King Of The Opera - Evolution of Sensations

A chat with Alberto Mariotti after the acoustic showcase at Fnac in Milan, where the first work under the name King Of The Opera was presented. Alberto's answers shed light on what led him to set aside the name Samuel Katarro, and on the kind of work behind this artistic fresh start.

If I read the press release correctly, King Of The Opera is no longer your solo alias but an actual band, a collective project. Maybe that's the main reason behind the death of Samuel Katarro.

That's one of the two main reasons; the other, as you'll have heard from this showcase too, is that musically there's a big difference in approach. Not only is the result different, but so is the approach itself. Samuel Katarro had a tragic-comic-grotesque approach, ironic in other words; here most of those elements have disappeared and everything is much more serious and emotionally direct, there are no more games and jokes. So we did a different kind of work from a technical standpoint, but above all we tried to reach different feelings, not always joking and defusing things but trying to speak more sincerely.

Since it's now an actual band, I imagine that songwriting itself is also a proper collective effort. How does the songwriting process actually work?

The work isn't completely collective, but it is more so than in the past. The songs are always mine, at least in terms of harmony and melodic line, then together with the others we worked on the arrangements. Which is also what happened before, but the difference here is that some songs were completely upended by this work on the arrangements. "Nine Legged Spider" was a bluesy guitar-and-voice piece, "Pure Ash Dream" was a two-minute ballad and it became a nine-minute horror soundtrack, "Nothing Outstanding" was likewise a very measured folk ballad and here we haven't mentioned it but we played it exactly as it originally was, whereas on the record it's very much defined by the Rhodes piano.

I also wanted to ask whether the things told in the lyrics had changed compared to the past, but you've already partly answered that…

The main difference is that here I wanted to work on the meaning of the words rather than how they sounded. Samuel Katarro's lyrics were written directly in English precisely because I placed much more importance on the sound of the words themselves; here instead I first drew on my diary, which I always keep updated, and so I wrote the lyrics in Italian, without thinking about anything, every time I felt like writing something, I wrote it, in Italian. Then I started cataloguing everything and shaping what I'd written into something that could resemble song lyrics. Finally, I translated it into English trying to keep an effective metre, because that's really where the difficulty lies. I also had to calibrate things carefully because I'm someone very attached to melody, I always have been, I don't know if that comes across…

In "The Halfduck Mystery" it came across, in "Beach Party" a bit less…

Yes, it came across less, but even that record has songs built on genuine, properly written melodic lines. Sure, they were maybe very basic, but they were there and I think they were nice too. Anyway, I need a melody as a reference point, I don't know if that's a limitation or an advantage but I really need that. Going back to how the lyrics came about, if before I used to write songs more quickly, now I've done more orderly work, but it also took me more time.

One of the things that stands out most to me listening to this record is the evolution of your vocal timbre. Do you sing differently because of how the songs came about, or did you decide to change your melodic style because you wanted to sing differently?

Both things, I'd say. In the meantime I've kept studying singing and I now have a different vocal approach, above all I sing more with my own actual voice, and this is also tied to the fact that now I'm speaking about myself in the first person, whereas in the past I always spoke about myself but hiding behind the characters in the lyrics. You need a more natural voice to be able to tell certain things, and it also happens that the lyrics adapt to the music. I gave you the example of "Pure Ash Dream", which was a very rarefied and above all very romantic ballad, so it had a certain kind of lyric, but once the arrangement was turned upside down, as I told you before, I had to rewrite the lyrics from scratch. It was necessary anyway, because we'd agreed that song had to represent the moment in the record where something different happens, which is a moment that should always be there in a record.

When you sing you never give away that you're Italian — is that something you pay attention to, or does it come naturally? Unfortunately in Italy it still happens very often that people sing in English and their accent immediately gives away their Italian nationality…

I'm glad to hear that, though I don't think I really have an English or American accent — it might actually sound more like a Frenchman speaking English. I agree it's not an Italian accent, but I don't think I could be mistaken for an Anglo-Saxon either. It's my own accent, in the end, and I'm fine with it. It would also be silly to go around imitating, I don't know, a Manchester accent.

Do you think it's possible to pinpoint the elements of continuity with your musical past? At the very least, the title of the last song on this record sounds a bit like a wish not to completely forget the past.

I'm really happy with the records I made previously as Samuel Katarro. “The Halfduck Mystery” is a work I still enjoy playing songs from live.

But there's nothing linking those tracks to these ones.

There's almost nothing, it's true. Playing them live also helps us release tension and lighten the mood, performing them at strategic moments. Their live impact is different — not necessarily better than the new songs, but definitely different — anyway, I don't disown anything and I like everything I've done so far.

What should people expect who come to see you live?

We're testing out a few setlists because we haven't done any proper shows since the record came out yet, also because it only came out a few days ago. We're only doing promotional dates like this one today. As for the new record, though, we'd like to play it in full, arranging the tracks differently depending on what they can offer in terms of climax. It would be the first time — we've never played a Samuel Katarro record live in its entirety. As I said before, there will also be a few tracks from “The Halfduck Mystery” and one from “Beach Party” (Alberto even mentions the titles, but I'd rather not spoil the surprise for those going to the shows).

Looking back at 2012, which is about to end, from the perspective of the Italian indie scene the most interesting thing has been the growing number of artists who've taken the art of songwriting and used it in a way that's neither classicist nor revivalist, but more modern, more attentive to sounds tied to an international scope, and above all with choices that break the mould. I'm thinking of the turns taken by people like Black Eyed Dog, Paolo Saporiti and Alessandro Grazian. I think this record of yours can be included in that same conversation. Are you someone who follows what's happening in Italy, and have you noticed this trend?

I do follow it, but not obsessively, and of the artists you mentioned I've only listened to Grazian's record, also because he was on the Trovarobato roster and we've played together more than once. Actually, I think the names that come up most often, that reach a wider audience, are others, and they do things different from what you're describing. In the end, working on the song format and turning it into something else, that is, contaminating it with lots of different worlds, is something I've personally always done…

That's exactly why I asked you this question, precisely because you've always done it and now I see more artists doing it than before. But if I understood correctly, you're saying that only people who follow the scene closely actually notice it…

Actually, all sorts of things come through, there's no clearly definable scene, in Italy as in the rest of the world. In Italian indie there are good things, bad things, good things that are a bit pandering, and bad things that are pandering too.

Photo by Ilaria Magliocchetti

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