Gomma - The Anxieties and Discomforts of Generation Z

Choosing to interview Gomma was something of a small gamble. The band comes from Caserta and they're all very young. The singer, Ilaria, is 18; Giovanni is 21 and plays guitar; Matteo is the bassist and is 20; Paolo plays drums and is the oldest of the group at 27. After a demo and a first album titled “Toska”, they produced a debut that's decidedly interesting as well as hard to pigeonhole. The band was quickly noticed by V4V Records, and was chosen for the very tough job of supporting Calcutta on tour. But they haven't stayed in the shadow of the singer-songwriter from Latina: in recent months they've racked up excellent shows and a considerable number of views on their tracks, especially considering this is their very first work.

I was already in Caserta for other commitments when I arranged to meet them in the center of the provincial capital on a desolate Wednesday evening. And provincial desolation is something that would make Vasco Brondi happy, with its poorly lit streets, closed venues and tables stacked outside the bars, so much so that after walking a few steps with the whole band we decide to sit on a bench and drop all formality. At first we talk about their past experiences, from cover bands to even a techno project, then we start the interview. A note for the reader: don't be fooled by how down-to-earth and spontaneous these guys are - they really know their music and have talent to spare even though they're still in their twenties. They just have one drummer who talks too much!

Let's start with the obvious: why GOMMA?

Giovanni: Why not! Matteo and Ilaria came up with the name, we liked it because it was undefined and could have more than one meaning. We chose not to tie it to anything in particular, so people can think whatever they want. Some read it as a tribute to versatility.

Matteo: Beyond the meaning, we picked a word that sounded good to us, among the various words we'd considered, and that was Gomma, so we went with it.

Giovanni: I mean, the choice was between Anestesia, Gomma, Clistere, Ratto Selvaggio... (they laugh)

Let's go through your debut step by step: how did you meet, how did the demo of “Aprile” come about, and when did “Toska” arrive?

Giovanni: At the Nobel… no wait, the Golden Globe! (laughs) Basically, we decided to put “Aprile” up on the page just for fun, with no particular expectations. Then a few labels got in touch with us, and among them was Michele's (V4V Records) — we talked, and we really liked the idea he was pursuing with his label. In fact, most of his bands were the ones we listened to in the car; he suggested we make an album, which we put together in a little over two weeks. We wrote a lot of songs, partly because we needed tracks to play live, so it was written pretty quickly (Matteo points out that they still did a good job, though). Now that the album's out, we're playing it around until we write new songs, get sick of the old ones, and start making people sick of the new ones too.

How did Michele Montagano of V4V Records discover you?

Giovanni: We used to call him Montagàno, then we noticed a certain assonance and started calling him Montàgano… He got in touch with us online and asked us to play a live show in Abruzzo, where he lives. Our first gig was in Roseto degli Abruzzi, at this really beautiful lido. It was a show that went really well, first of all because it was our first one, and also because we played alongside two of my favorite bands, Bruuno and Futbolin, who we're still in touch with today… Just today I talked to Carlo Zulian (singer of Bruuno). Michele also came to visit us in the studio while we were recording, kept us company when we played live with Calcutta, and by now we practically talk to him more than we talk to our own mothers.

You're very young, and I think you can already claim quite a bit of success. How do you feel about the prospect of making music your profession, your future?

Giovanni: For now I don't think that's on anyone's mind.

Matteo: Not yet, it's still something so… undefined. Financially it's not exactly lucrative yet.

Giovanni: There's no revenue, man! (laughs) Basically, Matteo is the first of us to graduate, Paolo's been off-track at university for like eight thousand years, let's not even get into Ilaria, and I'm also trying to graduate, so for now we have other goals. Right now it's something nice, fun, we do it and we like it!

Ilaria: Still, we're approaching things with a lot of commitment. Even though we don't treat it as a profession yet, we're giving up a lot of things to travel around, play, and record.

Matteo: I mean, Ilaria left school, and a lot of us are dragging out university just so we can play, do shows, and cancel as few as possible.

Ilaria: For now we'd like it to stay a hobby or a passion, then we'll see.

What's the common thread running through “Toska“? Are there recurring themes that come back throughout the lyrics on the record?

Giovanni: I think anxiety…

Ilaria: There isn't really a true common thread, to be honest, at least not at a basic level. But in terms of intent there are some shared themes, which would be the recurring inspirations for the songs, meaning our personal experiences. But there isn't a thread that connects them in any precise way.

