Mauro Sabbione - My Matia Bazar

We headed to my place, for what turned out to be more of an intimate chat than an interview, given how easygoing and approachable he is.

Mauro joined Matia Bazar in 1981 with the fiery passion of a genuinely gifted musician — one who wasn't content to simply take the keyboardist's seat in a famous band just to make a living (with that technical background, rest assured, he'd still be there today), but who came to leave his mark. And he left after just two albums, because the logic of managing and preserving success came to seem far too overbearing compared to everything else. There are things more important than popularity, things tied to expressive freedom and to new paths worth exploring — paths perhaps far from the sales charts, but always close to the creative drive of a true artist. It's an instinct always fuelled by an enthusiasm that first led him to overhaul Matia's traditional sound, then to open new fronts in avant-garde pop (Melodrama), and finally brought him into the world of theatrical performance. All of this passing through a not-insignificant stint with Litfiba. We talked about this and much more over a coffee, just like two old friends. And we ended up actually becoming friends.

Mauro, how did your artistic journey begin?

I studied piano for years at the Conservatory, and then started working as an orchestra musician at a very young age.

I always kept that work separate from my life as a musician: you should know that Genoa, being a port city, had a great tradition in this field in the '60s and '70s, since there was strong demand to play both in clubs and on cruise ships. Nightclub music back then meant the Philadelphia Sound, Barry White's soul — things you actually had to know how to play, especially since there were no machines to help you out. That experience, on top of my classical training, helped me a great deal in growing as an artist.

Is there any anecdote from that period you can share with me?

There are several, since Genoa in the mid-'70s was a real showcase. One evening, for instance, Fabrizio De André came to have dinner with friends at the restaurant where I was performing. Faced with an audience like that, I launched into Genesis material, but above all the entire suite "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield. It seemed to end there, but a few years later, when I was already in Matia Bazar, I ran into Fabrizio again at a club: well, making small talk, he showed he remembered my performance perfectly, and told me he often reminded his friends about that repertoire of mine, so unusual for that setting.

Tell us how your first contact with Matia Bazar came about…

It happened through a mutual friend. I was a young pianist, but already experienced, and I also owned some excellent keyboards that I'd bought precisely thanks to my work as an orchestra musician. At first I was skeptical, but what convinced me to get in touch with Antonella was the assurance that the group was determined to radically change its sound. That's how I first met her, and later, at my house, Aldo Stellita and Carlo Marrale, the band's two masterminds, who were favorably struck both by my musical grounding and by my image. Those factors, combined with my great desire to turn professional, were decisive in my joining the group. Less than a week later I was already in Milan rehearsing the old songs for the tour, and getting my hands on the incredible gear the record label Ariston had put at my disposal: Mellotron, Polymoog, Minimoog, Yamaha CP70 — basically every toy imaginable!

What was your impact on the old repertoire like? I find that among the songs from the '70s there were some truly beautiful tracks, sitting alongside some frankly not-so-great ones…

You could really feel Piero Cassano's hand in it — a great professional, one of the old guard, very skilled at crafting hit melodies, but not particularly interested in sonic exploration. All those instruments I mentioned had never been used before: Piero mostly used the presets on the Roland Juno 60.

What were the dynamics like within the band?

The one writing the songs on guitar was Carlo Marrale, but I hit it off with him right away, because we could naturally complete and enrich his ideas with the keyboard — so much so that we ended up doing this arranging work on part of the old repertoire too. And then there was Aldo Stellita, who handled the lyrics and was pushing toward what would become the band's postmodern turn. And of course both Giancarlo Golzi and Antonella Ruggiero made their own contributions. One detail that mattered quite a bit was that we spent most of our time together, like a family, so a strong bond and a good balance had formed. In the end, I think it's hard to credit specific achievements to individuals, because it was the whole group that made it work. You see, I believe that when a member leaves a band, the problem isn't so much replacing them technically, but acquiring new habits that are inevitably different from the old ones, regardless of the musicians' skill.

And what role did Antonella play?

At that time she was with Aldo, so she followed his ideas quite closely, let's say…

…she seems like a very reserved person…

Antonella is essentially a prima donna, and like all prima donnas she needed a Pygmalion, someone who would protect her while also giving her the chance to express herself. This happened first with Cassano, then with Aldo, and finally with Roberto Colombo. Let's say that whichever partner was at her side at any given time influenced her direction somewhat.

