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Connection Through Communication With ALEX CENTOFANTI From GYPSY ROAD · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:22
  Well, hey guys, my name is Alex Santa Fanti. I'm the lead
• 0:25
  singer in guitarist from Gypsy Road releasing our debut album on Friday. Let us
• 0:31
  to a friend from interstate, and I'm pretty excited. It's gonna be It's
• 0:34
  gonna be a good release. It's gonna be a good release. His brother,
• 0:38
  she's a Pearl Open album. How you doing today? Uh? Pretty
• 0:41
  good, man. I just had just finished work recently, so not too
• 0:45
  bad yourself? Yeah? Good, very good, I said, Yeah,
• 0:47
  just winding out. I've done about five interviews today. I think I've got
• 0:51
  two more to go and then I'm done. Oh wow, that's that's that's
• 0:54
  pretty hectic, but that sounds like fun. It is indeed, as you
• 0:59
  mentioned, Broe Road releasing your debut album Letters to a friend from minto State
• 1:03
  in this Friday. How you feeling, man Like, You're nervous, You're
• 1:07
  excited, You're anxious, you're all of the above. I'm all of the
• 1:11
  above. From all of the above. Definitely all the above, you know,
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  like for so many, so many multiple reasons, like the last three
• 1:17
  singles we've released, which actually have been our first ever singles we've ever released.
• 1:22
  Because before that, we've released three epiece just like we've just released them.
• 1:26
  So that's been like a really new experience for me, in pretty nerve
• 1:27
  wracking experience. But our songs have actually done the best that we've ever done
• 1:33
  for any releases that we've ever done. So that's why it's also the anxious,
• 1:37
  nervous and excited, you know. So I'm hoping that it translates to
• 1:40
  the album. You know. It's one of those things where you get worried
• 1:42
  that, like, you know, you release a couple of songs and people
• 1:45
  aren't going to listen to the full album. So I'm just hoping that people
• 1:48
  make it through the whole thing because I think I think it's I think it's
• 1:49
  pretty good. Tell us a bit more about the album from a musical point
• 1:55
  of view, Bro, and what you're going for with it. Oh,
• 1:57
  well, I was gone for quite a few things. Honestly. I was
• 2:00
  going for like a lot of a heavier sound than what I've ever done before.
• 2:05
  I was going for like a lot more of like I wouldn't say a
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  darkest sound, but definitely I was definitely going for that melancholy vibe. And
• 2:14
  I was just I was just trying to just really just trying to make just
• 2:16
  how I felt at the time onto the paper. You know, I guess
• 2:21
  that's really how I can describe it as that's just how I felt, is
• 2:24
  just what came out sort of things. So and I'm pretty really proud of
• 2:29
  it. So yeah, So, as we said, this is your debut
• 2:32
  album. So as a band, what sorts of things you discussed going into
• 2:37
  the debut album? Like is there a battle plan? Is it sort of
• 2:39
  just throw everything together and hope for the best. Oh, it's a bit
• 2:43
  of all different things, you know, sort of hoping for the best and
• 2:46
  throwing it in all together. But we've actually we've done some pr at this
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  time, which has been a new experience for us and really good. So
• 2:53
  doing that has been a first for our band, and I feel like it's
• 2:55
  been really beneficial and we've been enjoying that process. So trying things along the
• 3:00
  way, even with like the recording of the album recorded with one of my
• 3:04
  good friends, Bo McKee, and where I've normally recorded everything myself and done
• 3:08
  everything myself, so to have someone else's hands in it was also new and
• 3:12
  a really fun experience, and that, honestly, that probably is what got
• 3:15
  such a heavy sound was to have someone else that's so experienced with getting that
• 3:20
  sound to help us sort of achieve what I wanted really, you know,
• 3:23
  And I feel like, yeah, it's a bit of all things, you
• 3:27
  know. Like I said the PS, I'm trying to get a heavy sound,
• 3:30
  really trying to make the best songs we can, and yeah, a
• 3:32
  whole bunch of things. Yeah, me and my Dramma have been extensively trying
• 3:37
  to make this all work for a long time, and my brother recently has
• 3:39
  just joined on the bass. So yeah, it's been good fun. Yeah.
