Elio e le Storie Tese - Techniques of resistance against the void

This is a message for everyone who has always turned their nose up at Elio e le Storie Tese, filing them away simply as “novelty act” or dismissing them outright, and at the same time it's a message for anyone who loves music: go see them live, because you won't find a better lineup of musicians anywhere in Italy.

We spoke with Elio before the explosive performance at the Solvay theatre, once again dominated by the utterly unhinged Mangoni, alongside, as ever, the astonishing talent of the musicians and backing singer Paola Folli (personally, I've never heard a voice quite like hers).

This is, word for word, what Elio told us.

Elio, you paid your dues for a very long time: what's your take on the “instant success” mechanism created, for instance, by talent shows?

More than sudden success, which is a problem in itself, the real issue is the reason that pushes you to go on a talent show in the first place: chasing success rather than the desire to create something interesting, to actually make art. People increasingly forget, as a matter of course, that we're talking about art here, not selling fruit.

It's always and only about marketing, and having said that, everything else follows from it, in the sense that if a young person goes on "Amici" or "X Factor", their goal isn't to pursue an artistic career, but to win the show; then you get to the point of absurdity where the photos you take are maybe more important than how you sing or what you sing... The other thing I find absurd is that there are these 20-year-old kids who, instead of showing up and blowing everything away, sing really old-fashioned stuff, maybe written today but in a really old-fashioned style, and nobody finds anything wrong with that.

So, in my opinion, the real problem is that: someone goes on these talent shows without really having a clear idea of what they want to do, other than winning "Amici".

People often say about you "great band, technically outstanding: if only they made serious music..." What's your reaction to that?

Our reaction is that we've always made serious stuff, or at least done it seriously; everyone does what they think is right, and we like doing this.

It would be like saying about Zappa "great artist, shame he doesn't make serious stuff" - in my opinion Zappa makes super serious stuff, but the funny thing is that's also the opinion of the very same people who say we don't make serious stuff... In my view, there's only one limitation: since they don't speak English, they don't understand what Zappa is saying, because he does things that are much more comic, much more ridiculous than ours, so that's a point I don't agree with. But having said that, I know full well that if instead of writing nonsense we had written something like the song that won this year's Sanremo Festival, we would have sold 100 times as much.

Tell me, what's the worst review you've ever received, the one you remember hitting you particularly hard?

Nothing comes to mind, because actually I'm not afraid of criticism - if I make a mistake, or do something bad, and someone points it out to me, I'm fine with that. What I don't like is incompetent criticism: if I have to read newspaper articles, including the alternative press, that hail as miracles people who are musically illiterate, that can bother me, especially if the same person writing that stuff then talks dismissively about one of our albums that we worked on for a couple of years, maybe packing it with more ideas than you'd find on other records... Take the White Stripes, for example, to name a band that was very fashionable - people who couldn't even play the drums with independence between feet and hands, considered absolute geniuses, yet whenever Elio e Le Storie Tese comes up, there's always a bit of condescension. But I know why: because we're Italian - if we'd been English or American, we'd have been the critics' darlings... So when criticism is done by someone competent and it's fair, even if it's harsh, it doesn't get to me - I can laugh about it if I find it well-made. The problem is that out of 10 reviews I read, 9 are written by people who aren't capable of writing a proper review, so the subject just doesn't touch me.

An unforgettable episode from your career that you wouldn't want to repeat?

Unforgettable in a negative sense was Feiez's death, because we were on stage together, and he died right in front of our eyes, and that's something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Another negative thing, but much less negative than that, was the film we made with Rocco Siffredi - not because it turned out badly, quite the opposite, but because in our minds it was going to be this great adventure, and instead once we got there we realized it wasn't the cool thing we'd imagined - it's actually a bit sleazy, in some ways. So that was a small disappointment, but it's still a great experience we'll never disown.

You give the impression of having a great time playing together: was there ever a moment when you thought the fun might be fading, and that it was time to stop?

The only moment was indeed when Feiez died, but actually none of us ever thought about breaking up the band, it's just that at that point we didn't feel much like going on stage. Inevitably, when you do something repeatedly, it's impossible to think you'll always enjoy it - there are aspects that feel a lot like an office job, and we do everything we can to avoid that. Then again, looking around, I see we're in an enviable position compared to other colleagues - take drummers who have to back singer-songwriters, for instance, they really get bored; we, fortunately, change things up every night, and since our genre is a bit ironic and comic, that helps too - we often improvise things on the spot, a lot of it comes from the audience's reactions, there's always a desire to put ourselves on the line, so it's hard for us to fall 100% into routine.

Elio, what can you tell me about the Milan scene from when you were starting out? Bands like Allegri Leprotti, for instance...

Now that's a name that rings a bell, but I don't really remember them well... The truth is that when we came about in the late '70s and early '80s, there had been a flourishing of bands of that kind, some less good, some better... I remember there was a band called Gino e i Maiali, for instance, and then, as with all trends, there was a bit of copycatting, people who'd taken that path without the means to pull it off.

We, actually, always felt like outsiders to all that - it's not like we joined a trend or a movement; in particular, I had thought about putting together various things I knew how to do well, that is, making people laugh and playing music, and in that I was certainly inspired to a large extent more by Zappa than by Skiantos. Afterwards, it's easy for critics to label the band as demented, but really the only truly demented act in Italy is Skiantos - we don't have labels, in my opinion.

I actually wanted to ask you if there's a definition you're fond of.

The truth is we couldn't care less about the definition of "demented rock," you listen, then you'll tell us what genre it belongs to. I've noticed that for all the artists I like, if I have to think about how to label them, nothing comes to mind.

How do you label Jimi Hendrix? Rock? But it's not just rock, he revolutionized everything. Led Zeppelin might be labeled rock, but not even really, because then they have a ton of other influences. How do you label the Beatles? How do you label Genesis? In my opinion, these are people who tried to make beautiful things and succeeded, and we try to make beautiful things too - in some works we manage it, in others less so, but if we've been on the scene for more than twenty years, it means something has been achieved.

Out of curiosity: at Sanremo '96 you performed "Terra dei Cachi," it caused an uproar, even the Carabinieri questioned you... How did things actually go, and how did you take it?

The truth is we don't really know how things went. As far as I know, that festival is the only one that ever became the subject of an investigation, and during the investigation they questioned me too. At the end of the interrogation they told me that, according to their investigation, we had actually come in first, and then years later other singers told me they'd been told the same thing. In any case, they never got to the bottom of the investigation - they got as far as establishing that there had been fraud.

Fine, but having said all that, we don't care, coming first at the Festival doesn't interest us, what we needed to do we had just done. We wanted to go there and do something sensational, even if we'd come last - in any case, it seems to me that song is the only thing anyone remembers from that festival.

How did you come up with the idea of performing it sped up in 55 seconds, instead of playing the chorus on the night when each singer had to present their song without going over a minute?

The idea always comes from wanting to do something the others don't do, stepping outside the predictable, exploring every possibility. They said the song had to be heard within a minute, they didn't say you had to play a whole part of it, so we said let's try it. It was fun, it made people laugh.

Then the whole participation was handled as an overall project - every night we made a point of doing something different, like arriving at the Ariston on mopeds. We wanted to do something interesting, not settle into the boredom of repetition - that's something Italy lacks.

That's why, when I think about twenty-year-olds, they should arrive and step into adult life with brand new ideas and energy, but instead today's twenty-year-olds show up and compete to conform, to fit in as much as possible, and "Amici" and "X Factor" are exactly this kind of thing; you have to make an effort to find something new, not conform, not try to be the best at imitating others - to me that seems like throwing your life away, and that's what's happening.

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