Str 8 are a new Italian band whose debut album ‘Soul Inside’ we fave reviewed recently. I was so impressed with its quality that I decided to interview band mainman Filippo Bendinelli to get the lowdown on the talent.

-Shan Siva

Firstly Filipo, let me just say this was a very cool album, so pls tell me how the group was formed together?

Thank you very much! The original Str8 was formed in the October 1998 from the ashes of some of the most famous local metal bands at the time, such as Hellrage, Nex and Meandri. At the end of 2002 Alessandro Briganti and Luca Lembo joined the band and we composed and recorded our first demo ‘Memories’ with the new line up.

What are your influences? Some of your stuff reminds me of Swedish band Prime Sth.

We have many influences, we listen to much music indeed Metallica, Sentenced, Nickelback, Cannibal Corpse... many influences of any kinds!

Have you toured a lot, if so where - maybe you have played Gods of Metal (ok, mebbe not yet but soon my friend ha ha)?

In the last years we have been concentrates on “Soul Inside”, after that we have recorded the video of Black Sun... between October and November we will playing some gigs in Italy, meantime we are organizing a tour that it would have to start from January 2007.

Where in Italy are you guys from?

We live in Tuscany, in Pisa, you know the leaning tower?!??

What is the average age of the guys of the band and how long have you been musicians?

Is approximately 15 years that we play and the band medium age is of 30 years… we are young!! or not???

Do you guys have day jobs?

Yes, we work all music in this moment does not succeed to being the only maintenance for living…

Is ‘Soul Inside’ your first release? What are your plans for a follow up album and will it be similar?

Soul Inside is our first full-length, in past we have recorded two demos, Memories and another demo with three tracks in 2000 with the old line up... In these days we are ending to compose some songs, we have in program an EP for the first months of 2007.

Is there a story behind ‘Soul Inside’?

Yes, a history of pain and suffering reveals from lyrics but Alessandro prefer not to speak of, we think that its lyrics are clear as they are…

Why are some of the lyrics reverse printed in the inlay notes - I thought it was quite funny but some reviewers have been annoyed by it...

Yeah... we were in studio and were trying an idea to make a 'special' booklet… The problem is that there was too much beer around…

Can you tell the readers about the Italian metal scene. Do Italian metal fans like any particular type of metal i.e. black, power...?

In Italy there are indeed many bands much good, unfortunately there aren’t average and possibilities in order to render them visible in the just way… given a glance to the web site of ours promoter, Alkemist Fanatix, we have many cool guys indeed!