Claudio Simonetti - Goblin - A Shiver Down the Keyboard

by Claudio Fabretti

Very few Italian musicians have managed to tie their name indissolubly to a sound and an era, while at the same time reinventing themselves in new and disparate musical experiences. Among them is undoubtedly Claudio Simonetti, composer, arranger, keyboardist and producer, born in São Paulo, Brazil, but Roman through and through. His career has been one continuous challenge: from his early days steeped in symphonic prog with Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray to his rock consecration with Goblin, in a magical sequence of soundtracks alongside his friend Dario Argento as well as other masters of the horror genre. Along the way came a striking foray into Italian disco music and a rekindled flame amid the darkness of Daemonia's gothic metal. All of it underpinned by a talent written into his family's DNA, but forged in the tough school of Classical training and the Conservatory. After a long pursuit, we finally caught up with him for a wide-ranging interview. On the trail of a story spanning almost forty years now, marked by foresight and constant plot twists.

I actually started studying piano at the age of eight, although later, partly thanks to the era of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, I got closer to music by playing guitar in the little bands of the time, and around the age of 12 I enrolled at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, where I studied piano and composition. I was in quite a few small groups, but Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray was my first real band. We had two line-ups.

Initially it was: Roberto Gardin and Fernando Fera on guitars; Walter Martino on drums; me on Hammond organ; and Luciano Regoli was the singer. We played covers of various bands of the era such as Deep Purple, King Crimson, Yes and so on, and we took part in the 1971 Caracalla Pop Festival. Then the band split up, but Walter and I brought in bassist-singer Massimo Giorgi and reformed Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray as a three-piece (keyboards, drums and bass). We were among the first to bring symphonic rock to our country, drawing inspiration above all from Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Can you tell us how your partnership with Goblin began, in the early Seventies?

Before we called ourselves Goblin, we had a band called Oliver, which I formed together with Massimo Morante in 1973. It was originally a progressive rock band, and we too drew inspiration from groups such as Genesis, Yes, Elp, Gentle Giant and so on. After spending nearly a year in London, in 1974, and recording a few demos with songs by me and Morante, we came back to Italy, and thanks to my father Enrico, we signed a contract with Cinevox Record.

After spending nearly a year in England in 1974 with Goblin (we were called Oliver back then), we returned to Italy to record our album (later released under the name Cherry Five). It was on that very occasion that Dario Argento, thanks to our producer Carlo Bixio, heard our music and decided, since he was looking for a rock band, to have us record the soundtrack for "Profondo Rosso". Initially we were only supposed to perform and arrange Giorgio Gaslini's music in our own way, but after he had a falling-out with Argento during production, Gaslini left the film, and so Dario asked us to finish the film's score with our own music. That's how the tracks "Profondo Rosso", "Death Dies" and "Mad Puppet" came about, on side A of the album, while side B features our performances of Gaslini's compositions plus a couple of his own orchestral pieces.

Our music and our style, which we'd already had for a few years, quickly proved a good fit for the horror genre, thanks also to the bold Argento, who was already a legend at the time and who had the instinct and the courage to choose a brand-new band made up of very young musicians (I was the oldest, at just 23). We were barely into our twenties, and there we were in front of a major director — Dario was then at the height of his career — but we hit it off right away, because he was, after all, a down-to-earth person; we also quickly became friends with Daria Nicolodi, his partner at the time.

My friendship and partnership with Dario continues to this day, and now spans more than 30 years.

There are no rules or secrets for composing film music, of any genre.

Normally the music I write is meant to serve the film, and when I compose it I always try to stay as close as possible to the scenes. Instinctively I think about what the audience might feel in that moment, and I try to convey my own emotions, hoping that viewers will feel the same things I do. Film music is born as a support to the story, and even if it sometimes becomes a protagonist in its own right outside the screen — as happened with "Profondo Rosso" — it always remains tied to it regardless. That said, when I write soundtracks, I also try to imagine my music as something that can stand on its own, and I try to turn it into an album that, taken by itself, can be enjoyed even without necessarily having seen the film.

Dario really wanted an atmosphere along the lines of "Tubular Bells", and we did move toward that style, even though our track is by no means identical to Mike Oldfield's.

Then again, even John Carpenter has said he drew inspiration from "Profondo Rosso" (1975) for his main theme in "Halloween" (1979), though that too isn't at all the same as ours - it might recall it, but that's all.

