Location: New Hampshire, USA
Release: Self-Released, 2022
It’s been quite a long time since I last caught up with Valentino Valpa and seeing his name recently on a streaming platform while browsing for new music brought me back a few years. More precisely to 2016 when I interviewed him for the Infernal Diatribe debut LP.
Six or so years later we are back at it again, much older and still committed to hardcore punk. Today we will discuss Tino Valpa’s newest solo effort Live Or Be Lived All Over, an album that surprised me from the get go, starting with the minimalistic yet catchy artwork. After I heard it the first time I didn’t waste time in reaching him once again.
1- Before we go over the new album Tino, can you give us the overall recap of what you’ve been up to in this time span? 2021 was a busy year for you I imagine, including new releases by Infernal Diatribe and The Cryptics that have grown into one of my personal favorite new melodic groups.
Thanks for having me back. Looks like it’s been 7 years since we last spoke. In the interim I’ve put out 2 Cryptics records, the 2nd Infernal Diatribe record, been in and out of Battalion Of Saints, Antidote, and have recently put out my first solo album at the end of last year. Yes, 2021 and 2022 have been incredibly busy working on all sorts of avenues. Glad you’ve been digging the Cryptics stuff.
That band takes up the majority of my time and we’ve been working on our forthcoming release which I like a whole lot more than anything we’ve done in the past. That’s been the most involved thing that’s been an ongoing work in progress for the past couple years.
2- Live Or Be Lived All Over is one of those oldschool hardcore hidden gems, a throwback to the early days of hardcore with a strong late 90’s/early 00’s feel. It’s hard to put my hand on it when it comes to namedrop influences, you already covered songs by The F.U.’s and The Freeze in the past but if I had to pick one it would probably be Nerve Agents, which rules as I don’t see that happening often, or at all. Tell us, how did this album come to fruition?
I was playing in Battalion Of Saints in 2017-2018. I wrote us a new full-length album but the band ended up breaking up after a US and European tour. I recorded the drums, bass, and guitar parts in a west coast studio. No vocals got written or recorded and the album was abandoned once the band split. I liked it and really wanted the songs to see the light of day. I couldn’t get the recording properly from the studio and I wanted to do it better anyways so I completely re-recorded it here on the east coast. I wrote lyrics and decided to make it my first full-length solo album.
Outside of those couple 7” EP’s I did in 2010/2011 I never got the chance to actually do this project for real. I haven’t had any time to. I still don’t really have time but it’s now or never and I choose now.
3- For the uninitiated, Tino Valpa is roughly a 13-year-old project but it seems you wanted to give the solo project a fresh start, your pages related to Tino Valpa don’t mention the previous works. What was different this time around? This also gives me the sense that we won’t have to wait another 8 years to hear more of this.
It is definitely more of a fresh start approach. I more or less consider this project really starting in January 2023. I still recognize those first two EPs but I barely did anything in the way of live. I hardly pursued it and now is my chance to make that all happen. As far as what was different this time around I’d say the sound of the record and me as a person. Sound-wise it’s more than just 25-30 second punk songs. There’s a bit more to it. And for me I’m at a point where if I’m going to take the time to put out an album, I need to go all the way with touring and doing my best to get it out there. I’m not going to put something out that I don’t care about and won’t stand behind.
Yes you’re very right, you won’t have to wait another 8 years til the next release. I haven’t mentioned this but the next several things I’m doing are already completely finished. I actually wrapped them last year. I’m just mapping out when they should be released. This project will be flowing more consistently than in the past.
4- Now for the heartless question. Do you have a favorite track in the new album, or 2 or 3? I picked the first one, the album’s title track for this blog's best of the year playlist but songs like Chains Around The World and We Are At War were a close tight and the latter gave me a strong Cro-Mags and Cause for Alarm-era’s Agnostic Front vibes. That’s a big compliment. The Age Of Quarrel is timeless to me and Cause For Alarm is such a tight record. #BomberZee. My favorite songs are The Follower, Live Or Be Lived All Over, Chains Around The World. We Are At War is a close contender too. So basically the same ones as you. Fall Of The Handshake gets the honorable mention. Fast circle pit track is always a plus in my book.
