| Verdena Interview |
Verdena interview with Liam McLaughlin Italian band Verdena have been playing a bit more often in England recently, trying to garner a good fanbase and recognition in a country spoiled like a toddler by music sung in English, even music from abroad. Suffice to say their blistering live performance and excellent albums have certainly converted a few people but as a whole their presence has been ignored by the mainstream music press. Despite a few translation issues, Soundshock happily met with singer/guitarist/songwriter Alberto Ferrari to discuss Verdena’s plans to conquer England, how they create their unique style of music and what a Luddite is….
Can you tell us a bit about how you formed and what inspired you to make music in the first place?
We have always listened to music….the Beatles of course….and Nirvana. Me and him (points to Luca Ferrari, drummer) are brothers and we starting playing, then we tried a lot of bassists; one died, one went away (laughs), strange things happened! Then we found Roberta (Sammarelli, bassist) and since then it’s been the same.
How do you write your songs?
It depends, it’s always different. Which song?! (laughs) Because every song is different; we don’t have a special way to work.
Like just spontaneous?
Yeah, maybe he (points to Luca) can record the drums before, with no music at all and then we put on the loud guitars. Or maybe I come with a name, or maybe jamming. Every kind of creative process!
  
You’ve played quite a few gigs in England now, how does it differ to gigs in Italy?
It’s exactly the same for us because we always get afraid and shaky. Then when there’s just 5 minutes before we go out it’s very, very intense – always – it doesn’t matter if we’re playing a festival or a gig in front of two people.
Do you think singing in Italian may affect your success in England?
Yeah I think so because no one wants us to be talking a language where they don’t understand what we’re saying, even if we say nothing in Italian and it’s only sound….
Yeah we’re stupid in England though, everything always has to be in English which is silly….
(Laughs) Well maybe next time we’ll try to do something in English but it’s difficult because the pronunciation is very important. Maybe I would have to stay here for 3 years or something before….
To learn to fully express yourself in English….
Yeah exactly
In England we don’t know much about music in Italy so what’s the Italian music scene like?
There are some good bands, rock bands, but they play well. We tour round with our crew and some of them play in really cool bands. We all play and everyone is very cool. I think all the Italian bands are cool actually! People are very shouty now but it’s not heavy metal, it’s hard rock and very grunge….and punk.
Italians have a strong musical culture with prog bands like PFM and the English prog band Van Der Graaf Generator were massive over there, it’s pretty cool!
You mean new PFM or old PFM?
The old one who did the Per Un Amico album.
(Alberto and the PR people laugh at this uncool statement)
Anyway, speaking of dinosaur bands, you record completely with analogue equipment too, how come?
It’s just easier for me. I do some recording for our albums with a 16 track and it’s just easier you know? I can’t get into digital; it’s too difficult, I can’t understand it! With analogue you just put it on tape and it’s there! I don’t know, maybe it sounds better because I’ve watched movies and they’re very digital (laughs)! But I just do it because I’m that way.
In English we say you’re a ‘Luddite’ – it’s a word from the industrial revolution to describe the people who didn’t want to industrialise and stay as farmers instead rather than get to grips with new technology so basically you’re a Luddite!
(Much laughter all round)
Can you explain the inspiration behind your album Requiem?
No rules….no rules at all. We tried to be ourselves this time, the more we grow up, the more we become ourselves I think. It is the most different album we have ever recorded compared to our previous three because it’s ours. It’s very influential for us actually because before, I could hear Nirvana and everything but this time we really tried to get something spontaneous.
Yeah it’s cool, you have a lot more long songs and jamming and also you have a lot more psychedelic sounds and stuff….
Yeah every day we played and every day we tried to record on DAT or multitrack and we listened and took pieces from it. It was long and hard because it took 3 years to make it.
Are you going to release it in England?
They don’t want Italian stuff in England!
Ridiculous! Ok well on that topic, how do you write your lyrics? They’re quite strange and interesting and even for Italian people they’re quite difficult to understand.
With this album, all the lyrics are done differently for each song. It’s very difficult to write in Italian; the words are so long and it’s hard to fit them to a normal melody (Alberto sings a melody to show this). In English, wow, you can say a lot of things, in Italian you can just say “I am….” It’s hard to explain in English. (note: after some translation and thought it seems that Alberto means that useful words to express feelings or situations which we use in English are too long in Italian to fit round a simple melody. The structure of iambic pentameter is messed up in Italian because of the average amount of syllables in an Italian word compared to English.) But we always try to make it sound good and then comes the meaning. Just the sound first. It’s an instrument. Like in Don Calisto if it was in English I would do (singing) “I’m better than you, you’re the only one” then in Italian it is “É come in un fiume lo vedi o no?” (note: pronounced phonetically it is “Eh comay n’fyoomay lo ved’yo no?”) It’s the same; it’s the same sound. I take the words “I’m better than you, you’re the only one”, then I would replace the sounds like ‘fiume’ with ‘you’ and “vedi o no” with “only one”. They have similar sounds.
That’s really interesting actually. So what does the future hold for Verdena?
We will try to do something in English, there is no escape for us! We will do it in Italian too of course, two versions. It’s the only way to get recognition.
Sorry! It kind of messes up the artistic process being forced to write in another language! We’re stupid here!
(Laughs) Well it’s the same everywhere
Even in France and Germany?
Yeah….
Ok, thanks for that! Good luck tonight!
Thank you!
Interview by Liam McLaughlin
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|