Banco - Prog in the Piggy Bank

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of their self-titled debut album, now known as “Il Salvadanaio” because of its iconic cover, Vittorio Nocenzi and his bandmates have gone back to playing concerts around Italy. This shows how the music and the cult following of Banco del Mutuo Soccorso are still very much alive, despite the painful losses and departures of recent times. And the credit goes precisely to the tenacity with which the veteran keyboardist and founder has kept alive the flame of a musical experience that, over half a century, has made the history of Italian song. Earning praise abroad too, including in Perfidious Albion. We talk with him in this wide-ranging conversation, full of memories, anecdotes and curiosities, that tells the story of what Banco has been and what it wants to represent today.

Vittorio, your Salvadanaio is turning fifty. How does that feel?

Back then nobody could have imagined that all this would happen. I remember the thrill of seeing that cover with the piggy bank on display in the window of the record shop in Piazza del Duomo, in Milan. Or when I saw, at the bus terminal, a guy getting off the bus with our record under his arm. Those were tangible signs of how our first record was spreading, of our music - which I'd dreamed of so much but which until then had stayed shut up in my house, the preserve only of us and a few friends. Feelings that might seem trivial, but they're incredibly powerful. It's like going out for the first time for a walk with the person you're in love with.

Is that sense of the physicality of music missing today, in these ethereal times made of streaming and digital platforms?

Yes, that relationship of dependency on the object has disappeared, the kind you had with old vinyl records. But the most important thing was the emotions, the feelings, that this way of experiencing the spread of your music could give you.

But if there's an audience that has kept a strong attachment to musical objects, to vinyl, to collector's records, it's precisely the progressive rock audience…

That's true, for many fans of our music it is like that. It's the materialization of ideas becoming objects, sources of exchange. A bridge to cross, one that connects artists and listeners.

Banco's music is visceral: it comes straight from the gut, from the heart - that's why it always manages to engage and move audiences

Coming back to Salvadanaio, what do you think is the secret of its long-lasting appeal? Why has it remained a landmark of Italian rock music?

It's hard to say after all this time. I think it's a cocktail of diversity, of visceral quality, of unheard-of sounds. Banco's music makes its own peculiarity one of the keys capable of moving audiences, of having a powerful impact. You can feel that it's music that comes straight from the gut, from the heart. It's like an avenue that draws you in the moment you decide to walk down it: it makes me think of an avenue I always love walking along, the Olmate in Genzano (a town near Rome, ed.), which in spring fills up with millions of little yellow flowers carried by the wind…

It almost sounds like the setting of a prog fairy tale… (we laugh)

Well yes, there's a time of year, when the trees blossom, when it really happens - it's a rain of little yellow flowers along that avenue, pure magic… It reminds me of an episode from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which describes exactly that, a rain of little yellow flowers over Macondo.

Magical realism is something we prog fans love. Coming back to your music, though, it's worth remembering how different it was from certain prog productions of the time - almost unique, in fact…

A friend once gave me what I still think is the most fitting definition: Banco's music isn't visionary, it's visual - it makes you see things, it stimulates the mind's images, the most vivid sensations, drawing the listener in emotionally, even viscerally. Perhaps thanks also to our Latin, Mediterranean soul.

A bit baroque too, at times?

No, I wouldn't say baroque, at least not in the sense of the ornate excess so often associated with prog.

No no, I meant it in a good way, I was referring to the noble Italian Baroque tradition, to melodrama…

There's undoubtedly a strong melodic component in our songs, and then there are the keyboards, very present, which somewhat alter the genetic code of traditional rock, made of strings, of necks… of guitars, of electric bass. When a keyboardist joins a band so guitar-centric, it often happens that something from classical music filters through too, mixing with rock'n'roll. Because keyboardists have almost always trained on piano, through classical studies.

My favourite keyboardists? Huey Smith, Brian Auger and Keith Emerson, he had a unique phrasing that never descended into mere virtuosity. We keyboardists are destabilizing forces: we're the Trojan horses of classical music within rock.

Who are your favourites, the ones who were a point of reference for you?

I'd say above all Huey Smith, Brian Auger, the master of the Hammond organ, and of course Keith Emerson.

What kind of keyboardist was Emerson?

He had a great musical culture, a unique phrasing in his improvisations. It was never technique for its own sake, it never descended into mere virtuosity, into "look how fast I am", as happened with other keyboardists of the time. He always had a special beauty in his phrasing that made him unique. And so he managed to contaminate rock with his great musical knowledge. Because keyboardists, deep down, are like a Trojan horse of classical music entering the sacred fortress of rock. Then they come out and unleash the revolution!

Indeed, the relationship between rock and keyboards has always been a contentious one. But keyboards always resurface in the end: I'm thinking of punk, which had banned them, and of new wave, which brought them back to life in grand style…

I remember Francis Monkman, the keyboardist of Curved Air. We met in England in 1974 or '75, and I was very intrigued hearing him play and talk, because we discovered a whole pianistic literature we had in common. It was wonderful to discover another person who had drunk from the same source, like feeling part of a family. After all, when you study Bach's "Il clavicembalo ben temperato", whether you're in Italy, England or France, it's the same thing. So when you mix that background with the electricity and muscle of rock, the resulting "downstream" sound becomes similar at every latitude.