5- As a vegan straight edge individual how did you approach the lyrics for this album? In your perception animal rights and environmental awareness are becoming more relevant now than it was in the late 90’s US hardcore scenes?
I approached the lyrics on a song-by-song basis. I listened to each tune and just started writing whatever came to mind. I had no preformed plan for each track. My organic whole plant food lifestyle did leak into a few of the tracks. To my surprise, not that many though. Really just a couple. There were many other valuable themes I felt worth mentioning such as how lame people are letting electronics make them. Far too comfortable and sedentary. Also spotlighting sweatshops and globalization, and the terror it brings to the workers in China, Haiti, Honduras…. You name it. While we chill over here and pretend like nothing is happening.
Yes I think environmental awareness is becoming more of a thing. Not as much as it needs to be, but it has increased. I’ve heard countless physicians and scientists repeatedly point out that even if you add up every car, plane, ship in the world, it doesn’t even remotely come close to how much greenhouse gas emissions are put into the environment via animal agriculture. This message needs to get louder and louder.
Animal rights I feel like are about consistent with where they’ve always been. That approach will never get masses of people to choose plants. But what could is the health approach. People don’t realize that when they kill an animal it kills you back. You’re eating something that vastly increases your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, inflammatory diseases, depression and the list goes on. It’s not worth it at all. You either consume animals which destroys the planet and you from the inside out or you consume plants which rewards both parties. Objectively the correct choice is loud and clear. But, food addiction is powerful. Food is emotional. Tradition is instinctual.
People also don’t want to feel like a fool. Some want to resist the fact that they’ve got played their entire life with health doing something they were taught was healthy when all this time it was the opposite. People don’t want to think that their family members, friends, relatives died from food-related causes. It may make them feel stupid, weak, and angry because it’s something that could have been so simply turned around but none of us knew about this. And that’s all understandable. We’re living six feet deep buried by lies. It’s up to the people with the knowledge to grab a shovel and start digging everyone else out one by one. Once the ditch is dug, the person needs to be brave enough to crawl out and start a new life. It’s up to each individual to unlearn their habits. Those with open minds that are willing to make progress will be the ones on top in this world. The choice is yours to make.
6- In the previous interview you touched on an important and interesting matter regarding the sub-divisions inside the punk scene or micro-scenes surrounding punk. After the pandemic, where people got deprived of social contact for 2 years, do you see that going in which direction? As for myself I always hoped that the metal and punk scenes were one and the same but that’s just fantasy.
It took a while for things to really come together after the pandemic. Really up until this past year. But I will say that I have seen some of the youngest most diverse crowds at shows than I’ve seen in the past decade. It’s been really cool to go to hardcore shows and see all these random younger people checking out the scene. All sorts of backgrounds just finding commonality through punk rock. I’m liking what I’m seeing.
7- I always find the artwork a very important part of a band’s message/vibe they want to come across. For Live Or Be Lived you chose a minimalistic yet appealing piece of art (and I think it worked pretty well btw). Who was behind it and what you were aiming for?
Thank you. I like how it came out too. My friend Tim Rummo I’ve been working with for years. We’ve been friends since childhood and played music together since. I’ll give him a general theme and many times he just nails it. To me the album cover represents the internal combustion going on in nearly every American household as we destroy ourselves from the inside out with processed food, animal products, sedentary lifestyle. It’s a simplistic and direct symbol for what is going on every day. Something that the average person can’t even see.
8- A Midwest Tour is set-up and ready to kickoff this thursday (23)! Who’s joining you on the line-up and what people can expect for Tino Valpa live performances? Thanks for finding the time to do this Tino, already excited to hear the new stuff, please give us your final thoughts and shouts!
I’m answering this from the middle of the tour. It’s going well so far!
Lineup for the tour:
Me - Vocals
Frank Nordaby - Guitar
Tom Barvick - Guitar
Nate Garcia - Bass
Mark Geanakakis - Drums
These are all my homies from different stages of life. So having them all in one place at the same time is a real treat and has been so much fun. I knew this run would be a blast before it started. The new album “Live Or Be Lived All Over” is streaming everywhere. Grab a physical copy and all other merch at tinovalpa.com Thanks for taking the time to do this!
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