My passion for the music actualized at the high school, when I started to listen to bands and music new for my ears, like Radiohead and all the grunge in general (Nirvana and Silverchair before all). In 1998, inspired by these sounds, I begun to sing in a cover band of my high school: this experience did not last for long, but it fed my wish to play music. I had to wait till 2000 to find the right guys to form up the Inner Voice (line-up composed by myself, Emanuele Rognoni to the bass, PierCarlo Bellone to the guitars and Claudio Baratti to the drums). In 2001 the band evolved to a heavier style, starting to play a mix of heavy metal and hard rock cover songs, changing the name into Alcolica when Luigi takes the place of the brother at the guitars. In this period, influenced by bands like Pantera, Sepultura, Death and Slayer, I discovered the music genre which affected so much my singing. With the further evolution from Alcolica into Zona d'Ombra, the inspiration of the lyrics of the first album much derived both from the experience gained in the previous years passed to play in the pubs and from the musical culture built up till now.

I love trash metal, RPGs, Long Island booze, Beer and Chicks, naturally!

Ivanhoe uses: Shure Microphones; active mixer FBT 2000 - 2x150 Watt;.

The adventure as musician started at the end of ’97 inspired by bands like Pantera, Metallica, Megadeath, Sepultura and similar, beginning the C.D.M. music school of Pavia. After three year of lessons, I form up together other three people the Inner Voice (a hard rock cover band) in 2000. After the coming in the line up of Luigi to the guitar, the Inner Voice became the Alcolica (2001), starting the live experience in several pubs. Into 2002 parallely I begun to play in a progressive rock cover band (Rising Sun), playing live in several dates. At this point my musical taste changed, going towards more technical types of music (Dream Theater, Sinphony X, Malmsteen etc). In 2003 with the arrival of the drummer Gian Luca Bassignani into the Rising Sun, the band became a cover band of the Dream Theater. At the end of 2003 I started with Alcolica to work on songwriting while the Rising Sun broke. At this point the drummer Gian Luca Bassignani transferred to the Alcolica during the transformation to Zona d’Ombra. At the beginning of 2004 I collaborate with the guitarist Emiliano Buzzachelli (ex- Rising Sun) to a fusion project concluded into the same year, taking my knowledge to appreciate artists like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Billy Sheehan and other soloists. In the meanwhile the Alcolica band had become Zona d’Ombra, in which I wrote songs for the first album Noise ReduXion.

I love Progressive Metal, Fusion, Beer and Chicks, as above!

NAME: Emanuele Rognoni
NICKNAME: Ice Man, Lele
BIRTH YEAR: 1981
PREFERRED BANDS: Dream Theater – Death – Metallica (till the Black Album) – Pantera – Sepultura – Steve Vai – Elio e le Storie Tese

Ice Man uses: Hartke Ha3500 aluminum cones (300 Watt) Amplifier; bass - Yamaha TRB5 II; bass Ibanez Prestige 3006 Sr 6 cords with Bartolini pick-up

I started to play drums when I was 11, and my first band has been a cover band playing Timoria, AC/DC, Nirvana and rock music in general (the band was with no bass). After this experience, I started playing punk rock (Blink 182, Green Day, Sex Pistols, Pankreas etc) in different bands. Definitely abandoned the punk, I passed to rock in two bands: Antima and Moaenia. With the first a played cover songs of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Negrita, while with the last, songs from Afterhours, Metallica, Verdena, Black Sabbath. In 2001 I started my adventure with the Day After, first as rock cover band, then as tribute band of Toto. In February 2001 I met my teacher and friend Sergio Butta, graduated at the conservatory of Milain and percussionist of the Scala. I studied with him three years of rhythmic solfeggio, drums methods and techniques on script of Buddy Rich, gene Krupa, Aldo Buonomo, Franco Campioni, Kenny Clarke, Dante Agostini and Jim Chapin. At that time I played in bands like the Rising Sun, prog-rock band where I met Emanuele Rognoni (bass), which introduced myself to Zona d’Ombra. From March 2004 I started to record the drums traces for the album Noise ReduXion.

NAME: Gian Luca Bassignani
NICKNAME: Gian, Wild Drums
BIRTH YEAR: 1985
PREFERRED BANDS: Dream Theater – Meshuggah – Death – Slipknot – Metallica (till the black album) – Elio e le Storie Tese - Toto

Wild drums plays: Fusti Tamburo in betulla, Pelli Remo, Piatti Zildjian, e Paist, doppio Pedale Iron Cobra , bacchette Vic Firth model SDW

My first contacts with the electric guitar started in ’91, when with my brother PierCarlo Bellone, the drummer Alberto Firpo, the bassist Luigi Andreone and the voice of Paolo Perani I formed up the Slide Fastener, a hard rock/ metal cover band of 12/15 years old guys (I was already 18 at that time…..) playing AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Stiltskin. Completely self-educated, I started to play music and riffs from my preferred albums by ear. After several live performances in my high school, we changed the drummer and begun to play with Carlos , the mythic drummer that actually plays with the SKYLARK (at that time he was 15 years old). With him we started to play live in several pubs of the region and recorded a direct demo-tape of eight cover songs (of really bad results, both for quality of the sound and of the performance). When Carlos left the band for the first contacts with the Skylark, the Slide Fastener played for another year with Dario Tanghetti, before to definitely break in ’95. Then followed a complete inactivity of about 5 years, having decided not to play guitar anymore. When my brother Pier formed up a new band, the Inner Voice, I started to take new interest in the guitar, till my insertion into the band. When we passed from a commercial rock to heavy metal cover songs, my brother left the band, which became Alcolica.
We renovated an old abandoned room of a farm far from the villages to play music every time we wanted (six months of hard work as bricklayers, electricians, carpenters). Finally completed our lounge, and after having prepared 20 songs to play, we started to play live in pubs, in events like Zanzarock 2003 of Binasco, we published the web-site www.alcolica.com, and we drunk so many beers… In summer 2003, annoyed to play cover songs, we decided to move to songwriting. I begun with Emanuele Rognoni with some ideas that we have already in mind from different years, but never developed because we never found the right feeling with the other members of the previous bands. In that summer we discovered that feeling subsisted among myself, Lele and Ivano: in two months the melodies of almost all the songs of Noise ReduXion were written down, and the lyrics and the voice melodies were developed in symbiosis with the performed arrangements. In this way born the Semantic Metal , the definition with which we love to describe our music. The rhythmic section has been defined and concretized with the entrance into the Zona d’Ombra of Gian Luca Bassignani, bringing powerful and timbre to the semantic melody present in all our songs.

I love Heavy Metal, RPGs, my PC, all the Beers and .... Chicks, hehehe

NAME: Luigi Bellone
NICKNAME: Liughi Ballons, Evil Twin, Gigi, Tabaxi
BIRTH YEAR: 1974
PREFERRED BANDS: – Pink Floyd – Iron Maiden – Metallica (till the black album) – W.A.S.P. – Blind Guardian

Gigi plays: Hughes & Kettner WARP 7 Amplifier (100 Watt - link); guitar - Ibanez Frank Gambali FGM Series; multieffect - POD by Line 6.