Antonio Sammali

I'm Antonio, made in Jonio since 1987. I was born and raised where the sea is religion and mussels are an article of faith.

One fine day, fate decided to carry me from my hometown of Taranto to the decadent, magical Venetian lagoon, where I split my time between gothic fog, endless plains, and a thousand other things best savoured with a glass in hand.

How did my passion for music come about? Honestly, I didn't go looking for it. It arrived the way all the best things do: by chance, and a little on the sly.

I was 8 years old when I started stealing records from my father. I don't know if it was rebellion, or maybe more a kind of instinctive apprenticeship. Between one vinyl and the next, watching that turntable spin and the volume climb, I discovered a world I would never leave behind. Music didn't choose me: it conned me.

Life then took me far away: for years I crossed seas and oceans on ships flying the Italian flag. But wherever I was, I always kept the right course: indie, post-punk, new wave, Brit rock. So, in moments of homesickness, all it took was a record by Joy Division, the Cure, Oasis or the Velvet Underground to feel at home again.

On this journey I was never alone: with my sister, partner in crime and partner in snacks, we shared years of conversations, discoveries and musical obsessions. Out of that, in recent times, came “Thestorybehind”, our little digital paradise, where records speak and tell their own stories. And, as dutiful narrators, we try to bring those stories to anyone willing to listen.

And when I'm not wearing headphones, I'm chasing other passions: a ball rolling across any green pitch, terraces erupting, pints in Manchester pubs, basketball on American playgrounds, Dolomite peaks waiting to be climbed, words waiting to be written on any blank page.

If I think about it carefully, it all has one thread in common: freedom. Maybe I'm hopelessly in love with poetry in motion, the same kind I find in the melodies I carry inside me.

Then, unfortunately, there's work, the real kind, the kind that pays the mortgage and brings you back down to earth.

A state administration office straight out of a DDR playbook, where I split my time between personnel management, accounts and Kafkaesque “houses of cards”. But when I leave, on the way home, I put my headphones back on and start dreaming again on the train tracks that carry me home.

A simple dream that might come true one day: making a living from music!

Then I come back to my senses and think that, in the end, maybe it's fine this way. Actually: it's just great this way.

Especially because my life, I almost forgot to mention, has taken a wonderful turn.

I have a wonderful partner who will soon hand me the most beautiful role anyone could imagine: changing nappies while humming David Bowie.

And so, what could my real secret dream possibly be?

Simple answer. One day maybe it'll be my son stealing my vinyl records, spinning them on the turntable like I used to do as a kid. May he grow up with music, the way his father did.

And if music won't pay his mortgage either, at least it'll make everything else in his life better!