• 3:46
  Now a young band, just starting your first steps in the music world.
• 3:51
  I guess how do you measure this or how will you measure the success
• 3:53
  to this album? Like is it going to be feedback? Is it going
• 3:57
  to be streams? Is it going to be people ing you like it?
• 4:00
  Like? Now do you how do you engage you? I think feedback and
• 4:02
  streams to me is a big one because I like to physically hear that people
• 4:08
  have been listening, and I like feedback and I like to know that people
• 4:12
  are listening to and streams is a good one. Streams is you know,
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  is obviously a good indicator of how well an album can or you know,
• 4:19
  isn't doing. But I think, you know, more feedback thing. If
• 4:24
  it really connects with people, that's really what I want, you know,
• 4:27
  because that's when I listen to music, I really, you know, I
• 4:30
  connect with it so deeply. I've got such a good personal relationship with music.
• 4:33
  I connect with it so deeply. I want the other people to sort
• 4:35
  of feel the same way I feel when listening to my stuff, you know.
• 4:39
  So, yeah, now you release three singles, as you say,
• 4:44
  release James Bow's Draft, the seventh Brief and the title track. So are
• 4:47
  they a good sonic representation of what do you expect from the whole album?
• 4:51
  I think so? Yeah, honestly, I think so. It's there's eight
• 4:55
  songs on the album, and which is just enough to cut an album,
• 4:59
  which is which is excited. But so we've got three songs, and I
• 5:02
  think all three of them really depicts what the other songs are going to sound
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  like, because you know, we've got more of a mallow song, we
• 5:08
  got more of a heavier song, which was our last one, and James
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  Boges was more of an alternative, rockier sort of sound. So and on
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  the album, all the other songs have really though similar vibes, So I
• 5:17
  really do think it is. It is. There's one acoustic track, so
• 5:20
  that's that's a bit different. So yeah, yeah. The press release says
• 5:26
  that the album is an eight track sonic journey, highlighting the emotional struggles of
• 5:30
  band faced throughout the whole project. Like that sounds pretty fucking deep, broak,
• 5:34
  Can you elaborate on that? That's pretty funny. Well, basically like
• 5:40
  the album's inspired by just a breakup I went throughout the time, which I
• 5:43
  felt was pretty huge for me and in my life, that that certain time,
• 5:46
  and I guess having that happened to me was made me realize a lot
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  of things and made me think a lot of things, and I went through,
• 5:54
  you know, quite a hard time through that. I guess that's where
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  the sonic hardship came from. So yeah, all top big surrounding breakup and
• 6:00
  heartbreak, I guess is what motivated me to write the album. I said
• 6:04
  this in an interview last week. I was saying that, like, when
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  I go through things like that, it really motivates me to write music or
• 6:11
  you know, to put my pen down the paper. And I feel like
• 6:14
  this time literally how I felt is it's on the record. You know,
• 6:17
  every song is a bit of how I felt at the time, And you
• 6:19
  know, all the songs were written through I guess, different stages and months
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  of me facing a lot of things, and and and you know, succumbing
• 6:28
  to a lot of things. So I think all the songs, you know,
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  pretty do myself justice to what I was feeling at the time, I
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  guess. So yeah, yes, yeah, pretty pretty deep on my ends.
• 6:36
  You know, the album title Letters to a Friend from into State,
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  it's it's both deep and it's am vigorous at the same time, but it
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  could mean any number of things. Bro, So how how does the album
• 6:49
  tied on the title track represent the album as a whole? It does mean
• 6:55
  a whole bunch of things. I mean Letters to a Friend from inter State.
