…A Toys Orchestra - Life Begins at Midnight

Six years after the release of their last studio album, the clock hands of …A Toys Orchestra point once again to midnight. Their splendid new album, "Midnight Again", has just come out, and we took the opportunity to interview Enzo Moretto, the mind and soul of the band. What came out of it was a thoroughly enjoyable chat, ranging from the meaning of the band's name to that of solitude, from their relationship with Italian music to their relationship with imagination. But that's not all! Thanks to the Toys' great availability, we've also staged, at the end of the interview with Moretto, a more lighthearted multiple interview, involving the various members of the band in the answers. Enjoy the read!

Let's warm up the atmosphere with a great classic. Where does the name "…A Toys Orchestra" come from? And why exactly with the ellipsis?

Well, the name was born many years ago as "Toys Orchestra", without the dots and without the "a". It was towards the end of the '90s. I liked the idea of thinking about a broad, open project, like a little orchestra, precisely, but since we weren't orchestral musicians by definition, I thought of making it a "toy orchestra". The indefinite article "a" would then serve to deflate even further such a demanding term as "orchestra". The ellipsis, on the other hand, is the result of my obsessive-compulsive disorder... too complex to explain. It has to be said, though, that in the end it was a good choice, because in alphabetically ordered catalogues, thanks to the dots and the "a", we always show up first.

Your line-up has changed slightly over the years. Who are …A Toys Orchestra today? Can you introduce your fellow travelers one by one? (A question that's also a bit of a setup for the final, somewhat crazy part of this interview!)

Over the years the Toys have changed many times, and everyone who's passed through has made their fundamental contribution to the history of this core group. Some stayed for decades, others only for a few years. I don't feel like saying, though, that they've "left" the band—it's more of a functional turnover tied to creative processes and/or to the personal events of everyone who's passed through here. The Toys' door is never closed to anyone, as I was saying earlier, it's an open project. As of today, the new members who've joined the band in force are Alessandro Baris on drums and Mariagiulia Degli Amori as multi-instrumentalist. Besides being two hugely experienced musicians, they're wonderful people who've brought a breath of joy into the project. It almost feels like being back at the beginning, there's a vibrant enthusiasm and we laugh a lot together. I hold them, and everyone who's taken part in the Toys story over the years, dear to my heart. I'm here today thanks to each and every one of them.

Your seventh and final studio album, “Lub Dub”, released back in 2018, marked a change of direction compared to your previous work. The singer-songwriter imprint comes through much more strongly, the arrangements are more stripped-down, and the atmospheres are more intimate and restrained. Do you think that shift represented a turning point in your songwriting?

In part I think so, but it simply happened, with no real planning behind it. When you're younger you want to show off as much as possible, which isn't necessarily a mistake if you know what you're doing, but as you grow older you realize songs need more room to breathe — or at least that's how it was for me. To be honest, I don't think we ever became a minimal band, but at a certain point we started organizing the space differently.

The following year saw you on a solo tour, where you presented many songs from your catalogue in acoustic form. How did it go? Is that an experience you'd like to repeat in the future?

Going out on my own after so many years was incredibly meaningful, on an emotional and psychological level. I'd felt the need to face that kind of experience for a while. A band, by definition, is a group: it has your back, and shares both the joys and the hardships with you. Solo it's completely different… everything is focused on you, and you alone are focused on everything. For someone shy and introverted like me, it was an extremely tough test, but like all difficult things, it gave me a great deal back. When you're in a room with 50 people half a metre away from you, you see them one by one and you're interacting with each of them directly, intimately, with no filters. You're speaking to every single person there — it's no longer just a show, it's a relationship, a connection, a direct exchange. Paradoxically, when you play in front of thousands of people, everything becomes much simpler and more impersonal.

From 2019 let's jump to 2024. The new Toys album, “Midnight Again”, has finally come out, eagerly awaited by your fanbase. Excited?

Very much so. You can have as many years of experience as you want, but it still throws everything into turmoil every single time.

The title of the new album inevitably calls to mind two of your previous works: “Midnight Talks” and “Midnight (R)evolution”. Can you tell us about that choice?

Conceptually, midnight is a strange temporal limbo: it's “today”, but you're still living “yesterday” and you're already in “tomorrow”. Which is exactly what's happening again in my life right now. The idea of forming a trilogy connected to our past, and therefore obviously also to our present and future, was too strong to resist. It came about on its own. And when I came across the photo that would become the album cover — a man with a clock for a head, looking at the watch on his own wrist — I had no doubts left.