Let's talk a bit about the tracks; the Alice saga struck me a lot for its narrative style à-la Massimo Volume, but definitely more neurotic and aggressive. How did these two tracks that open and close “Toska” come about?

Ilaria: It's really quite simple: Giovanni and I met up at my place for a couple of days and wrote this text, which was a kind of monologue. At first there was no intention of turning it into an actual song; we wrote it as if it were an audiobook, without thinking about whether it would fit on the record or not. Then, thinking it over, we decided to split it into two pieces and made "Alice Scopre" and "Alice Capisce". This story, written by the two of us together, drew a bit on literary and non-literary references, and after listening back to it, and playing it live too, we agreed to include it on the record.

"Alessandro" is one of the most violently sounding tracks, with the most obsessive, almost paranoid lyrics, repeating "Continuano come aerei di carta/ I tuoi capelli a fiondarsi sulla mia faccia". Where does the expressive force of this piece come from?

Ilaria: We hadn't written any track with a defined, recurring chorus, and I felt like writing one - the piece was also fairly long. It came together very naturally, I already had this semi-finished text written, and working on it "Alessandro" came out.

Giovanni: The thing about our songs is that they're short and have no real structure... That said, Michele did once ask us, "Do you want to go to Sanremo?" Now, if we had to go to Sanremo, we'd need something that stuck to the song format, with verse, chorus, and so "Alessandro" was born, which is also a love song - exactly the theme for Sanremo!

So Sanremo 2018 with Gomma?

Giovanni: We didn't do it this year only because Clementino was also there and we didn't want to compete with him, since he's from Campania too... We definitely would have ended up in a tie-break with him, and that seemed a bit much.

Matteo: And besides, he made a really terrible song for Sanremo... (he is promptly silenced by Giovanni, who says, on behalf of Gomma, that they love Clementino, ed.)

We mentioned Massimo Volume. Staying on the subject of post-rock, are there any particular influences? But above all, is it a genre you feel close to, given that lately you've been compared to that kind of music?

Giovanni: This is a somewhat tricky question for me. For all of us, music is first and foremost something you make, then people talk about it, but basically we listen to everything. What I've come to understand - and it's something we were already doing - is that it's much more useful to listen to genres that are really far removed from what you do, otherwise it becomes like a dog chasing its own tail: you convince yourself you have to do that thing, and the rest of the band does the same. Whereas if you realize you can really do whatever you want with music, then maybe different things come out and you have more fun too. Then, if we want to talk personal taste, paradoxically the only band we all agree on is Verdena.

Ilaria: Yes, indeed, but then again there aren't really any Verdena influences on the record.

Paolo: Right, I thought our record was something new, but then...

Giovanni: No! There's absolutely nothing new about it. Honestly, we're a bit obsessive in the sense that we listen to everything. As soon as something new comes out we want to hear it, even if it's the new Ghali single, even if it's something far removed from our own sound. Then Paolo's the one who makes the CDs for the car, so he throws in Thegiornalisti, Coldplay...

Well, we'll come back to you with a question about that in a moment!

Giovanni: Look, speaking of commercialization, I've already announced on Facebook that our next live show has to be like Lady Gaga's at the Super Bowl; Ilaria has to fly around like something out of "Mission Impossible", and then we're getting in touch with various groups of models and dancers that I'm handling (he looks at his girlfriend in terror), that Matteo's handling, and I'll do the choreography.

Moving on to the emo-core side of things, is there any album in that genre that particularly struck you?

Giovanni: Speaking for myself, the self-titled 2006 album by Fine Before You Came, back when they still sang in English, is the closest thing I can think of. Otherwise emo-core, some random album by Van Pelt, or basically anything you can find in the old Dischord Records or Green Records catalogue, like Rites Of Spring.

With this "Toska" I got the impression of a fairly minimal sound, though without taking anything away from the power of it, which at times hits the listener with real "walls of sound". So I'm wondering whether there was some shoegaze influence at play.

Giovanni: In the studio, I clearly remember Matteo wanting the bass to sound à-la My Bloody Valentine.

Paolo: It has to be said that Giovanni's pedalboard was pretty ridiculous at the start. Lately he's been buying decent pedals. We always used to tell him to throw it away; he didn't actually throw it away, but he put it alongside some new pedals.

Matteo: While we were recording the album I was listening a lot to New Order and Joy Division, and also My Bloody Valentine, so I drew from them the kind of bass sounds I wanted to bring in.

