Casino Royale - Crossover in opposition

We reach Alioscia Bisceglia, frontman and co-founder of Casino Royale, by phone in London. The band, pioneers of crossover in Italian music, opened SeeYouSound, the festival held in Turin with 68 films and 16 music events (info).

What are the two films and the live show of the opening night of SeeYouSound, which you've called “SUONO/VISIONE/SUONO”, centred on? And how much of “Fumo”, released less than a year ago, will be in it?

The two film productions were made during the lockdown period: first "Quarantine Scenario" and then, later on, "Alba ad Ovest" (directed respectively by Pepsy Romanoff and Frankie Caradonna, who will both be present at the screening, ed.). They're connected to our earlier work "Polaris". That said, they never really circulated and they're still very much relevant today. I'm curious to watch the first one again and see where it takes me emotionally: that was a special, suspended time, full of suffering, of good intentions that were later abandoned. "Alba ad Ovest" has an original score. In the live segment there'll be something from "Fumo", but also from other Casino Royale works.

In Turin it's Askatasuna, in Milan it's Leoncavallo, and other spaces too (spaces of freedom, of community, where mutual aid is put into practice) are under attack. What direction do you imagine this ongoing repressive drift might take?

Let's go straight to one of the hot, crucial issues of our time. The system is rediscovering its authoritarian streak and thirsting for ideological revenge. It's not a matter of legality, otherwise they would have shut down Casapound in Rome too. What they want here is to erase a world that, for all its imperfections, still stands as a bastion of a certain kind of culture and critical resistance to the system itself.

What has Leoncavallo meant for you musically, though?

Leoncavallo is history, the history of a part of Milan and of this country, just as other places are too. For us, as Milanese, it was a point of reference when we were kids, and we'd occasionally go back to play there because it stood as a symbol, a symbol of an experience and of a certain kind of practice that pushes back against certain dynamics. Personally, in my activism I've also been critical of certain models, but the fact remains that places like Leo have been spaces for debate, education, growth and experience for a huge part of the city, and they don't deserve to be treated and portrayed as places that stir up dissent through violent means.

What's your opinion of how music is presented on television today?Does television even still exist? I worked in television for eight years, I was in charge of music programming first at All Music and then at Deejay Tv. Now music is talked about on social media, so the narrative is all faster and more superficial. There's not even much point making videos anymore, you have to make quick content that gets people to drop little hearts on it.

Which bands that started out in the same years as you do you think still have something to say now?

I think Subsonica, who came along as a project a bit after us, still have the drive to make and to say something. And then there are bands like Massive Attack, whose live shows are performances built to spread political messages, so the content isn't just entertainment.

As we can see from Fimi (Italian Music Industry Federation) data, the Italian charts are increasingly full of Italian artists under 26. You've worked a lot with British producers (such as Howie B) and you recently moved to London. How have you found the music scene there now? And what makes the biggest difference?

England is a world apart, music here is like olive oil back home for us... I'm glad that Italian people are finally listening to Italian music, though when it comes to the level of the content, or what the ideas and motivations are behind someone starting to make music at twenty, we could make some assessments. Assessments that lead me to think there is a difference. Music is experienced as an opportunity for redemption in itself, an opportunity that basically looks at success as its one and only goal. Still, I think that if we met more and clashed less with the new generations, a bit of healthy fire would flare back up.

What are you listening to these days?

Alessandro Barbero's lectures... Ahahah! I'd make him Minister of Education at the very least. I listen to a lot of Radio Tre, programmes like "Battiti". And "Musical Box" on Radio Due, hosted by Raffaele Costantino. Ambient, ethnic sounds, classical music like Ravel, and dub and all those offshoots that make use of electronics.

Three records that changed your life?

"Sandinista" by The Clash, "Tin Drum" by Japan and "More Specials" by The Specials. But also plenty of mixtapes by DJs who, between the 70s and 80s, blended different genres in an experimental way: I'm talking about the scene tied to clubs like Cosmic, Typhoon and Mecca.

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