Fitness Forever - Funky Bubbles

We meet up with the band from Naples, in a three-piece line-up led and represented for the occasion by Carlos Valderrama (the Hispanic alter-ego played by Gaetano Scognamiglio). Since 2009 this group has been staging a genuine, sparkling brand of Italian retro-pop, stylistically formidable, even though they never take themselves seriously for a single moment. It's a singular evolution that stands somewhat apart in today's Italian scene, one that has often changed direction over the years, moving from the beach-pop ditties of "Personal Train" to the pop-funk of "Cosmos", evoking a crime-movie soundtrack, all the way to the internationally-minded italo-disco of "Tonight".

Fitness Forever are quite a crowd. You've often had session musicians and collaborators too, and you boast a deep, three-dimensional sound. Does Carlos act as conductor and patron for the band's members (permanent and temporary), or is it more of a partnership among equals?

Of the original "Personal Train" line-up, it's just me (Carlos) and Scialdone left, although Andrea De Fazio (drums) and Nicoletta (vocals) have been with us for a very long time now. In general, we've always tried to gather around us the best young musicians in Naples, and for all of them Fitness Forever has been a kind of gym where they could have fun and develop their skills. Some have stayed with us longer, others have taken different musical paths or made life choices that led them to leave the group, but we are a band in every sense, and that's how we like to present ourselves. Then, of course, it's basically me and Scialdone who set the direction for the band, and I write the songs myself for the most part, although when it comes to arranging them - especially on this record - everyone made a big contribution, particularly Roberto Porzio (a genius on keyboards), who helped us enormously in writing the string and horn parts.

Was there ever a time, during one of your live shows, when you actually felt like you'd been a time machine, capable of bringing the audience back to dance like in a 1970s disco?

It's a feeling we often get during our shows. Especially the ones with bigger crowds (and that start later!).

Le Streghe, Number One Ensemble and the most sensual, dimly-lit disco seem to be the secret muse behind "Tonight". Did you already intend to give the third album's sound a more nocturnal feel, or was that a decision that came up during rehearsals?

The musical direction to take is never decided in advance: for this record I wrote a lot, and I could have chosen a softer, more soft-pop direction too - there were in fact plenty of songs closer to "Carlo" than to "Tonight" - but after "Cosmos", which had a lot of ballads, and its tour, we felt a strong urge to have more material in our repertoire that could get people dancing and sweep the audience along. In the end, that was the aspect that, more than any other, pushed us to favor the kind of sound we're touring with today.

The Neapolitan-language vocals over the glossy electronics of "André" genuinely struck me. How did this song come about?

It's a track that comes from a long way back: I'd written the idea for "André" and the little keyboard riff that follows it when I was seven years old, when my mother used to park me for hours at this hairdresser's (André, indeed) and I felt like I was in an American TV series, surrounded by women, rivers of hairspray, and Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran blasting at full volume. One day, out of nowhere, that little tune popped back into my head after 30 years, and I then clearly developed it until it became a kind of mini-suite with lots of different musical moments, somewhere between Pino Daniele, guitar arpeggios with a Balearic flavor, and arpeggiators à la Caribou. As with all the other songs on the record, the choice of language was made spontaneously and naturally, always trying to honor the initial inspiration without distorting it, even though we'd never sung in our own dialect before. I have to say it was surprising even for us to see how comfortable we felt doing it - Neapolitan is a language with tremendous musicality, and it fits disco music amazingly well. It's definitely something that could happen again in the future, why not!

In a way, you're acting as bards who carry on, through music, the tradition of a certain kind of Italian sound. Which records would you make sure your hypothetical children listened to?

Without a doubt, I'd recommend they listen to the late-70s records by Battisti, Carella and Radius, who for me represent a kind of Holy Trinity when I think of things made in Italy with class, taste and groove. And if they liked that, well, there's a frankly ridiculous number of vinyl records on the shelf that I'd be ready to "bombard" them with.

From your debut to today, you've stood out - and above all set yourselves apart - through your own unique way of reinterpreting pop music. To what extent would you want your genre to be influenced by contemporary trends? Would you rather stay unique, or also open up to the present and to new generations, who might not even pick up on the underlying reference-heavy nature of your work?

I consider Fitness Forever one of the very few bands in Italy still interested in putting melody and harmony at the center of things - the song not as a touchstone in which the listener necessarily has to see themselves reflected, but rather something to be uplifted and inspired by, something that might make them start seeking out other kinds of beauty, and maybe even offer it up themselves. These are the concerns that drive me as a listener, and consequently as a musician too. I understand perfectly well that everything is pushing in the opposite direction at this point in history, when so many "artists" aim for the lowest common denominator in order to gather as much approval as possible from as many people as possible, but ultimately - that approach doesn't work: if I need a doctor, I'll look for the best one; if I go to a restaurant, I'll look for someone who cooks well, not someone who cooks as badly as I do; so why should music alone reward someone for making something that makes me think "I could do that too"? Then again, it's clear that when it comes to "the means" used to reach new generations, we're generally open to anything - we're also producers, and for work we end up dealing with all kinds of sounds, so who knows... it doesn't bother me, if anything it excites me to think that one day we might find ourselves using big, synthetic kick and snare sounds, or huge synth basses... but the purpose of our music will never change: we're here to offer up beautiful things, not necessarily things that make the largest possible number of listeners feel comfortable!

