January 04, 2004
Interview with Giulio Cataldo
It has been said that you can't judge a book by its cover, and the same applies for a record...or does it? While it is true that great music stands on its own; it is also true that album art work helps to set the mood and further illustrate the musician's message. With the advances in technology the face of artwork is changing, the days of cathedral ceilings and parchment have passed, making way for digital imagery and animation. One of the greats of today's medium is Giulio Cataldo of Frontiers Records. Giulio has a part in each and every release from the label. As an added feature we have included a link to "Giulio's Top Ten" where you can view some of his favorite album covers he has worked on (if you click on the covers you will be taken to the bands site.) The music accompanying this interview is a clip form Grimalkin, the keyboard, songwriting and lead vocals are done by none other than Giulio himself. We have learned that there is material ready and waiting for another album, maybe even two! We will keep you posted, but until then we will continue to enjoy Giulio's talented artwork, enjoy the interview!1. Anyone familiar with great AOR albums released by Frontiers is familiar with your work, the artistic design and layout of all albums cross your desk for approval is what we understand. Would you take a moment in the beginning to tell us who you are and a little bit about what you do?
Hello to everyone, my name is Giulio Cataldo and I'm in charge at Frontiers Records as artwork designer and layout supervisor. This means basically that the artistic designs and the layout of all albums crosses my desk, but my job changes much when an artist approaches us with or without artwork ready for his album. In-fact a good quantity of artists (60/70%) has artwork ready and this means that I only have to supervise it, checking it and converting it to the format which complies with our manufacturing plant standards.
If an artist, instead, has no artwork, I work as an artwork designer starting a long and complex work which may take weeks. I also design and create all advertisement artwork appearing on all major specialized magazines worldwide.
2. Your job as the "Graphic and Publicity" person for a label such as Frontiers would be a dream come true for many people, what experience did you have before this position?
If I don't say it wrong Confucius said that "If you do a job that you like you'll never work a day of your life". Unfortunately, although this is a deeply creative and satisfying job, I always have to hurry to comply with a very strict schedule and at the same time, I need to keep the quality standards high for every release, either if it is an artwork or an advertisement design.
Regarding my previous experience, I'm a musician, a sound engineer and an artwork designer so I have always been a "creative". This means that regardless of my different activities I always go searching for that "little flame" that makes me expressing the most personal way, trying to give that special touch to everything I do. Someone call this "Art".
3. We would imagine that with the responsibility of your position that you must work closely with some if not all of the artists during the production of an album, how does that typically work, do they come to you with an idea and then you develop it or do you come up with proposals to begin with?
Yes, often I have to deal and/or work with artists whose names are printed with capital letters in the story of rock such as Jim Peterik, Glenn Hughes or Eric Martin, for example, and this may look to be a problem. I have experienced instead that long date professionals have often a straight idea for their work, giving me the right direction to follow to come out with artwork which remains either my brainchild and the visual artistic completion of the musical work.
Sometimes instead the artist has no idea for the artwork, then I listen to the album, keep in mind the title and search for the inspiration. Sometimes it comes to me soon, sometimes in the night or when I cross that "barely slumber status" early in the morning. Believe me this is one of the best creative moment of the day as you leave your brain working for you all night long while you're asleep.
4. The finished products that are released are often artistic masterpieces themselves, do you do all the artwork or do you have a team of artists on staff?
Wow! I thank you for the "masterpiece" but as I told you I don't make all artworks we release, so I turn this great compliment to those artists and designers too.
No, I don't have a team of artists here at Frontiers, I personally do all artworks on my own. Sometimes I work in conjunction with external artists, as it is happened for Michael Sembello's "The Lost Years", were I had the opportunity to work with Morito Suzuky (Earth Wind and Fire) who provided us with the original cover artwork for this release.
5. We know that the "Quality not Quantity" attitude of Frontiers has been key to it's success when speaking of the music that is released, what would you say is the main focus when it comes to the graphic design and publicizing of the albums?
The main focus is: The simplicity of the message - The richness of content. This looks like those "standard marketing concepts", but when you see our release covers you often get the basic message of the musical style of the band and this is not an easy thing to obtain. Of course this choice leaves the artwork designer less freedom, such as the use or not of specific subjects, colors and/or even chromatic balances. This could become critical when the musical artist has a totally different view, but I can consider myself lucky as this happens rarely; I always tend to anticipate artist's tastes.
On the other side we must consider that the music market is getting tough, and musical piracy makes everything even worse for people working in this field. That's why we prefer to make releases "rich of content", with a full color booklet, disc labels and crystal trays arriving with the luxury package of the Digipak for some priority release. We know that the expense is worth its value as the CD is not only music, it's a message of an artist to the world - a piece of art.