What influences (events, listening, reading, etc.) had the biggest impact on the writing of the songs on “Midnight Again”?

Quite simply, life. Everything that's happened to me over these years has been poured into music and words. Today the album gives me joy and enthusiasm, but its roots are far more painful. I went through a really difficult period. It's not easy for me to talk publicly about certain moments of my personal life, but I think it's just as wrong to treat them as taboo. Treating suffering as something to be hidden is the wrong path. I write songs about it, I put it all out there… sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.

The lyrics of the first single from the new album, “Life Starts Tomorrow”, speak of a desire to start over, of good intentions, of a will to bounce back. But also of laziness, procrastination and guilt. Can you tell us how it came about?

It ties right back into what I was just telling you, and your question already contains part of the answer. That's actually part of why I wanted it to be the first single. It's a song that pretends to be strong, but is full of wounds.

There's a good dose of sharp irony running through the lyrics. Starting with the title itself, “life starts tomorrow” — you can practically hear it loud and clear… How much weight do feelings like sarcasm and irony carry in your songwriting?

Irony and sarcasm give you the chance to approach certain topics from a different angle. Laughing at your own weaknesses somehow makes you stronger, more confident. As the saying goes, “it doesn't help, but it helps”.

I often like to play the tough guy about my own shortcomings, my own weaknesses… it gives me the illusion of mockingly shaking them off. Unfortunately, it's not that simple, but it definitely adds a certain flavour. Self-deprecation gives you the chance to talk about suffering in a language that's more versatile and accessible to everyone. It's one way of escaping the taboos I mentioned before.

The video for the track is extremely interesting. Magnetic, even. Onscreen we see the faces of so many different characters flash by, each one distinct, each with their own personal story (and their own "good intentions" for the day after...). Can you tell us something about how this video was conceived and made, given that you're also the director?

I believe there's always something to read in a human face, something to catch a glimpse of, even when it says nothing at all - something still comes through. A look is the most primal of all communicative gestures. Without opening our mouths we can make it perfectly clear to whoever's in front of us what we want. Whether we're happy, angry, excited, attracted or scared. Or, on the contrary, we can bluff...

At the start I wasn't planning to make a full-fledged video. I was mostly looking for a face, an expression to put on repeat as a kind of visual loop. But it was exactly that search - going through hundreds of faces and expressions to choose from - that confronted me with a series of incredibly powerful emotional stimuli. So I started cutting them together randomly in sequence with the music, at first with no logical sense to it. But something was happening - I noticed they already had a very strong communicative connection with the song. At that point I was hooked, so I played at being a little director and worked on it with total dedication. I really loved doing it.

The track features a small cameo of dialect (and of cinema) from another era: the word "paisà". Where does the choice to use this term come from?

Right, going back to the sarcasm, there's a line that's purely provocative: "Italian Rock Music Makes Me Sick". It's clearly a mocking line... deliberately unlikeable, it's where that fake swaggering persona I mentioned earlier comes out. At that point "paisà" becomes a statement of intent that reveals the true nature of the line. After all, we ourselves are Italian and in some way we're part of Italian rock music. Except we sing in English... and so "paisà" fit perfectly at that point to top off that little gag. It's meant to be both off-putting and endearing at the same time. Somewhere between Carosone's "Tu vuo' fa' l'americano" and Battiato, who declares without hesitation: “L’impero della musica è giunto fino a noi/ Carico di menzogne/ Mandiamoli in pensione i direttori artistici/ Gli addetti alla cultura/ E non è colpa mia se esistono spettacoli/ Con fumi e raggi laser/ Se le pedane sono piene/ Di scemi che si muovono”.

"Take Me Home", the second single taken from "Midnight Again", is a surprising song. It opens as a melancholic, tender piano ballad, then the atmosphere ignites into a choral, gospel-flavored crescendo, and finally, sudden and unexpected, bells toll and horns worthy of Morricone come in to catapult the listener into an imaginary, sun-scorched, dusty scene straight out of the Wild West (wow!). Can you tell us about it?

Right, I told you we hadn't turned into a minimalist band. There's everything in this track. Horns, strings, gospel choirs... and yet it all moves over a ballad built on a handful of repeated chords and a spare lyric. "Take Me Home" starts out like an old fireside pastoral, borrows the clichés of Christmas religious music, seeks comfort and tries to offer it, but at a certain point we needed a twist to give real meaning to the words running through it. So we hit the accelerator and shifted the scene elsewhere, while still staying anchored, in some way, to the song's meaning. Without that ending, this song wouldn't make sense... or rather, it would mean something completely different. The final instrumental build is, in a way, a continuation of the song's lyrics. Without it, it would be an unresolved story, a novel with no ending.

