I shall begin with a huge than you for agreeing to give an interview. This year you celebrate 30 years of Mortuary-Drape. It’s widely agreed that you are legend and corpus of black metal scene in Europe. Looking at your former selves, did you fulfill all your dreams, including becoming a superstar of black metal? [MD]: It’s hard to stop to dream and looking for more, though. Anyway with this lineup we could make the band grow in performance quality and number of concerts. But we want to grow more, even more, with coherence and respect in our beliefs. In any case we feel rewarded for all our strains of these last years.

You are frequently put next to European classic bands like Necromantia and Master’s Hammer, still, I think you have always been somewhere on the side, peacefully recording your ritual, magic black metal. Nowadays, as you have doubtlessly spotted, brutal and cadaveric formula of Scandinavian music is being abandoned, it doesn’t mean traditional ways are entirely over. It’s about more philosophic or fatalistic approach to music’s main theme- existence and death. Let’s take some examples : Akhlys, Mare, Svartidaudi and Polish Mgła. Do you think you got ahead of era, or was it just evolution of a genre for which the world had to wait? [MD]: I think BM evolved naturally, simultaneously with the whole musical panorama and the demand. Anyway it’s hard to shock the crowd with explicit scenes and strange stage costumes like in the past, now we are used to every kind of excess. Nowadays what could impress people is sincerity, coherence and…silence.

Last year you celebrated 20 years of you debutant album “ All Witches Dance”, which was produced by no longer existing Unisound Records. Along with Rotting Christ, The Elysian Fields, Thou Art Lord and Varathron you must have nailed that concert. Was it surprising, for your audience, that in places like Greece and Italy they actually can make Black Metal? do you remember any special affairs from first album promotion period? I can’t resist myself from asking about a cover- who gave an idea, who made it and who was a model for a photograph adorning the cover? [MD]: I don’t remember very much of that period, but it was easier to create something new for sure. You could do your music without fear to be too similar to another band. The Unisound records production was really massive and with the band you mentioned we played some good gigs in Greece. The cover idea came up during a “ night”. We performed the usual ritual, then we took some pictures and the result is what you can see now. I can’t tell you nothing more, I think you understand why…

Your pack is strongly bounded with your first album, which de facto is an opus magnum, not only for the band, but also for the whole European scene. Nevertheless “Secret Sadaria” released two years later turned out to be a great album too. Moreover, you added some new members, so that Wild Perversion could do his best as a front man. In 2000 Mortuary Drape consisted of 6 members, including two bass players, whom we can hear on your third album “Tolling 13 Knell”. How do you mark those albums, in comparison to the first album? Was it warmly welcomed by fans? [MD]: The 2 basses idea can show you why we consider us a band without boundaries, we don’t like the standards. The idea came up with the need of new sounds and bass has a really important role in MD sound, we had to try this new solution and the effect is really unusual. To answer you final question, yes, our fans liked it: the first album was immediate and raw, the other one gave more room to atmosphere.

Now I would like to stop for a moment and ask about something else. A year after releasing “Tolling 13 Knell” your band celebrated 15th anniversary. You have already been recognizable on European scene, when did you realize that what you create is being written down in black metal history? Did you have any special moment in which a black candle lighted above your heads telling “good job, we have recorded 3 albums and made a loud noise. Those would be cultic someday.”? [MD]: I appreciate your kind words, but we always preferred to work without asking ourselves if we did a great job or if we did something important for the BM scene. In the end fans have the last word. They can choose who’s best and who’s worse, they can give you the crown or send you to the gallows pole. We always look forward with no compromises.

Jumping back to your history- why had you kept your fans waiting for four years before they could hear another album? Did something unexpected happen? I ask because “Buried in Time”, which was produced by Avantgarde Music, brought (gently saying) some drastic changes in your music’s character. You turned to , the whole cemetery- grave aura was buried in random ditch like a stray corps. Even your fans call the third album “the weakest link” in your career. Do you agree with that? What was the response for the album? [MD]: To be honest nothing special happened, there was some problems between the band members and the band suffered an almost complete line-up change. You are not wrong about the Buried in time’s style, it was too far from the MD’s standards. There were different opinions about it but the most were not so positive, most of our die-hard fans didn’t appreciate this change.