"Personal Train" is a sparkling album full of playful, joyful pop ideas. "Cosmos", on the other hand, I find to be a harmonic carousel, but a more melancholy one, even though it still has cheerful, irreverent moments, like "Il cane Ciuff", for instance. What did these two previous albums leave you with? Is there anything you wouldn't do again?

We're absolutely happy and proud of all three LPs we've released: they follow a coherent path, even though they're quite different from one another. Certainly, with "Cosmos" we fell short in terms of promotion - there were plenty of things we could have done better, and we still have some regrets on that front - but we learned our lesson, and with "Tonight" we did things properly, and the results speak for themselves! We're actually getting a response we've never had before, even in terms of numbers. It's a shame, because "Cosmos" is certainly a record that has nothing to envy in the other two: it was let down by promotion that was practically non-existent, even though it got some phenomenal reviews.

In Italy, disco music and certain film-score sounds tied to our so-called "golden years" – I'm thinking of composers like Umiliani, Piccioni, Tempera, Frizzi – struggle to come back to life, or at least to "come back into fashion." And yet a modern-day revival of these sounds could set the Italian scene apart from the rest of the Old Continent. Especially when I think that in the UK, countless bands spring up every year drawing in some way on their post-punk past, etc. In short, there's a lack of a certain "patriotism," a certain care for our own treasures and our pop culture. In your view, is this mainly due to the instrumental and technical complexity of these formulas, or does the Italian record industry generally just not care, chasing tirelessly after the Anglophone wave and everything that comes from there purely for business reasons?

Lack of self-confidence, provincialism, superficiality. The Fitness Forever project stems from exactly the reasoning you're making: how is it possible to live in a country that produced a huge chunk of the coolest music of all time, loved by listeners all over the world, reissued and collected everywhere, and yet find no trace of it in contemporary output, apart from a few, thankfully happy exceptions (I'm thinking first and foremost of Baustelle and Cremonini)? It's a sadly common situation in Brazil too. What's certain, and we can speak from experience here, is that shaping this kind of material is an extremely complicated operation, because making this type of record requires a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of technical skill and also a lot of money. Compare that to using an already-made drum loop, two synth notes, and rapping some nonsense over it comfortably from home – with an audience ready and waiting for exactly that. And then for live shows you just rap over a backing track you carry on a USB stick. However you look at it, that's the smart thing to do, and what we do is a game that's not worth the candle. But who can imagine a world where there's only trap and no one plays live on stage anymore? Offering an alternative to what seems to have become the only way of making music in this era is something we feel as a mission.

How did "Dance Boys" come about?

As often happens, songs suddenly drop into your lap out of nowhere; that time I was on my balcony after lunch, on a beautiful sunny day. Oases of total serenity are (obviously I'm speaking for myself) the perfect habitat for beautiful songs to be born in.

"Cosa mi hai detto" brings to mind the sultry theme songs of certain old soap operas. It's ruled by a timeless sensuality and romanticism. Where does this track come from?

Same story as before. This time I was on a friend's couch, during halftime of a Napoli match. Clearly the match was going well, because in this case too the song arrived all at once. These lightning-fast flashes of inspiration, I should clarify, apply to the music. The lyrics come together bit by bit, and sometimes it's a long, complicated job fitting words to a melody – but on that occasion I felt a very clear vibe, that of a love story slowly unraveling, a feeling that helped me nail the lyrics in a surprisingly quick and convincing way.

You're also getting huge acclaim abroad, especially in France. How do you approach foreign markets and audiences?

Japan aside, where one of our songs ("Brasil," an old track that only came out on an Ep) has genuinely and steadily been part of the playlist of one of the country's biggest radio stations for years, I don't think our following abroad could really be called huge. But we definitely have some real fans, passionate and influential ones, including journalists, musicians, and people who work in film and television. That's helped us enormously in gaining visibility in markets we could never have reached without a strong presence from our record label. And our label, the wonderful Elefant Records in Madrid, has been backing us fabulously for 10 years now – they don't even press our records abroad, for instance; and yet, sometimes having someone who truly loves your music can do more than a press office, and in the end that's exactly how it went.

Rather than a classic band, you're an open collective, with lots of musicians, different vocalists and collaborators, in the best Neapolitan tradition. With so many minds involved, how are decisions made about musical direction, releases, and marketing strategies?

It's true, all the musicians involved are wonderful minds in their own right, who also lend their talent to other worthwhile musical projects (Funkin' Machine, Nu Guinea, Slivovitz, Foja, and really many others). Within Fitness Forever, though, the musical direction is clear: I write the songs, then together with Scialdone we handle all the stages related to producing both the record and the live shows, along with everything else. The other musicians come in during recording and at concerts, all in perfect harmony.

