About Me
High Circle was a hardcore band based in Rome, Italy; during the almost 6 years of existence (1985-1990) the band put out a 7", 2 LP's, and a CD anthology of the "hits".
The 3 founding members were Giuliano Calza (drums), Giampaolo Billia (guitar), who met in the local punk/hardcore circuit, and Massimiliano Ruggeri (bass, vocals), who was involved with the local skate scene. The common interest was the love for hardcore punk, especially for the US scene (7 Seconds, Minor Threat, Descendents, Social Distortion, Adolescents etc.), and the italian scene (Indigesti, Crash Box etc.). The first singer was Bruno Consoli, who recorded with the band the first self produced 6-track EP, and took care of the graphics and drawings; at the time, the band played a fast, angry hardcore punk, sung in italian. The band's practice space was in a small room in cental Rome, in Via Leonina, which was divided with other local punk/hardcore bands such as Manimal and Nighters. Soon it became an hangout for all the band members and their friends, we referred to our "crew" as the Cavour Rockin' Crew.
A few months after the release of the 7" EP, the band and Bruno parted ways. Marco Lupacchini, editor of the old roman fanzine "Straight Edge" (with Giuliano Calza) and former singer of Manimal accepted to join us, and became our new singer. Marco took a breath of enthusiasm, and with him we played a few intense shows (Milano, Alassio as a support act for DOA etc.). With him High Circle became a full straight edge band, and we wrote new songs inspired to the 3 X's ... 2 songs were recorded in a studio for an upcoming compilation that had to be released in the US (with bands like Uniform Choice, Youth of Today, Larm etc.), but the compilation never got released, and we all lost any trace of the 2 songs!
The next year Marco and the band parted ways, because of different point of views. In the meantime our musical interests had changed a bit, the '85 Dischord influence (Embrace, Marginal Man, Rites of Spring etc.) took over, and the sound became more melodic than the straightforward hardcore that we had played so far. The 3 left members decided to go ahead without adding a new singer; Massimiliano took the vocal duties, and the band played the new material (with songs sung in english, for the first time) as a 3 piece.
The Seattle based label Subcore showed interest, and signed us for a LP that was called "Out of darkness". Unfortunately all the label's projects fell apart shorly after the release of the LP, leaving us with a ot of unrealized projects (such as a US tour etc.). After the release of the LP the band started to look for a guitar player/vocalist to complete the line up, and Paolo Marotta was recruited. The band's musical direction became more and more melodic, and the result of this was the new LP called "Shadows on the wall", released on Giuliano's label Break Even Point.
The band broke up in 1990, and a few years later released a compilation CD of all the best tracks, called "Sell out 85-90", on Helter Skelter/Break Even Point.