Matia Bazar were a leading act in Italian pop music, and as such represented a real asset for their record label. Faced with such a drastic change, that leap forward represented by synth-pop, how did the label react?

Keep in mind that the previous album, “Il Tempo Del Sole”, sold only twenty-one thousand copies, well below the usual standard, and paradoxically that meant there wasn't much pressure on us. Having our own dedicated recording studio at our disposal was another very important factor, along with the peace of mind of not having anyone at the label interfering with our artistic choices. Our chemistry as a group did the rest and allowed us to make an album like “Berlino, Parigi, Londra…”.

Tell me a bit about this album, which is actually a hybrid between Matia's classic sound and their electronic turn…

That was because, for contractual reasons and to avoid legal disputes, we were forced to include a few tracks written by Piero Cassano. That didn't stop us from making a good album, though, because all the songs were shaped by the atmosphere I mentioned, as well as by what we'd been listening to – Ultravox, Omd, and The B-52's – as well as opera. At first the critics were thrown off, they saw us as some vague kind of “punk poseurs”, but then the new electronic rock movement that was taking hold helped clear things up for a lot of people. It has to be said that some people understood the spontaneity of the project right away and gave us their support, for instance Mario Convertino, who directed the video for “Fantasia”, and Carlo Massarini, who featured it on his show “Mister Fantasy”.

What kind of relationship do you still have with Giancarlo Golzi and Carlo Marrale?

I've seen Giancarlo a few times, at events where he was on the jury or helping organize things, and also at the meeting for Matia Bazar's thirtieth anniversary. He's always been the band's “PR man” and kept doing that afterwards too, while with Carlo there hasn't been another occasion. I think he went to live in the Balearics, or something like that. In any case, I've stayed on good terms with both, because the terms of my staying in the band were made clear from the very start, with no misunderstandings.

Why did you leave after “Tango”, right at the peak of your success?

Simply because the project was heading in a direction I didn't identify with. After “Tango”, the idea was to move towards something even more avant-garde while still keeping a popular streak. Under the title “Hotel Mister Kappa” we were working on an album that was conceptually Kafkaesque, one that would have involved collaborations with other musicians too; it was supposed to include some of the material that later ended up on “Aristocratica”, as well as other songs I had written myself. Except this time the label got involved, insisting that the new record stick to the same themes as its predecessor, which is in fact what happened. So I decided to leave the group, without any bitterness or resentment.

I'd like you to tell me about a late friend who was one of the pillars of that lineup of Matia Bazar, Aldo Stellita, because far too few people know his real worth as a musician and lyricist. Sometimes playing in a famous band like Matia Bazar doesn't help in that respect, because the credit tends to get spread among all the members, and most of the audience doesn't really dwell on those details…

Aldo was a poet, and also a very reserved person, but he really was the group's only lyricist, so much so that he kept writing the lyrics even during the period when Piero Cassano was in the band…

…so he even managed to pull off a major stylistic shift…

He had great talent and wrote in a very personal way. I must still have some of his notes and writings somewhere, truly exceptional stuff…

What did Roberto Colombo contribute to the production of “Tango”?

It was, I'll tell you, a remarkably invasive production. I won't hide the fact that I had more than one run-in with Roberto in the studio, because he would intervene directly on the sounds and even on the structure of the songs. With “Palestina” I had to put my foot down because that was my composition, to the point of threatening to pull it from the album. On “Scacco Un Po' Matto” he made a substantial cut to a fantastic instrumental coda that Carlo and I had written, and that's remained a real regret of mine. In short, Colombo is a skilled professional, but he worked not as a producer but as an added member of the band, and that upset a certain balance that had been established.

But do you think "Tango" would have sounded the way it did without him?

Certainly not, but he was very hands-on with the keyboards and therefore with my work, and that didn't sit well with me. Either way, it was a very innovative album that had a huge influence on a lot of artists. I came to realize it even more over time, when I happened to meet younger bands like Subsonica, Bluvertigo, Elisa, Modena City Ramblers, who in various ways consider it a reference point for their own artistic formation. It was a genuinely important project, one that also had a multimedia impact: we accompanied the concerts with projections that reflected the album's postmodern atmospheres. The same went for our clothes and our image, which were the result of very deliberate research.

