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Save 15% with coupon code: Workhorse Buy now on LittleBlondie.com Photo by Hillarie Jason, taken at Prophecy Fest 2018 Vito Marchese Chicago guitarist on his work with Novembers Doom, The Kahless Clone and his tablature publishing company, Resistance HQ Publishing. Vito Marchese jumped straight in the deep end when he joined How have you been holding up during Novembers Doom in 2005. He was 23 and the band — started in 1989 as a the pandemic? death/thrash band called Laceration before shifting styles to death/doom I’ve been doing really well. I’ve actually and ultimately changing its name in 1992 — was coming into sharp focus been able to get a lot of stuff done that I didn’t have the time for before. I’ve after recruiting ex-Neurotoxin guitarist Larry Roberts and releasing two been working on more tab books for solid albums in 2000 and 2002 for Massachusetts label Dark Symphonies. Novembers Doom, playing/practicing a Vito’s entry to the band coincided with the beginning of three important lot more guitar, and just enjoying my free events: the band’s signing with New York’s The End Records, who would go time the best I can. I’d much rather be on to release the band’s next six albums; the band’s promotion of long-time out there doing shows, but this has been a nice break for me. Let’s just hope it collaborator Chris Wisco (Belle City Sound) to producer; and the hiring of doesn’t last too much longer. Swedish death metal legend Dan Swanö (Unisound) to mix. Since then, the band has released a steady string of well-produced albums with Wisco and Nephelim Grove is Novembers Doom’s Swanö at the boards and played extensively throughout North America first album for Prophecy Productions. and Europe. Their latest album, Nephelim Grove came out in late 2019 on How did that deal come together? Prophecy Productions. I don’t have all the details since Paul (Kuhr, vocals) primarily dealt with that, but I do know that they were fans of ours In addition to his work with Novembers Doom, Vito has released two albums for a long time, and when we announced of proggy instrumental post-metal with his band The Kahless Clone, founded that we were looking for a new home Resistance HQ Publishing (a company for publishing guitar tablature), they answered the call. We ended up released an album with Chicago prog-metallers Divinity Compromised, doing their Prophecy Fest in Brooklyn, NY in November of 2018. I think doing that and guested on several albums for other artists. show and meeting the heads of the label 4 WORKHORSE • August 2020 was a really good experience for both that verse short”, etc. Or he may want us ideas about what tones we should think parties. We got to see firsthand how they to change chord progressions to better about using, adding extra elements to treated their artists and they got to see suit a vocal melody/pattern he’s come the music that we didn’t think of, and how we were as people. We couldn’t be up with. Sometimes suggestions like that especially teaming up with Paul when it happier with our decision to join their really make a song come out great. comes to producing the vocals. Working roster. with Chris at his studio is such a great How do you go about pre-production? experience. It’s fun, laid back, really The new album came out last Larry and I sit down and record rough comfortable to work at and we always November. How much were you able to guitar tracks to a click and give them to come out of there with a better album do before coronavirus hit? Garry so he can record drums over them. than we walked in with. We made a couple music videos and Usually, Garry will just set up a couple of a couple playthrough videos, played a mics in his rehearsal room and record his Dan Swanö has been mixing the band Chicago show where we performed the drums while he listens to the tracks in as long as Chris has been producing it. entire new album live, and got to perform his in-ears. We’ll take those drum tracks Do you know anything about their again on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise and touch up any guitar parts that we working relationship? leading up to the shutdown. We were think should match those drums better. Dan and Chris have worked very closely supposed to play at this year’s Maryland Then Mike will record his bass ideas over together since we have been using that Deathfest and we had an Australian those tracks and we just keep building on team. Dan has some specific requests tour booked for this summer, but those these rough recordings until we get close when it comes to micing up drums and obviously got cancelled, unfortunately. to what the final song will be. After that, how he likes to get tracks to make sure we’ll send it off to Paul so he can start he can do the best job he can. Chris has How long does it typically take really hearing everything to construct his always been accommodating to Dan’s Novembers Doom to write an album? vocal melodies and patterns better. requests and is always a team player About a year from the first day of writing when it comes to getting us the best final until we get into the studio. Just keep What does Chris Wisco (producer) bring product we can get. in mind that a lot of times we’ll spend to the table? three months writing an album and then Chris has become an extremely impor- How closely does the band work with throwing most of those song ideas away tant part of our sound. We’ll send him Dan on mixes? and starting over from scratch. We can be our pre-production demos before we go We work very closely with Dan on mixes, pretty hard on ourselves when it comes into the studio so he can get a good feel but Dan usually nails the “final” mix in to the quality of songs that we want to of the songs. He always has awesome the first pass and we just have some put out there. I need to get through three or four terrible songs ideas of my own before I get in the groove of writing a new album. What’s the writing process like? Usually Larry or I will come in with a riff or a song idea that we’ve worked on at home. These ideas may just be a few seconds of music, or they might be a somewhat complete song. That’s always a good starting point for us so that when we do get together in a room, we have something to work on/jam on. There are times though when we are setting up our gear to rehearse and Garry will start warming up on drums and we just start playing to him and have come up with songs that way. Does Paul get involved in composing and arranging? Paul doesn’t necessarily get involved when it comes to actually composing the music since he doesn’t play an instru- ment per se, but he does get involved in the arranging of the songs. For instance, he might say something like “I’m not feeling the flow of this song, can you try adding a different bridge in there or cut Novembers Doom, Nephilim Grove (Prophecy Productions, 2019) minor tweaks we’d like to see changed. Does the band work in cycles of writing Novembers Doom spends a fair amount We’ll go back and forth with him until and recording one year, promoting and of time Europe. How is touring there both parties think we have the best mix touring the next year, or is it more of different from the US? we can get.