Dov'è Liana - Dov'è Liana - The Search for Joy

E vedo il mio cuore occhio e centro, orologio e valvola del mio spazio carnale

(Goliarda Sapienza)

If music is a matter of feeling, Dov'è Liana are a matter of flesh. Capable of upending every rule of the game, yet never losing sight of their one true goal: Joy. The three French guys flood their listeners with genuine sensuality and enchanting entropy. We met them to have them reveal their recipe.

You've known each other since childhood, but the track that sparked your breakout success, "Blue Summer", was self-produced after a summer in Palermo. Had you already been playing together for a while, or was that summer what got you started?

It was what in French is called an heureux hasard, a happy accident - we did it by chance, just to try it out. And that's what makes it even more beautiful that it took on this scale, because it was born to do that among ourselves, among friends, not to become known. And the best part, for us, is that we then started making music because people liked this music.

And then your success hit like an explosion…

Yes! And what's incredible is that it all happened on its own, with no promotion, no PR campaign; so it's as if our music had a destiny of its own.

Do you think it's tied only to the city of Palermo, do you think it could have happened elsewhere?

I think it's mainly tied to the experience we lived through there, and to the fact that we were extremely sincere in writing the track, almost naive, because we had no expectation of doing it for an audience, of making it work. I think that's exactly what touched people. We loved the people, the energy, we wrote a song about it and people loved it.

In fact there's a line on the album “Love 679” that says “music is a matter of feeling” - what does that mean?

It's a line we wrote as a tribute to Leonardo Da Vinci, who said that painting is a matter of the mind, and we applied that to music; it's a matter of feeling.

And is there a particular feeling you want to convey and spread?

The joy of living. That's why we recently started reading, even during our live shows, passages from "L'Arte della Gioia" by Goliarda Sapienza, and it's all there: trying to be joyful, despite everything.

Was there a precise moment when you realized the scale of the success you were about to have and that your life was going to change?

We don't come from the world of music, so we had no idea about numbers of likes, streams, etc. The most significant moment was our first concert in Milan: we were supposed to play a show in front of 500 people, we'd never been on stage before, we'd never performed, we had no idea what we'd be able to create, we only had 4 songs at the time. And right before going on we were terrified and asking ourselves what we were even doing there. At that point, we heard the crowd, behind the curtain, singing "Perché piangi Palermo" all together, and that's when we understood something huge was happening. Another pivotal moment was the first time we landed at an airport and someone was waiting for us with a sign that said "Dov'è Liana". That's when we were able to tell our parents that we were doing well!

Now let's move on to the album... "tutte le donne facendo l'amore", how did you come up with this hypnotic and fun loop?

It was born while we were writing "Peace and love Baci", we were looking for samples to use, and there was a line that said "tutte le donne portano il sole", a track we ended up not using, but we thought it was amazing. So we wanted to create a sample that was a bit mythical and very much identifiable with us, and so we completed the line with a bit of French Touch and finished off the melody, creating something we found sublime.

While "Postcards From The Universe" is more romantic and nostalgic, who is it addressed to?

It came from a simple idea: we make a song where each of us writes a postcard to whoever we want. So each of us bought a postcard and wrote our thoughts, to a girlfriend, or to family, or to friends. Then we put them together and that's how the lyrics came about. It's our first track where the lyrics are written by all three of us.

Now let's talk about your live shows, they're known for being real celebrations of joy and togetherness, what do you feel during your concerts? What's the prevailing sensation?

I think it's collective joy, the fact that everyone is united in dancing and singing, and that you can experience a joyful energy together. We see people hugging, even people who didn't know each other 10 minutes earlier, all dancing together simply because they love the song. This unifying side of it is amazing for us, and it's what pushes us to keep making music. It happens often that we get messages on Instagram from people who fell in love at our concerts, and it's incredible.

And in fact, on the album, there's an interlude with a voice memo of two people saying they fell in love to "Perché piangi Palermo".

That was exactly meant to pay tribute to that, because we get so many of them.

Do you find that audiences respond differently in live shows across different cities and countries?

Usually everyone is very happy and enthusiastic and sings along a lot. In Italy, though, the audience is more involved and passionate, especially in the North, where the crowds go wild, they do incredible things.

Do you have any plans after the winter tour?

We have several projects we're still working on, above all we're thinking about how to improve the next shows we'll play - we've got a few surprises we'd like to bring in for the audience. And also, since playing live means a lot to us, we'd like to put out an EP as a tribute to the live versions of our songs, which are different from the streaming ones - they've got a rawer, more impactful edge - so we'd love to release the songs in streaming the way we play them live.

(January 5, 2025)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google