1- As you are the songwriter for Barock Project, how would you describe the musical style of The Barock Project?

 

I always tried to give an input to all the youngs of my same age .

I would want to turn on in them the interest about the progressive rock and so i asked myself "how can i do that?". I tried to do that putting some characteristics of the prog rock in small doses in what that should be a normal song.

Things like odd times , little developments of themes , ecc... but without exaggerating.

I wanted to mix the characteristics of prog in a pop song structure , with strophes and a very recognizable refrain.

At the same time i wanted that our prog style was recognizable for the typical baroque figures , a kind of neo-baroque. Songs like Premonizioni is an example of that.

I dont know very well how to define our style , maybe it's Neoprogressive?

 

2- Most young people your age listen to hip hop, dance music or alternative rock. Prog rock was popular long before you were born, so how did you become a  prog rock musician and songwriter?

 

When was 6 years old and  looked through all my father's vinyls , i found an album with a beautiful cover that amazed me , with a big white phoenix. That album was the first of Emerson Lake and Palmer. I was so amazed by that cover that so i decided to hear it...and it was love at first sight , i remember it very well.

I already play piano , because my father , my uncle and my grandfather was all musicians.

When i listened that album , the sound of Emerson's Hammond , the baroque atmospheres , all those things makes me crazy.

Songs like The Barbarian turned on in me the interest to evoke in people the same feelings of when i hear it for the first time.

After that , Keith Emerson became my idol . Listening his compositions , his adaptations, i have taken an interest to classical music aswell.

When i was about 10 years old , i tried to play all his compositions , like Tarkus.

So at 12 years-old i entered in the conservatory of Modena , where i would have played a lot of pieces of those that would have become my favourite composers , J.S.Bach and Bèla Bartòk.

Progressive rock is cultured music and , like all kind of music , i think that if it's made with intelligence it can wake up an interest on young people aswell.

 

3- What bands or what types of music give you inspiration for your songwriting?

 

I take inspiration from all that excite me and that i listen around me.

E.L.P. are my first love and , you know , you can never forget the first love!

Surely Keith Emerson is the bigger inspiration for me as a pianist (especially when i climbed over boundaries and , selling off me as a staff member , i succeeded in meeting him before a concert...hehe!).

I listened Genesis , Yes , Banco , Le Orme , all those progressive masters from which i drawn very much. But i have listened to them enough. The old Jethro Tull's albums  still communicate me something new.

I love communicative music and i listen a lot of ethnic music. I love argentinian tangos , like Piazzolla. Lately i like to listen accordionist Richard Galliano and Aires Tango , an italian tango-jazz group with Javier Girotto, a fantastic argentinian saxophonist.

I like the melody , thing that in the classical music i can find it in composers like Rachmaninoff . I love him.

I like to listen balkan popular music and i love Bartòk too.

I have been a lover of Beatles music and i listened for years The Police , for their rhytmic power and all Sting's bass lines.

About the modern pop music that i can hear on the radios, i cant really find something that can amaze me. I really like Jamie Cullum music.

 

 

4- How long have you played with GB and Giacomo and how did you meet them?

 

When i was 11years old and Gb was 13we attended school in our town , Crevalcore.

Initially we didn't know each other.

One day i was in the bathroom for washing my hands , when this guy called Gb enter and asked me if i had some picks to lend him for his bass. He had just started to study bass and he know that i already play piano. I told him that i didn't have any picks.

So he told me that the next day he would have played with some friends at summer school's party and told me that it would have been a pleasure for him if i joined to him with my keyboard. I accepted , even if with a keyboard i cant play very much Gun's Roses songs...

That was the beginning of a band and of a big friendship.

I started to make him listen more hard music , like ELP , Genesis , Weather Report , ecc...

I knew that Gb had a hidden talent , so i tried to submit him to songs like Tarkus...

At 12 years old we played all Pictures At An Exibithion and Tarkus at the school's parties , with all our friends that said "what a strange music!". I started to see Gb more and more interested in music , especially in the technique of his instrument. So he started to like Pastorius .

Since school's times of 1995  me and Gb are friends.

In 2003 i had this project in my mind to make a new band .

I had already most of the songs of Misteriosevoci ready yet.

I made to listen these songs to Gb , which thought immediately to the right drummer.

Gb knew Giacomo around 2001 and in 2004 he introduced to me.

With Giacomo , not only i found a fantastic drummer , but it started another great friendship.

 

That is all I will ask you for now. I understand that you are already working on recording your next disc. When the recording is done for the second album I would like to do an interview with you for ProgressiveWorld.

 

For me it will be a big pleasure.

For the second disc , i have already completed a thing in a very "Tarkus" style , a 19 minutes suite...it miss only the lyrical part.

I have adapted a Bach's Concerto for Keyboard too , with a string quartet.

I can't stop myself!

Interview by Tom Karr