When you buy a painting you would have also its frame and the original sign of the artist on it. A copy is only a copy and you can't feel you own that piece of art if you don't have the original. By the way if you don't have such feelings... you won't ever hear this music at all. And that's it!
6. What would you say are your favorite (album) designs to date and what makes them special to you?
Well, if you're asking for my own favorite album designs, I can tell you that every one is a singularity with a special story for it, but I love especially Mecca, Hardline "II" and Unruly Child "UC3".
Mecca reflects the "simplicity of the message" come true. I've received an e-mail from a customer saying that this was the "perfect AOR cover" he would have bought this CD without hearing at the music as he was sure of the musical style. What a satisfaction!
Hardline "II", although the simplicity and essentiality of the cover, I designed the inside panels with three high reflective metal balls, reflecting the logo of the band in different element landscapes: air, ground, ice, water, fire and mist. Very complex, but this is what I mean for "richness of contents". The great Johnny Gioeli is still wondering what those three balls mean, but he loved it alot!
Unruly Child "UC3" is a very inspired concept. Guy Allison and Bruce Gowdy gave me complete freedom to develop it. I soon had it in mind that an "Unruly Child" may see war as a game - If you give him the right toy... he will play!- The citizens of the future are all children now, they need rules or mankind will destroy itself.
If you mean my favorite album designs on the market, instead, I love Roger Dean (Yes, Asia, Uriah Heep) for his natural inspirations and chromatic balance, H.R. Giger (ELP, Alien design) for his wonderful biotech designs and the contrast between female beauty and the cold metallic colors of the pale skins, Pink Floyd (all the artwork artists collaborating) as there is always a deep research work and a highly interpretative concept behind.
7. We often ask the artists what direction they would like to see the AOR movement go in the future; what would you like to see happen in the industry to bring back some of the glory to Melodic Rock and the people who love it?
As I told you the market is tough and this is not just for AOR, much of the rock music market is experiencing a lack of sales and the reason is the target. The market target is divided by age classes, which can also be considered as different generations. Those generations who listen to rock music are growing older, and this is a matter of fact (Adult Oriented Rock means this by the way). When you are a young boy you have enough interest and money to buy CDs and to go to concerts, sharing your musical experiences with people of your same age. When you grow up you begin to have different priorities in your life, you change your friends, (sometimes your musical tastes too) and often to buy a CD becomes a rare event of your life. On the other side new generations create their own new musical styles, making the market turn fast and suddenly. Anyway I'm confident that young people sometimes have the opportunity to listen their parents own LPs, I think that good music plays by itself, and the market has its perpetual cycles.
8. As part of your job you get to sample the new and as yet unreleased music, who do you enjoy most as musicians of today and do you know of any up coming releases we should look forward to?
Well, I can say that singers like Jeff Scott Soto, Kip Winger, or bands like Giant, Hardline or On The Rise are what I prefer from our label, but I love those historical bands such as Yes, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Rush and Thread.
The upcoming releases are for sure Pride Of Lions (with Jim Peterik and the amazing new singer Toby Hitchcock) Last Tribe (this Cd is even better than their previous one) and the next Billy Greer's Seventh Key. Unmissable!
9. In doing a little research we found that you yourself have done your part in the musical arena on the 1996 release of Grimalkin, 'The Drifting Sailer'; as lead vocal and keyboardist for the band, any chance of a re-release under the Frontiers label?
I can't believe you're such a bloodhound! Yes, you're right. I'm the keyboardist and lead singer of Grimalkin and this is the main reason why I'm working here at Frontiers. In 1998 Mario de Riso was a journalist for an Italian rock magazine called Metal Shock and he did an interview with me, he loved my music and we became good friends. Then he introduced me to Serafino Perugino, and here I am.
Grimalkin is a prog rock oriented band and is not quite on the target of this label... but who knows.
10. Are you currently working on any other music?
I have music ready to be recorded for almost one and a half CDs, but as I told you our generation is grown up, the Guitarist is a doctor, the bass player is employed in a telephone company and I work here at Frontiers. We have planned to meet and play again in the near future, so we'll see.
11. What advise would you give to those aspiring to be graphic artists or professional musicians? Your experience on the production side of things may be the most valuable they could get!
I would say the same things for both graphic artists and musicians: the technical skill is not the final goal! It is just a tool for your heart and soul. If you look or listen to what you've done, you must be honest enough to judge your work. If you don't feel it is THE perfect expression of yourself this might be nothing. Be your worst critic!
12. Is there anything else that you would like to say to all of those reading this interview?
There is a sentence I wrote on the first page of the booklet of Grimalkin "The Drifting Sailer" album:
"For Months, more often for entire generations man seeks for Light.
He runs faster and faster in the vain attempt to reach it.
He shall discover, at the end of his route,
He had lived the constant eclipse of himself
Posted by Kathy at January 4, 2004 11:26 PM