Interview EPTA7

EPTA7 takes listeners deep into a cinematic industrial horror universe where cities breathe, walls remember, and fear becomes part of the landscape. In this interview, the band explores the inspirations and stories behind The Walls Breathe.

1. "The Walls Breathe" presents a building as a living, conscious entity. What inspired this concept, and what deeper themes were you exploring through the song?

When I was a child, I had a strange feeling that objects came alive whenever I was alone. I remember looking at gates, old buildings or dark corridors and imagining they were watching me. A gate could suddenly look like a mouth, a window like an eye. That childhood fear never really disappeared—it simply evolved into the imagery that defines EPTA7 today.

On a deeper level, The Walls Breathe is built around the idea that places absorb the emotions of the people who live within them. Every fear, every trauma, every act of love or violence leaves an invisible trace behind. I don't see this as a ghost story. It's more like an emotional memory that slowly accumulates over decades or even centuries.

In the EPTA7 universe, there comes a point when a place has absorbed so much human experience that it almost develops a consciousness of its own. The walls don't breathe because they're biologically alive—they breathe because they have become saturated with memories, fears and emotions, and they begin to release them back into the world.

That's one of the central ideas behind Here Come the Freaks: the city isn't just a setting. It's a living organism, shaped by the people who inhabit it. And eventually, it creates its own monsters.

2. The atmosphere of the track feels both cinematic and deeply unsettling. How do you approach creating such immersive moods in your music?

I almost always start with a mental movie rather than a riff. Before I write any music, I already have images in my head—a place, a character, a sequence of events, or simply a very clear atmosphere. That visual world is probably sixty percent of the creative process.

Once that world exists, I begin to build everything else around it. Sometimes I complete it through imagination, filling in the missing pieces until the whole picture feels alive. Only then does the music start taking shape.

Of course, there are exceptions. Occasionally a guitar riff or a melody comes first and suddenly reminds me of an image or an idea I'd had weeks, months or even years before. But most of the time, it's the other way around.

For me, atmosphere is always more important than the riff itself. The music isn't there just to be listened to—it should make the listener feel like they've stepped into another place. If someone can close their eyes and almost see the world I'm imagining, then I've achieved what I was trying to create.

3. EPTA7 combines industrial metal, post-punk, dark electronics, and horror storytelling. How has your sound evolved since the release of Eptasystem in 2014?

When I listen to Eptasystem today, I hear a young band taking its first steps. I can hear all the things I would do differently now—from the production to some of the performances—but I also hear something I never want to lose: honesty. It was a very instinctive record, created without overthinking, driven more by emotion than by perfection.

At that time, EPTA7 was made up of musicians with very different backgrounds. Some leaned more towards punk, others towards thrash metal, while others brought industrial and electronic influences. That diversity gave the demo its own character, but it also meant the band's identity was still taking shape.

Today, EPTA7 has a much clearer artistic direction. As a duo, we share the same creative vision, so every musical choice serves the same purpose. We're much less concerned with writing riffs for their own sake and much more focused on creating atmosphere, telling stories and building a believable world.

The horror element has always been there—that hasn't changed. But today it's no longer just a theme in the lyrics. It influences every aspect of the music, from the arrangements to the sound design. I think our music has become much more cinematic, because the songs are no longer just songs—they're chapters of the same universe.

4. You describe EPTA7 as more than a band—an evolving industrial horror universe. When did you decide to move beyond traditional songwriting and build a larger interconnected narrative?

There wasn't a single moment when we consciously decided to turn EPTA7 into a larger narrative universe. It happened naturally over time.

After the release of Eptasystem, the band went through a long hiatus. Although we weren't actively recording, we never stopped creating. We kept writing ideas, preserving unfinished material and, above all, refining our artistic vision.

During those years, our inspirations expanded far beyond music. Cinema, literature and our shared passion for role-playing games became fundamental influences. We both love creating characters, dystopian settings and interconnected stories.

Little by little, we stopped thinking in terms of individual songs and started thinking in terms of places, characters and events that all belonged to the same universe. The music became just one way of exploring that world.

When we returned with Here Come the Freaks, we realized we weren't simply making another album—we were opening the door to a living universe where every song reveals another piece of the story.

That's why EPTA7 today feels much more cinematic than it did in the early days. At some point, we stopped writing songs and started building places where those songs could happen.

5. Many recurring symbols and mysterious elements appear throughout your videos. Are these planned far in advance, or does the story develop organically with each new release?

It's a combination of both. The universe itself is carefully planned, but the stories are free to grow naturally inside it.

I already know the rules of this world, its atmosphere, its symbols and the way it works. In many ways, it's like creating the setting for a role-playing game rather than writing a traditional album. Once the world exists, new characters, places and stories can emerge quite organically without breaking its internal logic.

That's why certain symbols keep returning. They're not random Easter eggs—they're part of the DNA of the EPTA7 universe. At the same time, I always leave room for new ideas. Sometimes an image, a visual detail or even a small concept that wasn't originally planned becomes so interesting that it naturally finds its place in the bigger picture.

I don't want to know every chapter before I write it. I want the universe to surprise me as much as it surprises the listener. As long as it remains faithful to its own rules, it can continue evolving indefinitely.

6. The music video for "The Walls Breathe" feels like another chapter in a larger story. What can you tell us about the connection between this video, "Fallen Gabriel," and the world introduced in Here Come the Freaks?

Yes, they're all part of the same universe and the same city. Here Come the Freaks isn't the story of a single character—it's the story of the city itself. The title refers to an event: the arrival of the Freaks, a moment that changes the city's fragile balance forever.