What struck you in particular about the gospel singing you heard during the service held by the Italian-African community that met in the rehearsal room where you were recording? Did that music resonate with you in some way?

Well, if it's called soul it's because in those songs there is, unmistakably and literally, "soul". Even setting aside the religious dimension, there's inevitably something divine about it, something magnetic, something ritualistic. I had too big an opportunity to let it slip by. One day I asked the pastor if I could meet the choir, to propose that we make a song together. It ended up that we made as many as eight. The girls were fantastic - they'd never sung outside of their services, but every time we rehearsed a song, within minutes they already knew exactly what to do. In the studio, with the mics on, it looked like they'd always done it, when in fact it was their first time. That doesn't happen every day... in some way, a small miracle took place.

Can you tell us a bit about the origin and meaning of this song's lyrics?

Right, I'm not very good at this... or rather, I could try to share my own take on the lyrics, but I'd rather songs stayed songs. Explaining them would feel like a bit of a letdown, in my opinion. Because a song, unlike the written word, has the ability to hold a thousand different meanings, and above all has the peculiar quality of creating an alchemical combination with the music that means everyone finds their own true meaning in it. And the beauty of it is that your interpretation won't be any less valid or true than mine, even though I wrote it. It's a form of magic that only music can create, which is why I'd rather not break the spell.

Speaking of home, as is well known, you're originally from Agropoli but you've lived in Bologna for many years now, which has by now become something of a second home for you. How do you find life in this city that's adopted you?

Me, Ilaria and Raffaele have been settled here for over fifteen years now. Bologna is the only city I'd want to live in - if I were to ever leave, it would only be to go live in the countryside, in nature, but as far as cities go, there's nowhere else I'd feel as at home as I do here.

A theme that keeps coming up in the first two singles taken from the new record is loneliness. What does "loneliness" mean to you in 2024? And what might be the most effective antidotes to loneliness these days?

I think that in 2024 loneliness has found a strength like never before. In a world that makes connection and sociability the primary conditions for acceptance, if you don't tick the boxes and you're left even one step behind, you're out, you're alone. Loneliness has found new forms of expression and has grown stronger than ever before. Today you can be alone in the middle of millions of people; the notion of the "I" has thoroughly overtaken that of the "we". There's a ruthless competitiveness, increasingly senseless and destructive, tied to the world of social networks, of money, of the winning model. Everything has become about stepping on each other's heads just to get ahead. People barely reach out a hand to one another anymore. There's a perverse rhythm to the loneliness of these years, because it has disguised itself as sociability right from its very name. If you put a foot wrong, you're done for - public shaming, shit storms, revenge porn, ghosting, shadow bans, algorithms... these are new forms of exclusion with terrifying effects.

In “Goodbye Day”, the third single from “Midnight Again”, you name-check two charismatic figures like Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, both characters with an almost mystical aura: is there some aspect of their personality (poetic or spiritual) that you feel closer to, or that you'd like to aspire to?

I like everything about them, even the sound of their names. That's why I put them in the lyrics. If you're listening to a song and you hear someone say “Johnny Cash,” you stop and think: “Hey, did he just say Johnny Cash?” And if you're telling a story and at a certain point Johnny Cash or Nick Cave shows up… well, it turns the story around. I was maybe a bit of a cheat there. To confirm what I'm saying, here's an anecdote. One of the girls in the gospel choir is only 13, and when we met again to shoot the video she told me: “Of all the verses I sang, the one that stuck in my head the most is I will dress like Johnny Cash.” So, astonished, I asked her: “Come on! Do you really know who Johnny Cash is at your age?” And she simply replied: “No, I have no idea who he is, but I really love that line.”

Some songs in your discography, by now classics much loved by your fans, portray female figures. We're thinking of songs like “Hengie: Queen Of The Borderline” or “Mrs Macabrette”. How much is real and how much is imaginary in the writing of songs like these? And more generally, how much weight do reality and imagination carry in your music?

I like it when reality often flirts with imagination. I don't have a precise formula though: sometimes I start from scratch and build a whole world of my own, other times I find a spark in real-life experience and reshape it. The two you mentioned are products of my imagination, but out there, there must be thousands of Hengies and Mrs Macabrettes. I didn't create them… I just told their story in my own way. Imagination is inescapably dependent on reality.

