“One Way Out” Turned 5: My 5 Almost Serious Memories

One Way Out

The first time is always memorable. I mean, we remember it very well, bad or good it was.

It always has that special touch: a sticky mix of adrenaline, euphoria and dizziness. Sticky how? Like a powerful glue on your fingers that you can’t remove, because all your fingers become sticky as well at a certain point. It’s a glue-fingers loop, and when you get out of that, the thing that you glued is already fallen to the ground.

I know, it sounds unpleasant that way. But, come on, it’s a metaphor.

Got it, I’m going to the point: I remember everything about our first record, One Way Out. Because it’s the first album I played and recorded (I’m not counting demos and amateur experiences), and it carries with it many “first times”. I’ll give you 5 of those, right now.

The First Recording Session

Mesa Boogie
Testing Mesa Boogie

I was aware of the fact that I had to record heavy riffs with monster guitars with 7 and 8 strings, using all my fucking metal energy and spirit. But believe me, I couldn’t make a metal face even with all my efforts. Look at the pic above: all the pics I made those days at Fear Studios are like this one: happy (stupid) face. I was in the “happy kid at the recreation ground” mode, in every key moment, like sounds choice, heavy riff recording, solos recording. Happy face all over again. Even when my index finger started to bleeding because of my passionate playing, getting strings and guitar dirty. I mean, there’s nothing more metal than that. I can proudly say I gave blood for One Way Out.

But hey, happy face.

The First Photoshooting

The First Poster
The First Poster

The true challenge here was to stop laughing. If you play in a band, you know that for sure: every moment is an opportunity to say bullshits. When one of us starts, we all follow him saying bullshits. That day I also learned a new way to put hair-gel. Instead of the only one I already knew.

The First Video

Ravenscry Nobody
Serious people

I have to say that playing 30 times continuously the same song, while you are moving your body like crazy, makes you think about the importance of a good physical training. And when you are playing Nobody, in that way, from hours, you are nearly dead and certainly sweaty. It was a great experience filming in that stunning location (an abandoned restaurant) and giving new shapes and images to our song.

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, the bathroom you see in the video is my home bathroom. And the guy in the bath tub is… yeah. Anthony Hopkins.

The Second Video (But My First Time As A “Pro” Actor)

Mauro Calliope
Going into the character

During that period you could heard the word crisis every five minutes: crisis everywhere, crisis all over the world, identity crisis, middle-age crisis. Calliope allowed us to speak about that topic in our way, and we had the chance to become actors for a day. I remember two things in particular, or maybe three: the theater, an historic gem hidden in northern Italy; the flour on each of us and all over the stage (you saw that cool backlight effect, right?); the satisfaction while I was throwing the fake unpaid bills off the table.

Ravenscry Calliope

The First Tour

One hundred blog posts wouldn’t be enough to explain that incredible experience. So, don’t ask. Do it one.

Ravenscry
Ravenscamper

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