Banda Maje - Along the coasts of Salifornia

To mark the release of their new album, “Costa Sud“, we meet the Salerno band through the words of frontman and multi-instrumentalist Peppe Maiellano, amid tributes to the unforgettable Peppino Di Capri, “Saliforniano” dreams, and a longing to live at a slow pace, light years away from today's market logic.

Why such a long gap between records?
Over these five years we've actually played a lot, so we've kept busy on that front. In 2023 we worked on Tonico 70's solo album, a project I wrote a great deal for and which, even though it doesn't officially appear in our discography, still demanded a lot of time and dedication. Then came Ufo Bar's "Genesi", between 2024 and 2025. For reasons tied to the label side of things, and the timing that comes with it, we decided to release the album this year, even though we managed to put the single out back in May of last year. Let's say it was a combination of factors: partly a choice, partly a consequence of circumstances. In the meantime, I also had to reorganize the lineup, because some musicians moved on to other things or took on new commitments. So it took some technical time to rebuild the balance.

These days it seems almost mandatory to keep churning out music: albums every few months, singles fired off one after another, artists talking more and more about burnout. You, on the other hand, have followed a different, slower rhythm. How do you experience this relationship with time?
Let's say Banda Maje was also born as a response to these frantic times. We created a small dreamlike world that starts from the physical place we live in, Salerno, and then becomes "Salifornia": a kind of escape from all those dynamics of reality that don't belong to us. I have deep respect for music, so I believe things should come out when the time is right. I don't buy into the pressure of "you have to release it now or the album will be old news next year." That way of thinking has no place in our idea of music. These are very complex times for creativity in general, too. If you want to make a carefully crafted work, there's no guarantee you can do it every year, or every year and a half. Then there are bigger dynamics at play: we don't know what will happen with artificial intelligence, which I think risks profoundly changing our relationship with creativity. Being an independent, underground band definitely has its hard sides, but it also grants a great deal of freedom: we can choose when to release music, how to do it, and follow our own artistic path.

On "Costa Sud" you wrote with individual musicians in mind, almost tailoring the parts to the people before the instruments themselves. Where does this need come from?
It definitely stems from my own background. I started out as a composer and also studied for film scoring, so I've always felt the need to range across different genres and never stay stuck in a single musical dimension. The relationship with the musicians has therefore become essential. In some ways Banda Maje works almost like a small orchestra: someone needs to provide direction, but at the same time every member has to have their own space. I might have an initial idea for a song, but once a human and professional relationship has been built with the musicians, I let each of them bring something personal into it. Unlike "Ufo Bar", which was born more as a project built on paper, the live band came together later, out of necessity, because we were being asked to play shows. After that experience the group truly took shape, it gelled, and this exchange between composer and musicians became natural. When I write, I think about the people involved: I know what a given musician can bring, so I leave room for expression within the structure of the song.

Listening to "Costa Sud" brings to mind references like Alan Sorrenti, the magical world of Peppino Di Capri, and certain exotic atmospheres. What were the records or artists that inspired you in some way?
Definitely Marcos Valle. When I discovered the Brazilian world, especially the period between the late Seventies and the early Eighties, I found it to be a really fascinating period: the transition between synthesizers and acoustic instruments. That was a key point for "Costa Sud": managing to make these two souls, the electronic and the acoustic, coexist. Then definitely Azymuth, who are an extraordinary group, and plenty of more hidden listening, also tied to Neapolitan tradition. There are lesser-known arrangements and songs that struck me deeply. At the same time I also tried to distance myself from outside listening, to focus on what came out naturally. The goal was to build a sound of our own, something that could become recognizable.

You studied composition for film scores. So, if "Costa Sud" were handed to a director, what kind of film do you picture?
I picture something like Dino Risi's "The Overtake", but set in the present day. At the heart of "Costa Sud" there's precisely a surreal dimension tied to the local landscape. If you take a long drive along the coast from Salerno down to Paestum, you find an enormous contradiction: on one hand, there's incredible natural beauty, an immense historical heritage, Magna Graecia, our history; on the other, there's the decay produced by modern man over the last few decades. It's a place that seems to have been blessed by nature but then wounded by human transformation. To me that contradiction is very poetic: we live inside this landscape, we see these wounds, we're aware of what's happening, but at the same time life goes on at a slow pace. It's a different dimension compared to big cities: here time flows in a particular way. Maybe the meaning of "Costa Sud" comes precisely from this feeling: watching the world change quickly around us while still trying to stay true to our own way of living.

Speaking of slowing down, "Jet Lag" is perhaps one of the most relaxed tracks melodically. How did this song come about, and how did you turn the concept of jet lag into music?
It draws its energy from a track Tonico 70 made back in 2017. That very song was actually the occasion when Tonico, Francesco and I first met, since we played together for the first time on it. So this new version has become, first and foremost, a celebration of our friendship and the journey we've shared. The original track came out of a trip Tonico took to New York: he was influenced by the city's atmosphere, its harder, more metropolitan side, so it had a darker, almost psychedelic sound. Banda Maje's version, on the other hand, is completely different: it's sunnier, but it keeps the underlying idea of jet lag, that sense of disorientation, of passing between different worlds. We tried to portray it through a kind of organized chaos: there's a jazzier section with Gianfranco Campagnoli's trumpet solo, then the guitar solo, and several shifts in mood. They're all elements meant to convey that sense of displacement typical of jet lag.

