Doomed Confessionary: Erik Cimenti (Jena)

Jena is a southern/stoner metal band from Brescia in northern Italy. Born in 2013, they debuted with the self-produced EP »Jena« followed by full-length »Womandile« in 2015. In June 2021 the band has signed to Argonauta Records for the release of their second album »Graboid«, out on December 3rd, 2021. Their third full-length album »Outlaw« was just released independently on December 24th, 2023.

Jena is Guido Richini (vocals, guitar), Erik Cimenti (guitar), Stefano Righele (bass) and Marco Gelmi (drums).

Can you say a few words about your band?
We are a quartet that enjoy playing live, interact with the audience and make noise as much as possible.
We are not new to having people on stage singing with us and to jump out of the stage to play as close as possible with our audience.
On stage is all about having fun and even if you don’t entirely like the genre, you will surely be amazed by the show.

What was the biggest challenge for the band last year?
The past years have been challenging, not much about writing songs and releasing albums but the real challenge has been to establish a network of contacts to pretty much effortlessly plan tours for the years to come.
We have found reliable people and frauds too, we are still in the process but we feel like we are on the right track.

What can you be most proud of last year?
As we said before we are trying to establish contacts and possibly collaborations with booking agencies to plan in advance the tour for the future.
We thrive for live shows and in 2023 we have been in Krakow, in Budapest and around northern Italy, in 2022 the possibilities were much lower, in 2024 we have already planned around 6 to 9 live shows around Europe.

What is your biggest regret?
So far we cannot say we have regrets, it’s a pleasure for us following the band ups, and downs too, it’s part of the process.
Looking at the past years from where we are now surely mistakes were made, but if we are here, with the knowledge we have it’s because we learned from those mistakes.

What was the best concert/tour last year and why?
Every live show has positives and negatives, but we can surely say that one of the best show of this year has been in Budapest in October, the right people, the right amount of beers, the precise amount of madness.

What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
For the next album »Outlaw«, that was released digitally on December 12th, we decided to publish without any label, the process of publishing, taking care of the graphics and the cover has been tough but interesting (we all have jobs, so time is not always our friend).

Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
We will be in Eastern Europe in April and again in May but everything is still t.b.a. You can surely follow us on our social pages to stay updated (the platform we use the most is Instagram).

What are your plans for this year as a band? What do you personally want the most?
Just tour, get to know new people, share our music and possibly enlighten someone’s night.

How can people best support you?
For sure coming to our shows, but following us on social media, tag us whenever they feel like, listening to us on streaming platforms and maybe add us to your favourite playlists will make a difference too.

Do you have any message for your listeners?
Just get in touch, let us know what you think about what we are doing, share opinions about live shows, share critics too, we are just curious about the impact of our music.

Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well