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Rating: The name Gianni Maroccolo needs no introduction. A true King Midas of independent rock over the past thirty years, he has lent his talents as a bassist, arranger, and producer to dozens of projects. To give those few who have never heard his name an idea of what we're talking about, just mention three: Litfiba, CCCP-Fedeli alla Linea, and CSI. Just for good measure. Currently, his "VDB23/Nulla è Andato Perso," co-written with the late Claudio Rocchi and funded through crowdfunding, is making its rounds in many of our stereos, while in the meantime, good Gianni is busy with numerous dates with Litfiba, former CSI, and the resurrected Beau Geste, protagonists in a reinterpretation of the legendary "Eneide di Krypton." The concert at the Carroponte in Sesto San Giovanni, in the company of Massimo Zamboni and company, was an opportunity for a long chat, for which I am enormously grateful to Gianni and those who made it possible. And while setting the table and Marok prepared his bass, we talked about everything, from self-production to "Eneide," from old Litfiba demos to the relationship with Federico Fiumani. Enjoy the read!
RR: During your career, you have dedicated a lot to production, with projects like the Consorzio Produttori Indipendenti and AlKemi. You left Litfiba at the end of the eighties because you disagreed with a whole series of decisions made at the time by your producer-manager, Alberto Pirelli. I was wondering how such a negative relationship might have influenced your career as a producer and if it could have helped you understand what a group might expect from a figure like yours, especially when it comes to musicians without much experience...
GM: There's a small inaccuracy. It's not that I no longer agreed with the group's choices, honestly... there was a series of aspects with which Pirelli and I disagreed, especially after the experience of "17 Re": I would have liked to tackle an album, what would later become "Litfiba 3," with a producer different from Alberto... then under the management profile and an independent record label, I don't think, in the end, there was room for complaints, indeed, I believe Litfiba owes a lot to Alberto... There were disagreements on how to approach recording albums in studio, sound, arrangements... so that was it. For the rest, the figure of the artistic producer, because there is the artistic producer figure and the all-around producer, is a double-edged sword, it's an opportunity for growth and confrontation with anyone... About ten-twelve years ago, with the decision to put together PGR after the split of CSI, one of the factors was also the possibility of finding an artistic producer who would produce us, even though Giorgio Canali and I were already producers and arrangers. These are moments of confrontation that can occur with other artists and can give you the chance to exchange ideas and experiences, to grow, to exchange both musical and... in hindsight, I realized that the figure of the producer cannot ruin a career... an album is an album, if it doesn't go well, you move on, and it was still an experience.
RR: Today, a record label seems to no longer have the weight it may have had twenty or thirty years ago. Based on your experience with the album "VDB23" and with crowdfunding, do you think this kind of experience, and thus collaborating with co-producers, i.e., fans who essentially produce the album, could be the future for a certain type of music, or is it just destined to remain tied to those few who, already having a history behind them, already have a certain number of people willing to invest in them?
GM: The record companies, the record industry, in the sense of major labels, as we knew them many years ago... well, that's over, it survives, it's an agony that has lasted for many years. The crowdfunding experience is obviously a bit more facilitated for those who are a bit more well-known and have already done something, but it should not be underestimated at all if you are starting from scratch or want to produce or self-produce a first project. We are going back a bit to the old times, where having something recorded, an album, an EP, or something of the sort, instead of being the moment when you go on the radio, have magazines writing about you, or trying to sell copies, now serves primarily to try to set the mechanisms of a live concert in motion and, therefore, to be able to play and get known...
RR: Having the "excuse" to do concerts...
GM: Exactly, practically the opposite of what used to be done before, with concerts arriving (it never applied to Litfiba or CSI) after an album's release to promote the album, now through an album you try to get known to enter a concert circuit. Crowdfunding is not the panacea for all ills, it's an alternative, and it's an alternative that can work, and that works, as other solutions work, co-producing or collaborating with certain structured independent labels like the Factory or La Tempesta, there are various ways to produce music and to produce your own music...
RR: Regarding "VDB23," at first, it was born as a broader project, then after Claudio's passing, it was reduced for the moment to a single CD. There are tracks that were excluded, I'm thinking of the famous "multi-bass track"... I was wondering if you're already thinking about how to work on those tracks and publish them in the future...
GM: The idea is above all to reprint what was "VDB23," which all the raisers know, in a normal, more standard edition, for record stores, precisely to allow Claudio's enthusiasts to... I don't want to be rhetorical, to profit, or whimper over Claudio's memory, but it's an album in which he actively participated in the creative part, he wrote lyrics, he wrote some pages of the book with me, so it deserves wider dissemination. The other tracks, including the multi-bass suite, let's see if I can square the circle, to close, we can put them online, available to everyone... obviously, the reissue will be with those tracks there, it's not right for there to be other songs, it wouldn't be fair to the raisers...
RR: You talked about the possibility of bringing this album on tour by the end of the year, a sort of one-man show... are you already thinking about something in this regard?
GM: No, I think the only way to start, break the water would be... I don't know how to define it, the more I think about it, the more the fears grow, I've never been alone on stage. Then even finding a pairing with a voice that somehow replaces that one... it's the only way, I feel I have to do it, so I have to do it, even in Claudio's regards, also because it's something I have to overcome: never having been on stage alone, never having tried, so there are ideas, there are many, and I think everything will manifest when, for example, they tell me "the first concert is on December 18," and therefore, as always happens, I'll have to come up with something last minute...
