Flame Parade @ The New Colossus Festival 2025
Italy’s Flame Parade made the US-debut at New Colossus Festival last month. The five-piece band was founded in a Tuscan farmhouse. The band’s diverse musical background, which extends from classical training to playing in emo bands, lends to their sonic experimentation blending shoegaze, folk and dream pop all into one. Flame Parade played three shows throughout the week, including a set at Piano’s Closing Party on Sunday.
We spoke to the band about the connections that music creates, songwriting, performing live and more.
Flame Parade (@flame.parade)
Homebase: Firenze - Italy
What does music mean to you? We believe that, as cliché as it may sound, music is an outlet for us. Especially in a live setting, each of us finds space to express a part of ourselves that doesn’t come out in "normal" life. It’s a kind of therapy—it connects us with people, situations, and parts of ourselves that we wouldn’t otherwise get to know.
What’s your songwriting process? Normally, Marco comes up with an idea, and then everyone else joins in with their parts and inspirations. We have very different musical backgrounds—Marco comes from post-rock, Letizia studied at the Conservatoire, and Checco was into the emo scene—so it’s always fascinating to see how a rough idea evolves. Letizia sometimes writes lyrics together with Marco, though he still does most of the lyric work. But again, when he shares what a song is about with the others, everyone contributes their own perspective—it’s a collective process.
How would you describe The New Colossus Festival? A beautiful mess! It was an absolute blast. There were so many great bands, and we met tons of amazing people. It was truly an honor to be invited and we thank the entire staff of the New Colossus Festival and our agency Annibale Booking for making all of this happen We can’t even begin to imagine the immense organizational work behind it, but it was absolutely worth it. We met musicians from all over the world, shared experiences, and opened up even more than we already had. We really hope to come back!
What’s your favorite song to perform live? This is such a tough question! Maybe each of us has our own favorite. But if we had to choose, “Kangaroo” would probably win. When we play it live, there’s such a shared energy on stage that’s hard to match.
Who are some of your musical influences? Lately, we’ve all kind of fallen into the "shoegaze" vibe. We really love Slowdive, obviously. Jadu Heart is another band we draw a lot of inspiration from, along with Sufjan Stevens, DIIV, and Future Islands. Just to name a few, but we truly devour all kinds of music—it’s hard to choose! As we mentioned, our past musical backgrounds still have a huge influence on us.
