Probably not a lot of people out there know who Forty Winks are. They are a local band out of my hometown in Italy and their new record “To the Lonely Hearts” sounds so good that I could hardly believe this band was from place so close to me: great guitar riffs, harmonies, choruses and a lot of melodies. The band is made up of four shy young guys and I had the chance to ask some question to Sandro, lead singer and guitarist for the band and he was so cool to answer my questions. Here what he had to tell me.

Interview by Carlo | carlo@staff.truepunk.com

Carlo: Hi! How are you doing ?

Forty Winks:Great.

Carlo: Can you present yourself in the band, your ages and some stuff you want to say about you ?

Forty Winks:We’re four shy guys, we’re all around 21.

Carlo: How did you meet and come up with the idea of playing in a band ?

Forty Winks:We haunted the same school, and we all played something…so after a grunge-nirvana-wanna-be period we made up our minds and became real punks.

Carlo: Did you have some line-up changes in your carrer as a band?

Forty Winks:It happened about 3 years ago that robby, our bass player, decided to take a 10 months break to recover his best form through ganja…then re-joined the band,stronger than ever. Here goes a big thanx to luke, who replaced him and gave us the inspiration and will have to go on anyway…from then on it has been rock’n'roll.More or less.

Carlo: What does the name “Forty Winks” refer to ? Does it have a secret meaning, I mean, I know it’s like to ask to Blink182 why they chose that number, but why “forty”…

Forty Winks:Forty winks is nothing but a way to say you’re about to sleep…actually when you drink or smoke too much…I think you don’t need futher explanations…

Carlo: What do you consider as your musical influences, or where do you take inspiration from ? What bands/records are you playing in your radio right now ?

Forty Winks:We like to mix different influences in our music, and I think the most significant ones – in this album – go from Unwritten Law to The Ataris ,from MxPx to Homegrown, from Midtown to the good old cal punk bands. These days our radio is playing Midtown, Social distortion, Snoop Dogg, NFG ,ALL ,Sublime and some reggae vibes…

Carlo: Talking of your new album, from the title, it is already clear it deals a lot with love, broken hearts and girls … do your experiences with the female genre ended up so badly?

Forty Winks:Not really; it’s all about pleasing the ladies. Far-sighted self-pity.

Carlo: Although you play a genre that is known for the loss of “fanatsy” or “diveristy”, the songs on “To the Lonely Hearts” sound more or less all different: how did you get that ? Just naturally ?

Forty Winks:I think all genres got this “loss of diversity”…it depends on how deep you are involved in that…you have to learn recognizing different styles in the same genre…as you can do that’s why you’re saying our songs sounds different o each other…many others would say our songs are all the same crap. And we get this crap naturally.

Carlo: Which songs off your new record you enjoy the most, I mean, both when you hear them and when you play them live, which songs do you like best? I like a lot “One Time, Two Times”…

Forty Winks:”One time,Two times” is one of the elders ,but we like to play it live…then “Anchor”,”Is This all that love’s about?”, “Who sets the rules”…lots of fun.

Carlo: “Til the Moonlight comes”, who wrote that lyric ? Can you tell us what it’s about ?

Forty Winks:No comment.

Carlo: What are your plans for the future? Will you tours, do some records or be on some compilations?

Forty Winkss:Tour, tour and tour,I hope. We should tour the States in early 2002…then we’re gonna set some gigs in Italy and we’ll probably sign for Agitato Records…our CD will be released in the U.s. for End Records before December 1st…we put one song in “The Beginning of the End” comp.(www.end-records.com) and another one in “Do Not Disturbia” for HeyDisturbiaRecords…(www.heydisturbiarecords.com) Also Asian Man Records will release a 7 inch with a couple of songs from the full lenght in early 2002…that’s it.

Carlo: On which record label are you now ? I know you signed for End Records from the U.S…what about the rest of the world?

Forty Winks:End records for USA and Canada, Agitato Records for Italy.

Carlo: As far as I know, you played as suppport of a lot of bands, like Midtown … what is the expirience you remember as the best or the funniest? Have you got some tour-stories ?

Forty Winks:The show with Midtown was cool ,even if there wasn’t a great turnout of people. The funniest experiences are always linked to our old van, a ’67 Volkswagen…but believe me…this is another story…

Carlo: Do you think you will make a video off “To the Lonely Hearts”? I think some songs are so catchy and also radio-friendly that you could get a lot of airplay on TRL…

Forty Winks:It would be cool…but we need the money to pay it and promote it…would you?

Carlo: What do you think of the local italian scene ? are there a lot of bands and enough places to play ?

Forty Winks:I really don’t believe in any italian scene.I don’t think there’s unity or something; we got lots of friends who play in bands that rock, and hope to meet more in the future…that’s enough. The important thing to us is to keep on doing our way , playing what we like.

Carlo: Last questions, if a guy would like to buy your record, how should he do ? I mean, it is not easy to find it…

Forty Winks:Yeah, I know…the only thing that I can say is to be patient just for a while; End Records will release our full length in the US , and Agitato Records will do it in Italy…in the meanwhile this is where you can find us for anything: fortywinks_@hotmail.com

Carlo: Final comments ?Forty Winks:Thanks to everyone who support us ,we really appreciate it,and we won’t disappoint you…

links: www.fortywinksrock.com, www.end-records.com, www.truepunk.com/sounds/