#xfilesx

Really cool interview my buddy sent me about Breathing Fire- possibly my favorite project I’ve ever been a part of. Not sure exactly when it was done but it had to be sometime around 2008. Super interesting read and I just grabbed a bunch of photos online taken by Chris Minicucci and Kate Thornhill. Enjoy!

Interview with Dominic Galotti done by Mark Luckasavage

Your vocal style is very instrumental (and distinguishable) in my opinion. Is this just a naturality or do you go beyond to make your voice sound the way it does?

It’s natural. It takes a shit load of effort and always shreds my throat for a couple of days after. I wanted my voice to sound like Jason from Think I Care’s voice on their 2nd 7". That record is a favorite, but my voice isn’t nearly as brutal as that.

Where did you find inspiration for the lyrics on Years of Lead?

Most of the inspiration came from Italian history. Some main events/peeps- Gli Anni di Piombo (the Years of Lead), NATO’s Operation Gladio and it’s involvement w/ the fascist Masonic Lodge “Propaganda Due” or P2, Italian celebrity terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie, Giuseppe Garibaldi the Italian freedom fighter and the rest was inspired with little variation from Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God and the Pentateuch of the Old Testament. I have very little life experiences that merit being committed to song- so I just get obsessed with different things and go from there.

Have you ever been in any other hardcore band? How did you end up singing for Breathing Fire?

I was in a band called Blown Away. I didn’t write any of the music or lyrics; I just played bass. Not really my thing… in a word. I LOVE playin bass- singing is the fucking worst and not my first choice. BF was just a project between Shawn Bredburg of Think I Care, my good friend Sean Rogers from a New Bedford band called Police Beat and BRads from Mind Eraser. They needed a singer, so I signed on for fun- shortly after Shawn B quit and Trevor took his place. Later on before YOL, Sean Rogers left and was replaced with Edson.

In songs such as (agent) where you depict a very surreal story, are you creating these scenarios from your imagination or are you using a third party source (a scene from a movie, book)?

These are imaginative scenarios. They are actual peeps and places and I just make a story around them. Agent was inspired by NARCONEWS and the various drug wars going on throughout the world. Other songs on the demo were inspired by deadend jobs, the TETRA GRAMMATON (IHVH- God’s ineffable name in the Old Testament), Aleister Crowley and the A.A. and other English occult groups and ritual drug use.

Who are your favorite bands?

Hmmm- probably just have favorite records… Think I Care’s 2nd 7" is tops. Bad Brains ROIR cassette. Cro Mags AOQ. Integrity’s For Those Who Fear Tomorrow. Boards of Canada’s A Beautiful Place in the Country and BOCMAXIMA. Vladislav Delay’s DEMO(N) TRACKS. Bowery Electric’s Lushlife. Crossed Out discog. Rorschach’s Needlepack 7". The Goslings’ Between the Dead. GASP’S Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo People. G.L. Ferretti’s Litania.

Especially on YOL, your voice sounds very broken and you don’t pronounce much. Is this an attempt to get the listener to read through the lyrics?

This was inspired both by incapacity to cram that many words into a measure and other PV styles of singing (ex. Crossed Out)- I just try to pronounce as many words as I can and fill the rest with noise…

How long did it take to write the lyrics for YOL?

Shit- FOREVER. Seriously. The handwritten shit on the lyric sheet is the final draft of my lyrics. I have a shoebox full of those revised lyrics. I always felt self-conscious about my lyrics because I didn’t have teenage angsty songs for people to get down with and by the time BF was up and running I was already removed from HC- so I didn’t have a laundry list of complaints to air regarding hardcore etiquette etc. Just bitching about work, movies and other quasi adult bullshit.

Whose idea was it to cover the Stooges? The Circle Jerks?

I don’t know. Probably Sean Rogers and Brendan. We all like them, so it wasn’t a prob. We also covered Crossed Out’s “He-Man” live.

Is there anything you’d like to add?