What kind of instruments did you use for that record, and how? I ask because back then getting to grips with synthesizers wasn't as easy as it is today, and a lot of work went into it there...

Colombo brought in Yamaha synthesizers, and state-of-the-art reverbs and compressors, and then I worked a lot with the Alpha Syntauri, a fascinating instrument precisely because of the way it worked, which also suited the visual side well. Just think, years later when I met Peter Gabriel, in 1994, he remembered my performance at Sanremo with the little portable keyboard hooked up to the video screen (Peter Gabriel was a guest at the 1983 edition of the Sanremo Festival, ed.). Obviously, since samplers didn't exist yet, necessity was the mother of invention, but in the end all you needed was a good idea and you'd find a way to make it happen.

Speaking of the Sanremo Festival, tell me a bit about that experience...

Ah, the first thing I remember is that when I called my mother to tell her, she was thrilled (laughs)! And yes, we went to the Festival with certain guarantees of "visibility", let's say, and in fact we came in fourth place and won the Critics' Prize. The song didn't catch on at first listen, but within a week we found ourselves at number one on the sales charts with the whole album. You should also know that the choice of the song was really peculiar. Right up until the last possible day for submission, the track destined for Sanremo was "Palestina", which I composed and for which Aldo wrote that fantastic lyric. We were all in agreement and excited about the choice, except that morning Carlo showed up having spent the night, instead of sleeping, finishing the music for "Vacanze Romane", of which there existed only an old sketch with no chorus. We were all stunned by how beautiful it was: everyone except Alfredo Rossi, the legendary boss at Ariston, who far preferred "Palestina". With hindsight, it was a stroke of luck that "Vacanze Romane" eventually managed to win him over too. In its first draft, the song contained a verse that was later cut: "Roma antica città, più puttana che mai", which wasn't bad at all, don't you think? "Palestina" ended up as the B-side of the single, and in the end that didn't bother me at all.

Satisfy my curiosity: why is "Vacanze Romane" credited to Golzi-Marrale, when Stellita's hand in the lyrics seems so obvious to me?

Indeed, the lyrics are Aldo's, and what bothered me was hearing Golzi, on a few occasions, claim credit for them. It was actually Aldo who let him put his name on the song so he could become a member of Siae. Everything was done with complete fairness, because whenever royalties came in they were split, and that's how it continued later on with Aldo's heirs.

If one day Antonella called you up and asked you to go back to playing together with her, with Marrale and the others, what would you say?

I see that as very unlikely, but for a project like bringing "Tango" back to the stage, I'd jump at it right away, and certainly not for any financial return. With the resources we'd have available now, a multivision concert reinterpreting that record would be wonderful!

Besides Matia Bazar, you also played with Litfiba and experienced the thriving Florentine new wave scene from the inside. Can you tell us about that experience, which I gather unfolded in several phases?

Towards the end of 1984 I often found myself in Florence to present my avant-garde theatrical project, which took place within the Onu Underground circuit, and I ended up spending time at the Vanilla, a venue that was going through some intense creative tensions. It was frequented by Litfiba, Gang, Moda, Avion Travel, Diaframma. That's where I met Alberto Pirelli, the manager of I.R.A. Records, who handled the distribution of "Flowers", the album I wrote for my group after Matia Bazar, Melodrama. From then on, over time, we stayed in touch, crossing paths on various collaborations. In '89 I followed Litfiba's French tour as a support act with Violet Eves, until I took part in the recording sessions for "El Diablo", right at the moment the band achieved its breakthrough. Then there was another phase, in 2000, when Ghigo called me in for "Elettromacumba", the first album without Piero Pelù. I still have very fond memories of that period and the concerts that followed.

And what can you tell me about your current projects?

As you know, I've just come from the Spanish premiere of the new theatrical work "Utopia" in Spain, in which my music accompanies that extraordinary, многifaceted artist Leo Bassi. It was a huge success, so much so that it will be staged again from late January until March 8th, 2009, at the Teatro Alfil in Madrid.

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