Going back to Banco, after the celebratory live show at the Auditorium di Roma for the 50th anniversary of Salvadanaio, will you be touring this summer?

Yes, we're celebrating not only the 50th anniversary of Salvadanaio, but also our return to life. We were practically out of work for two years. We were on tour when the pandemic broke out: we'd played dates at the Auditorium di Roma, in Verona, Brescia, Milan, Turin, Chiasso, Genoa, Campobasso, Bari… and then everyone went home. It was truly a cold shower. So these concerts are important to us now, we want to start over, to go back to doing what we've always done all these years. Even though the weight of anguish remains, with the war in Ukraine having taken the place of the pandemic.

Prog can't die, because it lives on diversity, imagination and wonder. And it evolves over time. Our music isn't the same as it was in 1972. Even though they're close relatives!

It will also be a chance to engage with the new generations, who in recent years have come to your music…

Yes, because we don't only have an audience of longtime followers. The torch passes from one generation to the next, fortunately, because otherwise it would just be a party among old folks (we laugh). There are lots of young people who discover in our music, and in prog in general, that diversity which, in times of grey homogenization like these, they're able to appreciate even more. It's the victory of sensibility and intelligence: you can't paint everything the same shade of grey, the colours have to come out.

Is it this "colourful" nature that means prog, deep down, never really dies, even when it's written off as dead, dated, outmoded, and so on?

It's the power of diversity, of imagination, of wonder. The drive to learn new things, to grow, never stopping.

Right, because even prog evolves. Listening to your most recent album, “Transiberiana” from 2019, you can tell your sound hasn't stayed stuck in 1972.

You can tell it's music of today. But it's closely related to that of 1972 (we laugh). And the same will be true of our next release, the most concrete way to celebrate Banco's fiftieth anniversary.

What kind of album will it be?

A new album, on double vinyl and CD. It'll come out on September 23rd, we've just finished mastering it.

Can you tell us the title yet?

Er… we'll talk about that again in September.

Francesco Di Giacomo made our songs fly with his splendid vocal range, which expressed all the emotion of our music. He and Rodolfo Maltese feel as if they're still always beside us on stage

Speaking of Banco, one's mind inevitably turns to Francesco Di Giacomo, a pillar of your band, who passed away in 2014. What did he mean to you?

He meant an enormous amount, he was our voice for so many years. From a technical point of view, you could call him a light tenor. He had a splendid vocal range that let my melodies be sung in the higher registers. I have a baritone voice, so I didn't have that range Francesco had. To express the emotional charge of our music, he really was the right person. He was our trademark, along with the two keyboards, the lyrics, that Mediterranean feel full of sun and sea, far removed from Lombard or Central European mists: a way of expressing emotion that was a bit more luminous, more visceral. All of it combined, of course, with the muscle of the guitars and synthesizers.

We should also remember guitarist Rodolfo Maltese, of course, who also left us.

Of course, when we're on stage, we always send a greeting to Francesco and Rodolfo, it's as if they're still always by our side. Other musicians left the group over the years too, but they were fundamental, like Pierluigi Calderoni, my brother Gianni Nocenzi… Our history has been made up of wonderful people, great friends and musicians who took on the responsibility of an important legacy. They did it with humility, with passion, as well as with talent.

Is there anything you appreciate about contemporary music today?

Trap bores me to tears, with that terrible use of autotune. A trend that, to me, has banned ideas, creativity… But then you'll tell me I'm just old! (we laugh)

No, because I bet there's a band out there today that you do like: Porcupine Tree!

Yes, of course! We even share the same label with them, Inside Out. It's sort of the home of progressive, with us, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Dream Theater, and also Steven Wilson's band. It's great to be part of an international circle — it happened to us before too, when we put out records for the same label as Emerson Lake & Palmer.

We're proud that we always chose to sing in Italian, even though we have plenty of fans abroad. The lyrics worked that way. And the greatest acknowledgment of that came from a major English magazine, Prog Uk

Then again, you've always had a lot of fans abroad...

Yes, of course. It happened, for instance, that Prog Uk, the quintessential monthly magazine for progressive in England, ran a review of "Transiberiana" that described our latest work in glowing terms: "The return of Banco, Italy's prog masters, triumphant even thanks to their use of Italian." I was stunned to see perfidious Albion admit that an Italian product, sung in our own language, actually sounded better.

That too, after all, was a great insight of Italian prog at the time: keeping the vocals in our own language.

Well, sure — who says you have to sing in English to reach an international audience? The lyrics worked well as they were, and translations could always be included with the records. Keeping your own identity, your own personality, adds value to what you do. And besides, can you imagine how terrible the English translation of "Banco del Mutuo Soccorso" would sound?

Ride the wave of great music

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