You've shared the stage with major artists like Seun Kuti. Is there a particular memory tied to these encounters?
The night at Locus Festival was definitely memorable. The only regret is that Roy Ayers wasn't there, since he unfortunately had to pull out shortly before the event for health reasons. With Seun Kuti we managed to say a quick hello backstage, because at festivals artists are always busy and encounters often don't last long. But his concert left us with something incredible: seeing afrobeat played by the direct heirs of that tradition was a physical experience, a wall of sound that hits you. For us it was wonderful to share such an important stage while still coming at it as independent artists.

In recent years in Campania, especially between Naples and Salerno, there seems to be a rediscovery of certain sounds tied to the past: funk, library music, film scores, Italian electronic music. Do you feel part of this new scene?
More than an organized scene, I think it's the expression of a ferment that already existed for some time. We're still talking about underground realities that stayed hidden for years. In this case I think the breakout success of Napoli Segreta, Nu Genea and other projects helped bring to the surface a movement that already existed. The DJ scene in our area too, Tonico 70, Famiglia DiscoCristiana, the world of funk and musical research, all helped prepare fertile ground. Then I think Nu Genea simply popped the cork: thanks to the interest that came from outside, these realities now have more of a chance to come up from the basement and be heard.

The album cover is dedicated to the Alfa Sud. It's an image that carries so many meanings: childhood, journeys, the relationship with the South, but also the industrial history of Pomigliano. Why this car specifically?
The Alfa Sud is part of the Italian collective imagination. Think of cinema too, for instance "Bianco, rosso e Verdone": it was the car chosen by those who emigrated, to keep a bond with their homeland. But the Alfa Sud is also the story of the Pomigliano factory, a hugely important industrial project for the Mezzogiorno. Visually, I already had this image in my head, and I spent a long time searching to find the right car: it took about six or seven months. Then, as I studied the history of the Alfa Sud, I got even more drawn in. It's one of those stories from the First Republic, when the State invested huge resources to create industrial development in the South. On paper the project was very sound: it was meant to be a car entirely conceived and built in the Mezzogiorno. But in the end it collided with the reality of its historical context: production problems, materials that weren't always up to standard, social tensions and workers' struggles. A beautiful idea that ran into all the country's difficulties. In that sense it resembles us: a bit "ramshackle", but with a strong identity.

Another central track on the album is "Africana". How did this song come about?
The music already existed. The dedication came later. During a boat trip with some friends along the Amalfi Coast, we arrived in front of the Africana in Praiano, a historic spot I also knew through my parents' stories. In the Sixties it was a very famous nightclub, an exclusive place you could even reach by boat from Salerno. That decadent atmosphere struck me right away, because we're always drawn to places that carry a history within them. Then I started digging deeper and discovered the story of Luca Milano, the man who created the Africana: in the Sixties he turned a fishing village into an international hotspot for the jet set. Extremely famous figures passed through there, from Jacqueline Kennedy to the Queen of Sweden. It was a symbolic place of an era. The saddest part is that Luca Milano, many years later, took his own life right inside his club. That really struck me, also because these are themes I had already explored in the past, like in the Ufo Bar project, with the story of Agostino Di Bartolomei: the relationship between creativity, fragility and feeling out of place. Musically, we then played on the meaning of the word "Africana", evoking tribal atmospheres and building the track around that idea.

You've built an imagery deeply tied to your homeland, all the way to "Salifornia". Many young musicians instead think that to make it you have to move to Rome or Milan. Have you never felt that need?
The choice to stay here is something all the musicians in Banda Maje have in common. Everyone has their own story tied to this territory: work, relationships, personal experience. Then you also have to ask what it actually means today to go to Milan looking for something. If the goal is chasing success, maybe what you're looking for isn't really music. We don't live exclusively off our music, we also have other jobs, and that lets us keep greater artistic freedom. We're also a peculiar group from an organizational standpoint: while a band would normally travel with three or four people, we show up with as many as ten. We're a small orchestra, and that can become a problem for promoters. Sometimes they ask us if we can cut down the number of musicians, but the answer is that our sound comes precisely from that lineup. If you take elements away, the music changes completely. We're not a group that thinks purely in economic terms. Obviously you have to cover costs and keep things running, but the primary goal remains artistic: bringing the music across under the right conditions. Behind an album or a concert there's an enormous amount of work that the audience often doesn't see. We feel lucky because, despite all the difficulties of the Italian music industry, we keep getting requests and opportunities to play.

Is there an album that changed your life, or that played a fundamental role in your artistic development?
Naming just one is practically impossible, but certainly Area. Demetrio Stratos in particular, who I even wrote my undergraduate thesis on. Area opened my mind in so many ways: musically, compositionally, but also on a human level. There's a line from Demetrio Stratos that was fundamental for me: "Abolire le differenze tra musica e vita" ["Abolish the differences between music and life"]. I've tried to carry that concept into my own artistic path too. In Banda Maje, our life is inside the music, because I believe a musician has to be sincere in the creative moment. I don't think you should build a persona separate from who you really are. You have to put what you live every day into the music: experiences, feelings, contradictions. That's probably the very starting point that led us to create Banda Maje.

(August 3, 2026)

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