Vanilla Sky

Nowadays the musical project VANILLA SKY is represented by Daniele Autore (vocals / guitar), Vincenzo Mario Cristi (vocals / guitar), Antonio Filippelli (bass / vocals), Jacopo Volpe (drums / vocals). Since its debut, the quartet has established itself both in the italian and international scene by self producing the first EP “Play It If You Can’t Say It” which have opened the doors of the then rookie Wynona Records after only few months of activity. The independent label has contributed to the band’s very first LP “Waiting For Something” which launched the band as one of the most promising italian alternatives abroad with a great success in Japan, where the disk reached almost twenty thousand copies sold. The tour that accompanied the release of their independent debut lasted more than two years for a total of two hundred sixty-six concerts allowing the group to accumulate enough experience to deal with overseas artists with which they shared the stage: must be remembered the tours with The Ataris, Bowling For Soup, Further Seems Forever, Maxeen, The Offspring, Yellowcard (whose guitar player, founder of Takeover Records proposed to sign the band in the States). During the period between the release of “Waiting For Something” and the major debut with Universal Italy, the band is noticed by Mark Hoppus, legendary bass player from Blink 182 / +44 who interviews the group for his own blog podcast and ask them to support his band official for some shows of the upcoming european tour.

He also guested in the track Nightmare, specially appreciated by the californian songwriter in its first demo version. With “Changes” the mainstream doors open through a license with Universal Italy and with the first single Break It Out, song that will appear on many Tv programs (not only national), the band gain the Rock Sound magazine cover. The same track is being asked for the famous videogame Guitar Hero World Tour making it immortal also to the eyes of the less hardcore ludic fans while at the same time in the game The Sims the second track on the album, On & On is bought and made re recorded in simmish by the company producer of the famous videogame to have it inside of it.

Just three months after the new album is freely released on Myspace.com the cover song Umbrella, originally performed by Rihanna, gaining such a success that the label re-print the whole album in a new edition containing the song. In Japan the record got more than six thousand copies in pre-order and the success appear imminent. The tour to promote the album seems never ending and the band shares the stage with artists like Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne, Bad Religion and The Draft. Shows outside of Italy costantly grow up and the group gets major attention in countries such us Belgium, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Holland and Spain (with many sold out shows in the latter countries). The Umbrella parody video clip becomes the most viewed italian video clip in the world on the famous network YouTube.com and major media focus on the roman quartet inviting it to join major national Tv shows (Quelli Che Il Calcio, Scalo 76, Festivalbar 2.0, etc.) as much as biggest international festivals like Frequency Festival ’07 (Snow Patrol, The Good The Bad and The Queen, Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, Billy Talent, etc.), Nova Rock ’08 (Rage Against The Machine, Kid Rock, Incubus, etc.), Heineken Jammin’ Festival ’08 (Vasco Rossi, Sex Pistols, etc.). In Holland and Belgium Umbrella join the charts for several weeks and in South America the fan base gets bigger and bigger (in Brasil the Umbrella videoclip is the most viewed clip ever). The band at the top of its visibility releases the third single in a double version, italian and english Se Vuoi Andare / Goodbye. After almost two years of touring on the stages of all Europe with more than one hundred and sixty shows just for the tour of “Changes”, more than forty thousand copies sold out all over the world the band stops to work on its third album which comes to a first release in the japanese market on May the 5th 2010 with the title “Fragile”. On the record work people like the famous america producer Jamie Woolford (singer from The Stereo and inspiration for artists like Fall Out Boy and Panic At The Disco!) who will take care of the english sung songs, and Big Bass Brian who already mastered the previous record “Changes”.

Still active in the national Tv scene with the song Break It Out, official soundtrack of the Seat Ibiza Mtv advertisements, the band starts promoting the upcoming album in Japan with another tour right before the beginning of the european one. The first clip is taken from the song Just Dance, cover of the famous pop artist Lady Gaga, is filmed partially in New York and wins the award as “Best Direction” videoclip 2010. At the same time the band produces another clip for the song On Fire (Vivere Diversi in Italian) to give it away as a present for the “afecionados” who don’t happily look at the coming back of the band with another cover, confirming its original underground identity. Moreover the project keeps working artistically at 360° personally taking care of the new website, the new successfully video-podcast previously known as “Vanilla Sky Television” now changed into a more contemporary and modern “Vanilla Sky Clips”, and the upcoming singles, produced by the band and directed by the bass player A.Filippelli.
Right after the release of Frames (Attimi in Italian), awarded as best videoclip subject 2011, the group will face his first world tour, crossing the entire asian continent (from Japan to the western EU) and collective positive feedbacks playing more than 260 shows between ending 2009 and mid 2011. During this endless time the roman pop punkers kept receiving requests despite the hard burocracy inside of the major label didn’t let the album come out in the full English version: yet Vanilla Sky made several appearances on national tv shows and got his singles on air also on the music channels of the foreign markets, joining also some of the major musical festivals in EU like the Donauinsel Fest of Vienna. Singles like First Last Kiss, whose video was initially censored by the italian law which technically does not allow any kind of homosexual representation to be streamed on tv, were then acclaimed by the media as innovative and touching, proving once again the band right on his path despite the huge crisis hitting the musical market. First Last Kiss becomes in fact video of the weeks on several music channels and it is being awarded at the Venice 2011 like “best video” in the section “Cinema Meets Music”. In the final steps of the year, the group ends its deal with Universal and start building his own record label, called The Alternative Factory which re- releases all the band’s back-catalogue and several artists produced by the band members.

On the 18th of december the band had released its fourth full length, called “The Band Not The Movie”. The experience and maturity acquired during the last decade makes the artist the most veteran representative of professional pop punk in Europe, conferring the band the responsibility and the burden to preserve a genre imported first in early 2002 with the first DIY Ep ‚Play It If You Can’t Say It‘. In the meantime the band had came back from a Russian tour and had toured Italy in december 2012 and january 2013, and it’s ready for a new european tour, scheduled for winter/spring 2013.