RR: In this period, you are also involved with the Beau Geste and the new version of "Eneide." Some time ago, you said in an interview that you found it problematic to work on a soundtrack if you were given very precise directions on what to do, what to write. I was wondering then how you worked at the time of the first "Eneide" and how today, thirty years later, with the Krypton Company.
GM: How to say... I feel that irritation more when I've had the chance to do soundtracks for films... in theater, as it should be in cinema, you work on scripts, on dialogues, looking at the settings, trying to understand where the film is going or where the theater show is going... I don't really like the way it is in Italy, where some directors put music under images and then ask artists for "a music more or less like this"... I believe that, at least in a country like Italy, you must be more famous to get...
RR: That compositional freedom...
GM: Yes, but in the end, it's not even freedom... it's just that in the end, you lose the opportunity to have a creative exchange between director and composer, that's all... it's a limitation the cinema imposes on itself, probably to save time, I don't know... "Eneide" instead was born from an idea of Giancarlo Cauteruccio... he explained, at least vaguely, where he wanted to lead the show, showed us some drawings, some paintings, he told us that he intended to divide it into five-six main parts, so the story of Aeneas, the landing on the coasts of Libya, etc... and based on these suggestions, we worked and created the show together, which in the end grew day by day. The re-proposition is only slightly reversed because the version we are touring these months also includes the text, because Giancarlo is also the narrating voice of the show, and there's a slight rearrangement of the musical parts... we worked while keeping the original composition intact.
RR: In 1984, there was a brief collaboration with Adriano Primadei, speaking of the early days of Litfiba, who played the violin during some dates of the "Yassassin" tour. It seems to me that, for a certain period, you were effectively a sextet, so was there a definitive entry of his into the group?
GM: No, Litfiba as a group, at least regarding the period I shared with them, have always been five members, both musically thinking and societarily. Let's say that at various times in our career, we have confronted other artists to expand our horizons. We were not a closed group at the time, thankfully, we were quite open, both for collaborations and weird projects, strange performances, and remixes. The project of "Yassassin" itself, as well as "Eneide," was a witness, it wasn't just music, song, and project. That with Adriano Primadei was a collaboration: he is an instrumentalist, it's not like he only played the violin, and those years' appeal to many. Then subsequently there were "Desaparecido" and "17 Re" with Francesco Magnelli, it was never too closed...
RR: Many of the tracks you composed in the eighties remain unpublished and circulate today as demos in mp3. As a fan, since there has recently been the reprint of the "Luna/La Preda" 45, have you ever thought of officially re-releasing that material? I don't know then who has the rights to those tracks...
GM: I know it might seem strange, seeing as soon we'll be playing in Turin with Ghigo and Piero, but... often on Facebook, people ask me, write to me, posing these questions in general: I am no longer, neither artistically nor societarily, a member of Litfiba since 1990, so it's obvious that, on those tracks, no one can do anything without everyone's agreement. Frankly, since '90 onward, I never thought about all the business-related aspects, contracts, releases, etc. After closing that experience, I went elsewhere, and I did it for better or worse, without considering getting caught up in these kinds of things. I believe that of everything, Ghigo and Piero might be least interested in re-releasing that material: even if Antonio and I asked them, I think they would say no. Personally, I've always thought this way: all unofficial Litfiba material, therefore not owned by record labels or publishers, related to that period, I believe is historically due, to make it available to everyone. It would avoid absurd things on the part of collectors, scams, ridiculous prices...
RR: Mp3 CDs sold for 150 euros on eBay...
GM: Exactly, it would avoid all this and do justice to a musical period that includes those things too. Of course, some are immature, suffer from adolescence, inexperience, but they are part of a specific period, which anyway, if not today, tomorrow, or the day after, will come out... it would be nice if they allowed it to surface by making it freely available to everyone, putting it on the website, "this is what we did and what didn't come out," cleaned up as best as possible, remastered and that's it. It's historical documentation.
RR: One last question, regarding the relationship between you and Federico Fiumani. In 1980, there was that famous misunderstanding: you read an ad by a certain Federico looking for musicians for a group, you thought it was Fiumani, but it was actually Federico Renzulli...
GM: Bah, honestly, I don't remember, I think it was Fiumani...
RR: ...fact is that in the end, you did get to collaborate with him, with "Il Ritorno dei Desideri" in 1994. I recall that years ago, on his MySpace, there was talk of a possible collaboration between the two of you, it was said that you would play bass with Diaframma, but then nothing came of it. I don't know how much was true...
GM: I don't know... the relationship with Federico is nice because we were born in the same year, the same zodiac sign, all in all, we even have somewhat similar characters. He's an artist I admire a lot, beyond everything... he's an artist who also had the courage, the courage of his choices, to go all the way. Our relationship has experienced ups and downs, but without a concrete reason... we drifted apart, found each other, drifted apart, found each other... now it's a moment where we haven't been in touch for some time... "Il Ritorno dei Desideri" I consider one of the best works I've done as an artistic producer, despite it being born in a moment of difficulty, with Contempo that was going bankrupt, but artistically I remember it as a beautiful experience. Then, you know, even three years ago with Litfiba I had already put a stone over it, I never imagined that, even if just for a brief period, we would find ourselves doing concerts. I hope it happens with Federico too, I hope so.
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