The vast majority of bands featured on Record Weekly come from the UK, so it’s nice to chat to a few from overseas. One such artist is Paul Walla, who hails from Italy but has been inspired by the Seattle grunge scene…

RECORD WEEKLY’S INTERVIEW WITH PAUL WALLA

Hi Paolo, how are you doing?

Hey, I’m good! Thanks a lot for this interview as well.

No problem! Now, you’re based in Italy — how has the last year been for you pandemic-wise? What did you have planned that you’ve had to postpone or cancel?

It’s certainly been a very unique and difficult year. Music helped me get through the first lockdown, and I also released my first album ‘Stillness in the Chaos’. But the pandemic situation forced me to sadly give up playing the album live. Then there was a second lockdown, which I used it to compose the new songs that are coming out now.

Which bands and artists have influenced your sound the most?

Definitely the whole Seattle grunge scene of the ’90s influenced me so much; Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden, and so on. But I later expanded to different genres, which got me into Mark Lanegan, Queens of the Stone Age, UNKLE, Royal Blood, Cold Cave, etc. They aren’t that similar but they’ve each given me something to help me understand in which direction to take my music.

Talk us through your latest single releases.

So, the first single I released was ‘Withered Love’, which was born from improvisation. I was playing bass guitar and the song’s main riff came out of that. I decided to keep it as the backbone of the song and bring the guitar in the background for the melody.

The second single, ‘How Do You Feel?’, was originally developed in 2015. It’s about the thin line between a mental trip and the paranoia of an altered state. Musically, it’s a great rhythmic piece that, in my opinion, leads to a sense of balance.

What else do you have in store for 2021?

After these two singles, the full album will be released in September. And perhaps in late autumn, I’ll put out a short EP containing some acoustic versions of tracks from both albums, too.
Then I just hope to play them at gigs, as soon as possible!

You can stream Paul Walla’s material on Spotify and, while you’re at it, see his posts on Instagram, too.