You're signed to the Spanish independent label Elefant Records, which has a very specific policy, including when it comes to pressed copies (especially vinyl – once they're gone, no more are pressed). Here in Italy, in record shops and big stores, it's not easy to find your records. Have you ever approached a major label, or are you happy as things are?

No, we haven't approached anyone. Certainly, especially with this record, we've felt a gap between having an album released in Spain and having no physical distribution at all in Italy. It's also true that Elefant takes great care of the online market, so in practically any country, via Amazon or the main e-shops, you can buy a copy of our record with one click, not to mention Spotify and iTunes; it's a shame not to have the record in Feltrinelli, so to speak, but it's also true that in an era when going to buy a new record in a shop is the exception rather than the rule (and that's true for me too), weighing up what Elefant Records gives us against a label of the same caliber in Italy, let's say we can happily do without Feltrinelli. That said, yes, if we made another record, properly sorting out physical distribution in Italy too would definitely be a priority.

"Cosa mi hai detto," taken from the latest album "Tonight," could come straight out of Enzo Carella's 1981 "Sfinge," the last record of a splendid triad by the Roman artist. Do you have a memory, an anecdote about Enzo, who passed away just a year ago?

That's right! The drum beat and the interlocking guitar parts were lifted straight from "Sex Show," although, to be honest and rather immodest, I think ours might actually hold its own in absolute terms! That said, I consider the famous triad you're referring to the absolute peak of Italian music, a blend of perfect, unrepeatable things that happened among the right people – those Roman rooms were magical between the late '70s and early '80s: Carella and his demons always balanced on the thinnest of tightropes, Panella, Goblin, Micocci, Elio D'Anna and his incredible team working on "Sfinge." It's public knowledge that in the last years of his life Carella was fairly active online, and many of his fans had the honor of exchanging a few words with him via Facebook or Myspace. What I still regret is missing an appointment we'd set up one morning in Rome, where he wanted to entrust me with some songs he'd written. I would have loved to do Enzo justice by properly recording some new material, since the Fitness Forever musicians are like modern-day Goblin. Unfortunately he took deep offense and closed every door after that.

In fact, across your three records you've traversed and reworked three fundamental eras of contemporary music: beach-pop, funk and disco, in order of release. What should we expect from the next record, if you've already started working on any ideas?

Normally, the first year after a Fitness Forever record comes out is dedicated to promotion and gigs. It's historically a period when no new songs come along and when I never write, so it's hard to know what comes next. It's not even out of the question that this could have been our last record, or that another one might arrive before the usual four years are up, who knows. Certainly some variables depend on me and my creativity, others on the music industry system, which I'm not sure actually wants another record from us, maybe it doesn't.

“Carlo”, which closes Tonight, is the only truly Italian track, mainstream-populist in the most positive sense of the term, with piano and orchestral sounds that point straight back to 1970s production and classic names like Mina and Vanoni. Almost a Canzonissima-style tune. A tribute to your roots?

“Carlo” is a song that dates back to the “Cosmos” sessions – not by chance, its working title was “Lui2”: an aborted attempt at a verse (with just the aborted verse attempts from “Lui” alone we could make a double album!). Gigi had recorded this voice memo of me fooling around on the piano, hunting for that verse. Years later he found it again and sent it to me, and it was clear there was something there. The lyrics were written by Nicoletta, our singer, who when she puts her mind to it is really an excellent songwriter too. For a lot of people it's the favourite track on “Tonight”. The only non-disco-music track. On a disco-music album. I'd say once again we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing.

Did you enjoy the Sanremo Festival? Report cards and little report cards, is it too much to ask you for some impressions, maybe with a red and blue pencil in hand? Would you like to take part?

I haven't followed it in years, but of course we'd like to take part. It would be the first time we'd have a whole orchestra at our disposal for free, and maybe the only chance we'd ever get to play live with an orchestra! I'd jump at it in a heartbeat, but only for that, certainly not for the TV broadcast or the post-Sanremo fame, which in my opinion is fleeting and not worth much. But I did watch, and rooted wildly for, the dream team of Antonio Fresa, founding member of the band, keyboardist, superb arranger, absolutely essential on our first two records. He conducted the orchestra for the dream team of Bungaro/Vanoni/Pacifico, and was also co-writer of a song I think is excellent, so top marks to them. I also want to thank Red Canzian for bringing epic metal to Sanremo. Score: 100.

And if you were to donate a song for Sanremo instead? How should it be built? And who would be best suited to sing its lines?

It definitely wouldn't be your usual “chanson”, I'd be torn between something really funky and a tragic ballad in the style of Scott Walker. As for performers: either Barbara Bouchet, or a duet between Johnny Dorelli and José Altafini.

Ride the wave of great music

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Davide Sechi, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

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