• 7:00
  I mean the person that I guess that you could say the album is
• 7:01
  about is actually Interstates. So the name very well depicts I guess the motive
• 7:08
  of all the songs and everything. But honestly, we were coming up for
• 7:10
  quite a few names for the album. The albums were actually going to be
• 7:12
  called Anti Pastor because me and my Drammer, we're both Italian and you know,
• 7:15
  we carry some pretty big Italian heritage here in there. And I guess
• 7:20
  at the time when we're doing the album, were really into making Panini's and
• 7:25
  I'm going to the Daly and doing all that stuff, and when we thought
• 7:28
  Anti Pastor is going to be the name of the album, but it slowly,
• 7:30
  slowly changed day by day. But one of the album tracks, one
• 7:35
  of the song names on the album is a bit of a reference that's fully
• 7:40
  in Italian. Yeah, that's number seven. You say that, I'm not
• 7:46
  even going to pronounce it because I'm not even looking at the title the title,
• 7:49
  but it means anti Pastor is good, but I like pizza better.
• 7:55
  Alright, Yeah, I was way off the mark in the review. I
• 7:57
  thought I'll put it that. I thought it meant, what the fuck,
• 8:01
  We'll keep it like that. So, like, do you have an idea
• 8:09
  where you want to take gypsy road musically or is that something that you sort
• 8:11
  of haven't considered yet until you get there. Well, with this album,
• 8:18
  it's been one of those things. Can you still see me with the album?
• 8:22
  It's it's been one of those things where because we've taked up, we've
• 8:24
  taken such a step up in production. You know, we've introduced things like
• 8:31
  like leads and all that stuff which we have done before but haven't really implemented
• 8:35
  lives. So I guess going forth, especially after when we when we sort
• 8:37
  out an album release, between all of our full time jobs, we want
• 8:41
  to focus on well getting my getting the basses currently in the band onto lead
• 8:46
  guitar, because it's very good lead guitarist, much better than me, and
• 8:48
  we're trying to find a basis. So eventually I wanted to be a four
• 8:52
  piece and yeah, sort of get another member, maybe even someone on keys.
• 8:56
  I want to sort of take it into that direction in terms of background
• 9:00
  noises and atmospheric sort of sounds and that. So yeah, going forward,
• 9:03
  definitely take a step up in terms of band members and also trying to get
• 9:07
  some supports with some with some bigger bands and all of that good stuff.
• 9:09
  You know, as you hopeful when you do a release. So I'm excited
• 9:13
  to see what gig opportunities and stuff pop up, because you know, since
• 9:16
  we've recorded the album, we haven't we haven't even touched a show because we
• 9:20
  want to make sure we get this right and do this properly. So after
• 9:22
  the album hopefully, you know, we reach out and hopefully we get some
• 9:26
  feedback and we can get some we can get some good gigs you know happening.
• 9:28
  So yeah, excited for that. It's really excited for that. So
• 9:33
  I've actually got any shows coming up to celebrate the release. Yeah, Well,
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  we're actually playing a show in three weeks with a band called Lampad.
• 9:39
  They're from Newcastle. They've got a very similar sound to us, a bit
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  more hardcore, and they're playing We're playing with them at the Last Chance Rock
• 9:46
  and Roll Bar in Melbourne on June sixteenth, So that should be that should
• 9:50
  be a really good I'm really excited for that. The lineups, the lineup's
• 9:54
  pretty good, some really good bands on there. So excited, very good.
• 9:58
  All right, row Well, thanks for your time today. The album
• 10:01
  let us through a friend from in the Stadius out this Friday, May the
• 10:03
  twenty fourth, and I was lucky enough to have a listener earlier and she's
• 10:07
  a fucking good album. Ray you should be about yourself and well done duty
• 10:09
  great, Thank you so much. Man. That means a lot. I
• 10:43
  swear one sorry sight round about try wait who means try to talk fresh shop
• 11:16
  and the SuDS on the task, went ten top lost time and said was
• 11:39
  nons trying job had with just thought, I pad choke, got up,
• 11:50
  lost r waits p thing spinning out in bad Har not tis and waiting podcast
• 12:11
  so to podcast to time and don't what I get for Walks must have said
• 12:39
  a long job, said job. But John to have friends, so must Pat.