When we wrote the soundtrack for "Profondo Rosso" we could never have imagined, even remotely, the success it would go on to have, or that it would become cult music, even imitated the world over.

Even today I'm surprised and amazed, considering that back then we were rare birds indeed, given that those were the years of Cugini di Campagna, Alunni del Sole, Baglioni and Cocciante, and extremely commercial music... we really were Martians! Go figure the public...

Those devoted to your music, though, almost always have a "soft spot" for three other albums, "Suspiria", "Roller" and "Tenebre". For this last one there was also a copyright issue, so much so that it came out under the name Simonetti-Morante-Pignatelli. Can you tell us about these three projects, which best sum up your most experimental side?

Actually, "Suspiria" is the best work we did with Goblin, certainly more personal and innovative than "Profondo Rosso". We really let loose in the choice of instruments, in the arrangements and compositions, which were well ahead of their time, and even today that soundtrack keeps its magical sound.

"Roller" was our first instrumental album not tied to a soundtrack; it didn't have huge success compared to "Profondo Rosso", but our fans loved it a lot.

In 1982, Argento asked Goblin to write the soundtrack for "Tenebre", but after the band split up Pignatelli had kept using the name with a different lineup and had just released the album "Il Volo", so it was impossible to release it under the name Goblin, and we simply used our own names, Simonetti-Morante-Pignatelli, without the drummer, because the soundtrack was made with an electronic drum machine, except for the orchestral timpani played by Walter Martino. You can really hear my hand in "Tenebre", given my dance experiences of that period. In the '80s rock was momentarily in "decline" compared to the '70s, and "dance" music ruled everywhere, in clubs and even in cinemas (riding the wave of films like "Saturday Night Fever", "Grease", "Flashdance" etc.), so making a soundtrack with that sound, even for a thriller, seemed like a good idea. The track "Tenebre" was born precisely from that urge to change: no more real drums, but electronic ones, with synthesizers more to the fore, blended with distorted guitars. "Tenebre" was even played in clubs, though I have to say that with the arrangement we did with Daemonia, the track was "rehabilitated" back into the rock canon.

When I started out playing I had a Duo Compact organ made by the Italian company Farfisa, then I bought my first Hammond, an L122 with a tube-driven Leslie.

In any case, my first synths were the Minimoog and the Mellotron, which isn't actually a synth but a keyboard that plays pre-recorded tapes, a forerunner of the sampler. My true electronic era began in 1977, when I bought the Roland System 100, the first synth with a 24-note sequencer, which we used to make "Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark" and "Zombi". Then, in the early '80s, the first MIDI keyboards started arriving; my first was the "legendary" Roland DX-7. It was the start of a new era, and being a "futurist" by nature, I was very curious to try new sounds and new kinds of arrangements, which, with the arrival of the computer, later gave me the freedom to do things that had been unthinkable until then.

Every now and then I listen to some old prog record from the golden years and I still find something brilliant, creative and original in it, even by today's standards. Of course, not every record was great and flawless, but there was much more inventiveness and creativity than in today's music - after all, we didn't have technology on our side, we really had to invent everything from scratch... In short, it's not true that it now belongs to a bygone, forgotten era. Just look at and listen to today's bands: many tend to copy those "old" sounds, sometimes passing them off as new and taking advantage of the fact that younger generations don't know them. Even the clothes and haircuts of that era are back, and Fender Stratocaster and Gibson Les Paul guitars with Marshall tube amps remain timeless warhorses.

I left the group in 1978 because we no longer got along, either musically or personally. Music was changing, and the rock era of the '70s was coming to an end, giving way to the new, carefree wave of dance music that was hitting the clubs with the sound of the Bee Gees, Giorgio Moroder and so on.

After leaving Goblin, I met producer Giancarlo Meo, with whom I began a series of dance music productions that were hugely successful and brought me great satisfaction. Then I went back to working in film, both with Argento as a solo artist ("Dèmoni", "Phenomena", "Opera" etc.) and with other directors such as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava, Ruggero Deodato, Sergio Martino, Enzo G. Castellari, Salvatore Samperi, and also with Castellano e Pipolo on the film "College" and the related TV series directed by Federico Moccia.

The current Goblin line-up strikes me as close to perfect, or nearly so, given that I'm not even in it anymore... The members are the same as always except for the keyboardist, who is Maurizio Guarini - though he's effectively an ex-Goblin himself too, since he played with us for two years and made the album "Roller". I haven't seen them live recently, but I have no doubts about their skill: they're top-tier musicians and always will be.

