They’ve already played Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria and Joburg on Saturday night. The band is comprised of Kevin Cali,
Fernando “Fella” Di Cicco, Rocco Ghielmini, Gian-Andrea Costa and Serafino “Sera” Chiommino. Masego Panyane caught up with guitarist
Fella to find out about the evolution of the band and what they’ve been looking forward to most in South Africa.
This is not your first time in SA. What were the highlights of your tour a few years ago?
In 2014 we fell in love with the country and the people. We’ve been speaking about that tour ever since and waiting to be able to come back!
We were surprised by the audiences in each city and all the enthusiasm. We also had some great experiences apart from the shows: we went wine
tasting, shark diving and tried a lot of different food. Hopefully this time we’ll have time to go to the sea!
What are you looking forward to most this time?
Hugging all the friends we made last time and meeting new ones! We want to have a great time and deliver some sick shows!
How would you describe your style of music?
Ha! I always feel like this is the hardest question in the world. We mix a lot of music genres together since we really listen to every kind of music. Dreamshade music is a blend of melody, epicness, heavy sound, clean production, and uplifting lyrics.
The song lyrics are very personal and we’ve always had a super-strong relationship with our fans for this reason. They share their experiences
with us and vice versa.
How has the band and its music evolved since 2006, when it was formed?
The band went through some member changes. In our original line-up we had a different singer called Iko and a keyboard player called Rawi, and that lasted until our first album "What Silence Hides" (2011). Both left that same year. After that we hired Kevin as the new vocalist, while Rocco (the other former guitarist) and I started working on all the keyboards, synths and electronics and I also started singing. Our second record, "The Gift Of Life," was released in 2013 and was already musically different, as we kept the melodic metal influence and added a lot of hardcore and punk influences,
together with electro and pop ideas. Gian-Andrea joined the band as a bass player in 2014, right after the South African tour, and also started taking care of most of the synth department.
The third album, "Vibrant," was released at the end of 2016 and featured many new and different influences. Luca joined as a guitar player in 2017 after Rocco went to live abroad. Rocco is still part of the project but can’t play shows. The last album the band released was "Vibrant". When can
fans expect the next release? After Vibrant we toured a lot and self-released a new single called "On My Own" in mid-2018, and we’ve just released another single, Question Everything, two weeks ago. We have some really cool material but are still deciding if we want to make an album
out of it or keep releasing singles. We’ll talk about that soon.
What is your absolute favourite song to perform live?
All the band members have different opinions on our songs, that’s why I can only speak for myself. My personal favourite song to play live is Sandcastles, from "The Gift Of Life". It’s just super fun to play on the guitar and makes people go do crazy things in the pit!
What can audiences expect from the sets you’re performing here?
We’re actually running polls in each FB event for every city of the tour asking people to vote for the songs that they want to hear live. We started rehearsals a while back, and I think people can really expect to have a lot of fun. If you have a friend who doesn’t know Dreamshade, you should invite him or her to one of the shows. We’re different live!