Ilaria: But I want to say one thing: all the influences you hear on the record are completely accidental! No one in the band ever says "I have this idea, I want to do this thing". We get in the rehearsal room, we play, and that's it. A lot of the tracks on the album came about in a completely random way — for instance, "Alice Capisce" we first improvised live, then we liked it and redid it properly.

Giovanni: Sometimes they can almost sound like recorded jam sessions.

Since Paolo mentioned Thegiornalisti, it makes me think — you've also opened for Calcutta, so I have to ask: where do you stand on this little renaissance of Italian indie-pop?

Paolo: When Calcutta picked us, his live shows drew a much smaller crowd than they do now. Then, by bringing in a few extra people, they made him more marketable. I'll say it outright: in the end, when they mixed the album, the goal was to make it a bit more pop, because our record originally sounded heavier. That's also because the goal is to push it as far as possible, and you always have to find a compromise between us, the label, and how accessible it is for the audience. People have to make a living after all. And indeed Calcutta's show sold out at the Atlantico in Rome, which just proves he managed to sell.

Ilaria: Simply put, indie-pop has always existed in Italy, it didn't just appear in recent years. It's just that lately there's more of a tendency to turn it into something accessible to everyone — to an audience that listens to Tiziano Ferro, but also to one that listens to rawer stuff. Calcutta's first shows were in terrible conditions, playing on the floor with people throwing things at him. But the "productions" managed to widen indie's target audience.

Paolo: Right now, for instance, very few artists working in our genre are able to pull big numbers.

Giovanni: Of everyone we've mentioned, though, I have to say Calcutta deserves credit for being one of the few who were genuine in what they did. Just like I Cani were too. They were lucky enough to hit a moment in history when certain people, certain editorial lines, aligned with them and decided to bet on this thing, and we come right after that whole wave from last year. So Calcutta definitely deserves credit for opening up relationships with certain people who run particular corners of the industry. You can tell, too, from the fact that Calcutta now gets played on national radio and writes lyrics for artists like Max Pezzali — which means interest in this world is building.

Paolo: Even bands that sit somewhere in between, like Management del Dolore Post-Operatorio and the latest Gazebo Penguins, still don't pull the same numbers as a Thegiornalisti track. If you look at the YouTube views on the latest Management del Dolore Post-Operatorio song, you realize they're what a Thegiornalisti single would rack up in a single day.

The quote from "A Bout De Souffle", in my opinion, really hits anyone hearing "Elefanti" for the first time. What's the connection between you and the song with Godard's masterpiece?

Giovanni: Aside from the fact that I think I'm the only one who's actually seen it all the way through, "A Bout De Souffle" is tied to a personal story of mine. A particular person (Matteo breaks the air of mystery by revealing it was Giovanni's grandmother) passed on to me a message: don't taint the memories you have by trying to relive the same thing, or conversely by reshaping the idea you have of it, and above all, don't share intimate memories with people who don't deserve them. And when I saw this film, in the scene where the main character is in bed with his partner and says that line, to me it was like saying "When you're happy, don't let too many people know", and also "When you're sad, keep some of it to yourself".

In a past interview, Iosonouncane told me that when he makes an album it's as if he were making a film: he thinks about a subject, a screenplay, but also a set of images that need to be evoked by the music. Given that some of your lyrics are almost narratives, do you feel the same tendency in your music?

Ilaria: When I write the lyrics, yes. I report things that actually happen exactly as they are, so it's inevitable that I think of particular scenes, of images I've personally seen. It's definitely not a matter of thinking of everything as a screenplay, they're very singular episodes.

Giovanni: While I'm writing I usually just think about the music, full stop. In the sense that I don't have any images in mind. Then maybe, when I listen back, I associate it with something visual. Paolo, what does your figure as a drummer evoke for you?

Paolo: I don't know, that punk atmosphere... Those hoops... A few hoops people used to hang off of... (cf. Fugazi)

I'd like to spare you the question about the provinces and the local territory, also because I'm from the Campania provinces myself, so I'd more or less be answering my own question.

Giovanni: If people ask me what Caserta is like, I say it's deathly quiet! What is there to find? Desolate streets, closed venues, tables turned upside down, you go out and there's no one left once the shops close, what can you do except play music! Up north there's work, people don't have time, up there they're all about making money, man!

Now a tour around Italy awaits you... and then?

Ilaria: To tell the truth, we should also start recording new material right now, I hope we'll have the time. We'll definitely sit down to write something else soon.

Photo contributions by Ida Russoniello (top photo) and Gianluca Fatigati

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