Each song explores that world from a different perspective. The Walls Breathe reveals that the city itself has become a living organism, shaped by the emotions and corruption it has absorbed over time. Fallen Gabriel, on the other hand, is a much more allegorical story. It's about the fall of something that should represent purity and hope, only to discover that it has become part of a much darker reality. By the end of the video, Gabriel's transformation into EPTA7 symbolizes that corruption.

The EPTA7 creature has become the central figure connecting all these stories. I see it as an observer moving through the city, witnessing what happens and, in some ways, telling the story from the outside.

But at the same time, I don't think it's completely innocent. It may also be one of the Freaks. Maybe it was corrupted by the city... or maybe it helped create that corruption in the first place. Honestly, even I don't have all the answers yet, and I like it that way. Some mysteries should remain mysteries, even for the person creating them.

7. Architecture, abandoned places, and decaying urban landscapes play an important role in your visual identity. What fascinates you about these environments as storytelling tools?

I've never been fascinated by abandoned places simply because they look dark or decayed. What fascinates me is that they were once full of life.

Every broken window, every forgotten chair, every cracked wall makes me wonder what happened there. Who lived in that place? Why did they leave? What memories are still trapped inside those rooms? To me, every detail tells a story—if you're willing to listen carefully enough.

That's why I don't see abandoned buildings as empty spaces. Quite the opposite. I see them as places still filled with invisible traces of the people who once lived there. They're almost like silent archives of human emotions.

I think that's one of the reasons why urban environments play such an important role in EPTA7. A remote mountain where nobody has ever lived can certainly be beautiful, but an abandoned factory, an old apartment block or a forgotten street has witnessed thousands of lives. Those places carry memories, fears, hopes and tragedies, and that's exactly the kind of atmosphere I want to explore.

For me, architecture isn't just a backdrop. It's another character in the story.

8. Your influences range from Nine Inch Nails and Ministry to Moonspell and Paradise Lost. Which artists or works outside of music—such as films, books, or visual art—have shaped the EPTA7 universe?

Outside of music, H.P. Lovecraft has probably been my biggest influence. It's not just his stories, but the feeling that reality hides something much larger and more disturbing than we can ever understand. That sense of mystery has always fascinated me.

The Call of Cthulhu role-playing game also had a huge impact on me, especially in the way it builds atmosphere and lets players discover a world piece by piece. More generally, role-playing games taught me how to create coherent worlds rather than isolated stories, and that approach naturally became part of EPTA7. As the creator of the role-playing game Sisyphus 1980, world-building has become one of the foundations of my creative process.

For Miss Grey, Tim Burton—especially Edward Scissorhands—has always been a fundamental influence. His films portray outsiders with empathy and humanity, and that idea of the "freak" as someone misunderstood rather than simply monstrous is deeply connected to the philosophy of Here Come the Freaks.

We also admire Guillermo del Toro for his extraordinary ability to create believable fantasy worlds where beauty and horror coexist. Visually, H.R. Giger's biomechanical art has certainly influenced our industrial aesthetic, while M.C. Escher's impossible architecture reminds us that spaces themselves can become unsettling characters in a story.

If there's one thing all these artists have in common, it's that they don't just tell stories—they build worlds. That's exactly what we try to do with EPTA7.

9. The themes of isolation, fear, and unseen forces are central to your work. Do you see these ideas as reflections of modern society, personal experiences, or both?

I think they come from both personal experience and the world we live in, but personal experience is always where they begin.

Here Come the Freaks is, above all, an album about fear. The fear of being forgotten. The fear of not belonging. The fear of losing yourself. The fear of carrying wounds that never completely heal. Many of those emotions come from my own childhood and from experiences that stayed with me as I grew up.

At the same time, I believe those fears are universal. Modern society often encourages us to wear masks. We admire success, beauty, fame and power, but we rarely see what lies underneath.

That's one of the central ideas behind Mostri Dentro ("Monsters Within"). One character is a successful trap artist who seems to have everything—money, fame and admiration—but when the lights go out, he's left alone with his own fears. Another is a famous diva, constantly fighting against time and the fear of becoming irrelevant. Then there's the Glass King, a powerful businessman who has built his entire identity around success, only to discover that success can't protect him from loneliness.

To me, those are the real monsters in EPTA7. They're not supernatural creatures. They're the fears, insecurities and obsessions that modern society teaches us to hide behind perfect masks.

The Freaks aren't just outsiders. In one way or another, they're all of us.

10. As every release reveals another fragment of the mystery, what can fans expect from the next chapter of the EPTA7 universe, and are there any secrets still waiting to be discovered?

I think the next chapter represents a natural evolution of the EPTA7 universe.

Here Come the Freaks is a very introspective album. It explores our deepest fears, personal traumas, loneliness, the need to belong and everything we try to hide behind our masks. In many ways, it's about looking inward.

With Schengen Reloaded, the perspective begins to change. The Freak stops looking only at itself and starts looking at the world around it. The city is still the same, but now the fears are no longer just personal—they become collective.

Today we're living through a period of profound uncertainty. Climate change, growing political polarization, economic instability and the fear of new conflicts are all part of our everyday lives. These aren't abstract concepts; they're real anxieties that shape how people think and live. As a deeply European band, EPTA7 naturally reflects those concerns.

So the next chapter doesn't abandon the themes of fear—it expands them. The monsters are no longer found only within ourselves, but also in the society we've created around us.

And yes, there are still many secrets waiting to be discovered. Some questions about the EPTA7 creature and the city will eventually find answers, but every answer will open the door to new mysteries. That's how this universe is meant to grow.

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