been in touch with SKD and Unreal so far but we are not really experts of the Russian scene.
 
What bands influenced your work? What groups you can call your  favorite?
 
Victor: That’s almost impossible to say because the music I write is influenced by many different genres from Metallica to Alice in Chains, Depeche Mode to Prodigy, Vnv Nation to Atari Teenage Riot, Guns’n’Roses, Motley Crue, Zeromancer, Ministry, White Zombie Rammstein and many more.
 
What are you thinking  about  the Italian music industry? Why do you sing in English? Do you plan to write songs in Italian or any other languages?
 
Victor: Rather simple. I sing in English because to sing in Italian would mean to spread our music only in Italy, which is a country where rock is totally dead and out of possibilities. To sing in Italian would just sound like a cheesy stupid Italian pop song.
 
You have recorded soundtracks for the films Saw 2, 3, 4. Do you like writing music for films? Do you plan to write more soundtracks?
 
Victor: I hope so! It has been great and we were honoured to be part of it. We really hope to take part of some cyberpunk move someday.
 
Why keyboardist Ash Rexy is not officially listed in the group? Do you plan to its accession into the DSI?
 
Victor: Ash entered DSI as a live member and when we did the last album he didn’t participated to the construction of it. Which does not mean only the music but also the visuals. He was very busy with his personal project so he decided to stay as a live member for now. However we consider him as a member of DSI because he is a very great person and a big friend of all of us beside being very talented live, skilled and beautiful.
 
Your last album "21 century slave" is different  from your previous work. What caused a change of style and how would you describe the concept of the last album?
 
Victor: I can’t really say it changed so much. Most of the arrangements of songs are always following the line of past works and instead I can say this album is even more similar to our early days than Gigahearts. The difference is mainly on the production side, because I wanted to merge at the best the rock/acoustic sound and the electro sound. So in this album we also have real drums recorded mixed with electro beats. This also goes together with the fact we do have a live drummer now, Mark Mad Honey, which is a very talented one and we have definitely improved on the live set with more dynamics. The concepts of the album are still playing in the area of cyberpunk but with a more focused attitude. I can say this is more a concept album, compared to the others because it shows, all together, a virtual world that is inspired by cyberpunk novels, with big urban sprawls, corporation taking over the world creating a one world governments, controlling people and devastating the world with pollution. A world where digital warriors are fighting to hack the system and set people free from domination of corporate technology using pirate technologies. That’s the world that is described in 21st Century Slave.
 
Some time ago Grace left your group. Tell us what really happened and if you communicate with him after his departure?
 
Victor: What really happened is that Grace never had any role in the band except being our designer and being a very problematic individual with serious psycological problems. He asked the band to give him a lot of money on royalties cause he was a designer and I accepted even if it was unfair. Afterwards he started to act in a very egocentric way, saying he was the only heart of the band because he was beautiful, everybody loved his pretty face and was doing cool artworks (his own words). He really believed that people was buying cds of DSI cause they had a good cover art and that music was not important at all. He was forcing me to put him into credits because he wanted to satisfy his ego and make fans think he was playing or composing even if it was not true. For real he has never played or performed anything in any album. He was neither able to play any instrument 6 months AFTER we released Neuromance and cause of this we started touring very late losing a lot of opportunities. In fact everybody knows that I’ve always produced written, recorded, and also performed all instruments in all the albums of DSI since the very first demo beside managing the website, the street team, replying to the fans, send packages, booking the shows, find the record label and all the rest you can even imagine that is about a band. While I was doing this Grace was just at home watching the TV or playing playstation. I accepted the situation because I didn’t wanted to ruin the reputation of the band in front of the label for which we just got signed so I accepted all his brutal, violent and unfair behavior toward me. But this situation of course become unsustainable after a while, especially when he also started to create problems during touring. One time for example his girlfriend joined the tour with the promise to take care of merchandise, and everything was clear also with the label (wich was even not convinced much). Result: when we started the tour she said, and Grace confirmed too, that NOBODY said she had to do it. And this created a great mess with our label, the headliner band and booking agency, what a shame. We had really no words but we couldn’t kick the ass of his girlfriend out of the tour  without kicking him also and then cancelling the tour the very first day (which would have been the only fair thing to do). But this is just one example of how fake and without any respect was this guy. Just consider one time we’ve lost a cover on Orkus magazine because he refused to send the hi res pic. The problem was that Orkus expressly requested to have a photo of myself for a standard policy of the magazine (if you look they often use single pics instead of band pics). So we have lost this cover for his jelousy toward me. And of course I did knew absolutely nothing about it because he kept it totally hidden to me and told the label instead it was ME saying I didn’t wanted my single pic to be released. I realized this only when the label phoned me totally angry and I was falling from clouds. Just another example to understand what kind of person he was in the band. The same person that wrote with arrogance that he had strong ethical and human divergences with me to make fans believe I was some kind of monster that kicked the poor sweet grace out of the band. And what is really sad is that he also succeded to convince some fans, especially in Russia, about this. Result: there are fans thinking he is some kind of idol and instead he is just a fake musician and all smoke in the eyes. To not mention that he also sued us because he want to get 10.000 euros on top for the artworks he did for the 1st 2 album. A sum that is unbelievable for such artoworks (consider an artwork may vary from 600 to 800). And this after he also got money out of albums and merchandise and we’ve also trashed a lot of money for a videoclip he managed with a friend and was so bad, and totally crap that our label pissed on it and has never been released. Now we are into legal action and we had to spend a lot of money cause of this stupid nonsense but hopefully in one or 2 years this terrible nightmare will be finished. So just tell me what is he doing now? Absolutely nothing. He promised that he would have returned with a band but he didn’t after almost 4 years. Know why? Because he is not a musician and he also tried to get into some bands but everybody pissed on his face. As well as the owner of Against Clothing pissed on his face and kicked out him of the company because he was acting almost the same like he did with me in the band. That’s Grace Khold and all the people that still like him, should just try to open their eyes finally and start to have some more respect toward who made this band really exist and unfortunately gave the opportunity to such a loser to become known to the world.
 
What are your plans for this year?
 
Victor: This year we are planning many shows and we are going to release a new album. Also these days we are going to release a new videoclip.
 
Do you plan to visit Russia with concerts?
 
Victor: Yes of course. We were already talking about some shows for spring but cause of several reasons these shows have to be delayed in autumn. We really look forward to play in Russia because it is always a great experience and we love our Russian fans.
 
We know that your video  for the song "It's today" will be released soon,  this is written on your official page. Tell us what would be the clip and why you chosen this song?
 
Victor: We choose this song because it is short, direct and represent a good bridge between the new and the old dope star inc. We just got the video yesterday and it looks very cool. The story behind is all about the theory of control by the governments and corporation. The plot is very simple but with a very cinematographic approach. Most of the video is about us playing though because after so many years without a video and also the change of line up we really wanted to have a video that was showing the band in action with all the new members.
 
Do you think about new album?
 
Victor: Yes as I said I am probably going to start writing some new stuff these days and will be probably released around autumn.
 
It remains uncovered what else can the boundless band members' imagination give birth to. But the one thing is completely understood that it will be something unreal, something outstanding! We'll look forward for new DSI's creations.
 
 

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