Writing in English requires a linguistic mediation that might seem at odds with the spontaneity of expression. How does your writing process usually develop?

Nowadays, after so many years, there's no other way I know how to do it. I started writing in English before I was even eighteen, and I've kept doing it that way ever since. Even here, there's no fixed procedure for the writing process. Sometimes while I'm composing music I throw in some random improvised words to build a melody sketch, and it turns out that among those words thrown out there, some of them sound good in my head and open up scenarios I can build lyrics on; other times I have to do everything separately. The one thing I never do is write the lyrics first and the music after. It's always the notes that dictate the words to me, never the other way around.

You've always stayed faithful to using English, but in the past your journey has had points of contact with Italian song, like when you backed Nada as her backing band on her 2016 tour. What's your relationship with the Italian musical tradition?

If the music is good, language doesn't matter. A lot of great music has been made in Italy, and it continues to be made.

The cover of the new album, with its black-and-white image of a man with a clock for a head, has a slightly surrealist flavor. How did the idea come about? Would you ever use AI-generated images for one of your works?

No. I don't like it conceptually. Not at all. It's not just a matter of rejecting technology, or of the “things were better when they were worse” attitude, or some short-sighted extremism. It's that I refuse to use art if it isn't the result of personality or ingenuity. At that point it's not art anymore, it's a product.

The streaming era opened up with the promise of a more open music market, while today we find ourselves facing a model increasingly shaped by algorithms. What do you think of the position reserved for artists by the various streaming platforms?

That I've never liked it, I've never seen anything good in it, but it's 2024 and we have to accept that consumption habits have changed. I'm also completely against the free use of music on digital platforms. It's the most total devaluation of the work. The whole management of it should be completely reconsidered. Conceptually, it was more honest to download music from eMule — at least there was some consistency in knowingly doing something illegal.

And now let's move on to the last part of the interview, the more playful one (which, for a toy orchestra, seems like the perfect way to wrap things up!). We thought we'd end this chat by putting a series of half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek questions to the Toys, which we asked them to answer individually, without conferring with each other and without knowing each other's answers. Four of them took on this funny challenge. Ready?

Enzo: The little keyboard that came inside Nesquik boxes in the '80s/'90s. I learned to play the theme from a famous pasta brand's commercial.

Ilaria: Bass, in the '90s we had a punk band and needed a bassist. I didn't know how to play it, so I was perfect.

Raffaele: Well, recorder at school like everyone else. Apart from that, guitar - though after two lessons I stopped taking them and started doing Nirvana covers instead.

Alessandro: Drums. It was love at first sight - I used to go almost every day to admire the ones on display in the music shop window, then I'd go in and grab the promotional catalogues so I could look at them at home and study every detail.

You're in a time machine. Which musical era do you set it for, and where do you go?

Enzo: Chicago in the '20s... during Prohibition. I'd have gone off to some brothel to drink bootleg whisky. Plus back then everyone wore a hat.

Ilaria: Forgive the obvious answer, but America in the '60s, when entertainment music started becoming a cultural phenomenon... and then I'd have had a blast waiting for the '70s to arrive.

Raffaele: The '60s, because that's when the Beatles were around.

Alessandro: Chicago in the '90s, New York in the '80s, England in the '60s and '70s.

There's a knock at the door. It's a hugely famous artist you've always wanted to collaborate with. You open it. Who's standing there? And what's the first thing you say to them?

Enzo: Ennio Morricone. "Forgive me, maestro, por mi vida loca."

Ilaria: Nick Cave. "Hi Nick, you're gorgeous."

Raffaele: David Bowie. "David, can you teach me the piano part from 'Life On Mars?'?"

Alessandro: Mike Patton. Standing before the man I consider the greatest and most versatile vocalist of the last forty years, I'd ask him to sing on a track from my solo electronic music project.

If you were a song, which song would you be (and why)?

Enzo: "Secondo canto delle lavandaie" from the play "La Gatta Cenerentola", by NCCP. My musical heart started beating with this song, and it still does.

Ilaria: “La ballata dell’amore cieco” by De André. Because it's as if Leopardi were being narrated by a stand-up comedian. It makes you smile about something there's really nothing to laugh about.

Raffaele: “Black Hole Sun” because it's tied to indelible memories of the decadent 90s, and it's perhaps the most beautiful song written in that period.

Alessandro: “The Unanswered Question” by Charles Ives, the best soundtrack I can use to identify my perception of existence.

What's the craziest anecdote that's happened to you at one of your shows? Tell us about it.