Later on you went aside, once again. Regardless of occasional publication: compilations and splits, we had to wait 10 year for another album. What happened, why did you put down instruments? Were you tired of living as musicians, maybe a vision of black metal developing, not so well, discouraged you to play? How many times have you asked yourselves if Mortuary Drape should come back on stage or not? [MD]: It was an hard time so I took the decision to break up the band and remain alone as one man band. Nevertheless I released some material to keep alive the band’s name and I worked on the new songs. I never thought to quit, never. I just waited the right time and the right people to return back and do our best.

Nearly 2 years ago “Spiritual Independence” was released. I can gladly admit it is a well done monster creeping from the Underworld. This material is a come back to virulent black/death metal of yours. What was the response to your the album? [MD]: The responses for the new album is really good. The most of the reviews are positive, perhaps after Buried in time our fans expected a return to the roots. The new musicians gave the right contributions to the band. At that moment not all the musicians were used to this kind of metal but they did a great job. We thought our fans wanted more and thanks to this line-up it was possible to increase the number of gigs and bring the band to the most productive period talking about live shows.

We’ll run away from your history again. I have to ask about Italian Black Metal Scene. I, regretfully, don’t know much about Italian field, there are a few bands I am familiar with. It is hard to disagree that despite we are all from Europe, every one of us sound a little different- for instance Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Scandinavia. Do you think Italian music indeed is distinct? If yes, what is an element of originality or a peculiar showcase of Italian black metal? Which bands are a must-know, which ones contributed most to expansion of black metal? [MD]: I think that Italian BM has its own peculiarities and its personal way to be, probably the music is less extreme than the northern style, but it’s more experimental. The subjects are oriented to Mediterranean magic and exoticism. I think that the place where you experience life, I mean nature, affects a lot the artistic sense and consequently the final result: the Scandinavian BM is the perfect example, hard and strict as the North is.

To my personal opinion the most important names are Necromass, gli Opera IX, handful of hate, but there are many other bands too, some of them outside the BM world.

Now you will be asked about Poland. Do you have any favorites in here? As far as I know you haven’t given any concerts in our country. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people complained about such “firm” artist on our ground. Is there any chance you will come and play here during your concert tour? I am curious what you think of Poland, it is said a conservative and religious place, do you agree? [MD]: To be honest I don’t know Poland so good, but I know that the scene is really active at the moment. First among everyone the perfect example is Behemoth, but also Besatt, Xantotol, and other less famous bands. Unfortunately we don’t have planned gigs there yet, but we really want to come there and meet the polish crowd, we have a lot of requests from your country and we are sure to find great support.

Yes, it could be a conservative and religious place, but at the same time this gives to the BM scene nourishment to stay alive!

Was 2015 a good year, in terms of music? Who were top- listened artists of 2015 for Mortuary Drape? Any special albums? Ether miraculously bad of extremely good? [MD]: 2015 was a great year for our music: a lot of gigs, the US tour and new releases. I don’t have a lot of time to listen to new music, so I can’t give you an answer about my top listened artists.

Many artists would love to perform by your side- either as a tournee partner or as support on a concert. The question is who do you dream of performing with? You can pick any artist, dead of alive. [MD]: That’s a good question…well, at the moment a really good band which follows our same lines is Watain. We had the chance to share the stage with them in Brazil in 2010 and would be great have something like an European tour with them. Nice people, nice musicians and above all really professional.

To finish with, what does number 13 mean to you? You asked me to come up with exactly 13 questions, you use it in you compositions as well. Does it bear something more that bad luck ? [MD]: The number 13 is with us since the very first time: it’s the number of letter which compose our name, is the death’s number which link us with the other side of existence, it is the 13th way that everyone takes to reach his own spiritual independence. It’s not a surprise that 13 in the cabala is the goal, the finish line over which lies the nothingness, beyond the veil which divide our dimension from the other world… if you cross that line and go beyond the veil you can feel our vibrations… the knell beyond the veil… See you in hell