After many years and countless gigs with various line-ups, at the end of the '90s I finally found the right musicians to start a new project and build a real band. Each of them had had different experiences, but ones that were very much in tune with each other, and ultimately, even though there was a considerable generation gap between me and them, our musical language and our "rock" influences weren't so far apart after all. With these young musicians I found exactly the input I needed to go back to how things used to be - starting over in the rehearsal room and playing live in clubs again.

With Daemonia, my way of playing and presenting my own tracks and Goblin's has changed - the arrangements are now more modern and catchy. That's also because there's huge interest abroad in Italian genre film music, especially mine and Goblin's, so with Daemonia I've ended up playing a lot of shows abroad (New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, etc.), and we've always found plenty of fans who own all our records and love Argento's films. Maybe it's because abroad there's a different culture from ours, and people are more inclined to embrace a certain kind of cinema and music.

I couldn't say about today, because the tradition of the rock keyboardist has somewhat faded over time, and the few who are left all sound alike, all playing the same solo with the same sound... As for the "old guard", I can name my favorites, who were Keith Emerson, Brian Auger, Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum), Rick Van Der Linden (Ekseption), Rick Wakeman (Yes) and Tony Banks (Genesis).

These days I really listen to everything, I don't have one particular genre I favor. I can happily listen to Dream Theater or Metallica, as well as Celine Dion or Coldplay, or Nightwish, Shania Twain, Cradle Of Filth and Slipknot - really everything, and I won't hide the fact that I'm a big fan of electronic techno music too, even the "dumb" club kind!

I have to say that, in almost every genre by now, nobody really has anything new to say or offer anymore - after all, pretty much everything's been done, and today technology is flattening and killing music, while the internet has dealt the final blow to the record industry.

As someone who grew up in the Seventies with "Gamma" and with your father Enrico's film scores, I can't not ask you about him. What memories do you have of him? And what do you feel today, seeing a new generation discover his music on YouTube?

I was very happy to have had a father like mine - I truly learned and took a lot from him, both as a person and as a musician. Unfortunately, given his countless commitments, he didn't have much time to teach me how to study music and play, but he always supported me in everything, letting me freely play with bands in rehearsal spaces and later study music seriously at the Conservatory. I'm sorry he passed away prematurely at just 54; I would have liked to spend more time with him, to learn so many things and share all the satisfactions I've had in my life since he passed, in 1978.

I also remember Claudio Simonetti being a frequent presence on TV shows back then. Today you don't appear anymore - is it because you're not interested in doing so, or because you no longer like the kind of television being made in Italy?

Italian television today doesn't offer much space for music, and honestly, I have no interest in going on TV to conduct an orchestra for some squalid, pointless show and put at risk a career I've built over so many years, including plenty of sacrifices and renunciations.

Certainly less well known, but by no means secondary, is your "dance" and "italo disco" side, which took shape above all with Easy Going, but also through collaborations with Cecchetto, Vivien Vee and other names from that scene. It's a phenomenon now enjoying an unexpected revival, especially abroad, while in Italy, paradoxically, it's still looked down on somewhat. What memories do you have of that world?

My "dance" period was definitely the happiest and most creative of my career. After Goblin broke up and I met producer Giancarlo Meo, I devoted myself entirely to disco music, which back then was all arranged with real orchestras.

We were at the start of the Eighties, and by then people wanted to have fun and shake off the difficult, "burning" Seventies that had come before. Musically speaking, the Eighties were entirely devoted to fun and dancing in the clubs. That's when new musical genres emerged, pushing Seventies rock somewhat to the sidelines, along with new bands like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet and so on, while great pop artists of the caliber of Michael Jackson and Madonna rose to prominence, somewhat overturning the image of the rockstars of previous years.

Electronics were mixed with real instruments, new sounds were experimented with — in short, it was a decade of major changes in modern music.

A parallel discussion could be had about Italian genre cinema of the Seventies (horror, poliziesco, thriller): hugely appreciated abroad, revered even by a master like Tarantino, but still viewed with suspicion here at home. You made an important contribution to that era of Italian filmmaking with your music — what do you think that season represented, and what's left of it today?

I think that the whole of Italian genre cinema, from the Fifties right up to the early Nineties, left its mark on world cinema.