Enzo: Once I was particularly drunk on stage. After the show, going down the stairs I tripped and ended up inside one of those giant flight cases belonging to the service crew, and the lid even shut on me. I was stuck in there for a while until someone came to open it back up.

Ilaria: Our beat-up van stopped working shortly before one of our live shows at Tago Mago. As soon as we finished the set, we had to ask the audience to help us push it to get it started again.

Raffaele: We arrive at a venue with a really rickety stage, and, worried, I ask the organizers' crew for an explanation; they tell me it was all up to code and approved by the city council. That evening, during the show, I jump with my guitar in hand and literally go straight through the stage. Fear and loathing.

Alessandro: Not with Toys — I was a guest at a private apartment in Brest, France. The afternoon before soundcheck I found a burglar in the house, but it ended well.

The first concert you ever went to? And the most recent?

Enzo: Pino Daniele in Cava de' Tirreni in the 90s. The most recent was our own show at Locomotiv (March 22, 2024, ed.). A few days earlier I'd gone to see Korobu, also at Locomotiv.

Ilaria: Pino Daniele in Cava de' Tirreni in the 90s. The most recent was our own show a couple of days ago (March 22, 2024, ed.).

Raffaele: U2/Velvet Underground, Naples, 1993. Built To Spill, Bologna, 2023.

Alessandro: May Day in Rome, Radiohead, 1995. Paolo Angeli, last night (March 17, 2024, ed.) in Bologna.

Your greatest musical infatuation.

Enzo: my mother tells me that as a kid I was crazy about Alberto Camerini, then Pink Floyd in my pre-teens and Nirvana as a teenager… and from there on, a sea of wonderful things.

Ilaria: Black Heart Procession.

Raffaele: Maybe the Doors, also because they were definitely the first band I fell in love with as a teenager.

Alessandro: At different times: Fred Frith, Tortoise, Pixies, Queen, Mr Bungle, Pavement, Max Roach, Radian.

You're on a tower. You have the CD, MP3 and vinyl copies of your favourite album with you. You can only keep one item. What do you keep and what do you throw away?

Enzo: Vinyl. It's the only format that still makes sense to buy even when you don't own a turntable. It stings a bit to toss the CD... But if that's the rule...

Ilaria: I keep the vinyl, I throw away the rest.

Raffaele: Obviously I keep the vinyl and throw away everything else.

Alessandro: I'd leave only the vinyl on the tower and jump off after the CD and the MP3.

Speaking of which... now we're curious! Your favourite album is...?

Enzo: There's no single favourite album for me. The one I hate the most, though... I'll tell you in the next interview.

Ilaria: “The Wall”, Pink Floyd.

Raffaele: "Abbey Road".

Alessandro: It's impossible to name just one! I'll mention one of many: "Motion" by Cinematic Orchestra.

An evergreen of multi-member interviews: define each member of the band with one word or adjective (or more than one, go for it!).

Enzo:

Ilaria – Unwitting wonder, a witch.

Raffaele – A pitbull puppy, with the heart of a puppy and a lethal bite. Chemical brother.

Alessandro – The most well-connected man I've ever met. I bet even Pope Francis has him in his contacts. His nut consumption alone has probably shifted South America's GDP. The funniest guy you could ever run into. Ask him for an impression and he'll give you one… actually, you won't even need to ask.

Mariagiulia – She's crazy, thank god. You'd laugh with her even at a funeral.

Ilaria:

Enzo – Workaholic.

Raffaele – The tour manager's tour manager, guardian angel/devil.

Alessandro – The athlete, the omega-3 poster boy.

Mariagiulia – Possessed by the tarantula. She doesn't know it yet, but she can do whatever she wants.

Raffaele:

Enzo – Genius and recklessness.

Ilaria – The eternally forgetful one.

Alessandro – The man who needs no introduction.

Mariagiulia – The woman with the dazzling smile.

Alessandro:

Enzo – Captain.

Ilaria – Feather.

Raffaele – Surgical.

Maria Giulia – Sister.

Bruno and Igor, our sound engineer and tour manager respectively – Guardian angels.

To wrap up, we'd like to ask you for a farewell message, a reflection, or a thought to share directly with whoever is reading this interview.

Enzo: Buy …A Toys Orchestra records. Buy whoever's records you like… except that guy's.

Ilaria: Hallelujah!

Alessandro: Thanks for all your love and support.

And from us, a huge thank you, guys. It's been a real pleasure!Alessandro: Thank you!

(31/03/2024)

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