Many foreign directors, like Tarantino, hold Italian cinema of past decades in great regard and respect. I happened to be in Paris once, talking with director Christophe Gans ("Brotherhood of the Wolf", "Silent Hill"), who asked me why we don't make films like that anymore — he seemed genuinely sorry about it. It was hard for me to answer him, because there's really no single reason why our cinema ground to a halt. I think it has a lot to do with the difficulties of distribution: nowadays all the cinemas are in the hands of the big foreign majors, who decide the entire programming. Once, cinemas were all independent, so the owners could program whatever they liked — something unthinkable today — and naturally it's all to the detriment of Italian cinema, especially genre film. As a result, Italian filmmakers can no longer find funding for their projects.

Still, I'm glad to have lived through a happy period, and to have contributed in some way to leaving a mark that's still remembered and appreciated today.

I read that — together with your sister Simona — you directed a short film, "The Dirt". Was that an isolated experience, or do you see a future for yourself behind the camera too?

It's a psychological thriller written by my sister Simona, who then developed the screenplay together with Lynn Swanson. The short was shot in Rome at the start of December 2007, and filming lasted about four days. The cast includes Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, well known for her roles in several films by Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava, who plays the lead, along with Robert Madison, Urbano Lione and Beatrice Arnera Gavarotti. Coralina plays a woman with an inner world full of secrets — perhaps as many secrets as those living inside a plant in her living room. Makeup and special effects were handled by my friend Sergio Stivaletti. I edited the short and wrote the soundtrack. The director of photography is Roberta Allegrini. We're presenting it at various festivals, where it has always been very well received (including by Argento himself). I'm very pleased, especially since it's the first time I've worked with my sister Simona, and I hope we'll keep making films together. It's produced by Salvatore Corazza (my sister's husband and my former drummer back in the Eighties) together with Sergio Stivaletti, who did the special effects. We were able to make this short thanks in part to funding from I.M.A.I.E.

I don't know if I'll keep directing, but I really enjoy video editing — it's a hobby I've cultivated for a long time. In fact, I edited the short "The Dirt" and the DVD "Daemonia Live in Los Angeles" in 2002, and now I'm about to start editing the Daemonia concert held at Stazione Birra last February 2009.

Who are your favorite directors today?

There are so many directors nowadays, even unknown ones, who are very good — it's very hard to pick just one today. Just look at the series "Lost" (my favorite), where almost every episode is directed by a different director, yet they all share the same touch and skill.

Among the great, famous directors I could mention Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Dino Risi, Blake Edwards, Woody Allen, William Wyler, Ridley Scott, Dario Argento (of course) and many, many others.

On "The Third Mother" you used a large choir with a symphony orchestra for the first time (aside from the two episodes of "Masters Of Horror"). What was that experience like? And what have you been focused on in particular in recent years?

I have to admit that at first I felt a great sense of responsibility composing the music for "The Third Mother", especially considering it was a highly anticipated and important film with two illustrious predecessors already behind it: "Suspiria" and "Inferno" (both with extremely famous, celebrated soundtracks). Once I got past that initial moment, I threw myself completely into the work, with great enthusiasm and satisfaction — it took almost four months between pre-production and recording.

This time I set my pioneering streak aside, partly because it's hard today to break new ground the way it was 30 years ago. If anything, this time I made a return to the past. Given my conservatory training, I went back to my first love, classical music. So this time, no rock or electronic music, but only music with a full orchestra and choirs (though I did slip in a few electronic sounds here and there). There's no reference to the past, no nod either to Goblin's music or to Keith Emerson's. There is certainly some reference to classical music of the past, which after all has shaped almost every current soundtrack composer with a classical background (John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, etc.). Besides, the nature of the film called for exactly this kind of music, and I have to say Dario agreed with me on that 100% right from the start. It was a beautiful orchestral experience, one that began with "Jenifer" in 2005 and "Pelts" in 2006.

Right now I'm about to start work on the soundtrack for 'The Darkside,' directed by French/German director Gérard Diefenthal, previously a special effects creator, here making his directorial debut. He did the special effects for Luc Besson's 'Taxi' series and for the Citroën ad where the car turns into a robot and dances. I'm also continuing work on the new Daemonia album, which I hope to release in early 2010. In the meantime, a live Daemonia DVD, recorded at the Stazione Birra in Rome last February, will be out by the end of the year.

(September 2009)