Omar Pedrini - Timoria - Viaggi senza tempo

Guitarist, founding member and main songwriter of Timoria, since 2003, following the band's breakup, Omar Pedrini has focused on a well-regarded solo career, unfortunately interrupted several times by recurring health problems. We met him on the occasion of the presentation of the new edition of "Cane sciolto," the autobiography/biography written together with journalist Federico Scarioni, which retraces the key moments of his career, from his beginnings to his greatest successes, also dwelling on the controversial relationship with former Timoria singer Francesco Renga. The meeting was organized on January 25, 2024 in Latina by MonstarLab, a multifunctional facility that includes a highly professional recording studio, two rehearsal rooms, an auditorium, and a packed program of music training courses.

Hi Omar, your book "Cane sciolto" was reissued in an expanded edition just a few weeks ago. The first edition dates back to 2017 and had a blue cover, now it's become red…

A hug to all our friends at OndaRock. Yes, "Cane sciolto" is an autobiography/biography written jointly by me and journalist Federico Scarioni. It all began thanks to an initiative from the publishing house Chinaski, back in the years when I wasn't around much. Federico, prompted by Chinaski, asked me what I thought about writing my biography. I told him, "absolutely not!" Partly because at that moment I felt I had nothing particular to tell, I wasn't even working at the time, I was sidelined by the well-known health issues that have followed me over the years, so there weren't that many especially interesting topics to cover. But Federico insisted, the publishing house did too, and in the end I somehow gave in, but on my own terms. I told Federico I would accept the project, but that he would have to write almost the entire biography himself, following a track I would lay out for him.

And in fact the book's genesis was very unusual, with Federico traveling around the country for a couple of years meeting all sorts of people who helped piece together a real puzzle…

I didn't want a chronological biography, the kind that goes "Omar Pedrini was born in Brescia on May 28th, blah blah blah…" I gave Federico the addresses of about thirty people who had played an important role in my life, and he then took it upon himself to meet them and gather their accounts. That was the guiding thread. He approved of the idea, and for two years, with my little notes in his pocket, he set off to meet my Tibetan Ashram teacher, went to my home neighborhood to talk to the Brescia Calcio ultras I hung around with for years, went to Sanremo to speak with the orchestra conductor - step by step, he built a very particular biography, one that the public loved so much it sold out within a few months over two successive print runs. Chinaski celebrated it as one of their bestsellers - it's apparently even their most successful publication! Even though I've since written other books, for La Nave di Teseo and other publishers, "Cane sciolto" has remained the most "cult" one, hence the idea of reprinting it with a new cover and some additional content. For about a month now I've been touring to present it, and I'm noticing an old-fashioned kind of enthusiasm, thanks to Federico's work and the love fans continue to show for my songs.

The end result of this book is the reconstruction of your life, with attention paid both to the artistic side and the extra-artistic one. Let's try to retrace the key stages of your journey, in a concise way, perhaps starting from your origins. Where are Omar Pedrini's roots?

I grew up in a working-class environment, but at my maternal grandparents' house on Saturdays and Sundays there was always a constant coming and going of people. We lived in a modest little village, and my grandfather loved entertaining friends by playing the clarinet, with his two daughters accompanying him, one on mandolin, the other on guitar. People even came from the surrounding villages, because there was nothing to do in the area back then, there were no dance halls or discos yet. Everyone brought something, a piece of cheese, some bread, a bottle of wine, and at our house every weekend was a celebration, because there was music. I fell in love with that little guitar made by my grandfather, who was a luthier, and one day my grandmother told me: "Omar, remember that with music you'll never be alone." How true that turned out to be! It's a message I later tried to pass on to my own children too, giving them their first instruments. A few years ago Faustino, the little one, came along as well, and he seems to have a natural gift for it — certain inclinations show themselves even in small children.

A simple, frugal beginning...

My identity as a musician starts from exactly those early formative experiences. Then, of course, I was lucky, because at just 21 years old I had the chance to step onto the stage of the Sanremo Festival for the first time, together with Timoria, a band with whom we helped bring Italian-language rock first across our own peninsula, and then to much of Europe too. But it all began the day I first held my first guitar in my hands.

With Timoria, without realizing it at the time, you represented a link between the alternative scene of the Eighties (the generation that included Cccp in Emilia, Ritmo Tribale in Milan, Denovo in Catania, Diaframma, Litfiba, and all the protagonists of the lively Florentine scene) and everything that happened right after...

In our own way, we certainly were. In the Eighties we weren't yet, but Litfiba had already noticed us. Gianni Maroccolo, who would later become our producer, had us open several Litfiba shows. We also opened for Denovo, whom you rightly mentioned. We were the kids, the mascots of that generation of musicians, but that apprenticeship allowed us to be ready for the Nineties, to face them with a solid load of experience already under our belt. Keep in mind that our first album dates back to 1988, our very first single even to the year before, and by 1991 we'd already managed to get to Sanremo, taking part in the Festival in the "Nuove Proposte" (New Talents) category — a situation that risked causing an irreparable rift between us and the "alternative" scene of the time. In the Nineties the Sanremo Festival was considered the enemy of rock, so a rock band like ours choosing to take part in the Festival seemed like a contradiction, it caused a scandal, it couldn't be accepted by the audience: there was a lot of dogmatism in those years. The web didn't exist yet, but I remember the many letters that arrived at our fan club saying things like "I'll burn your records if it's true you're going to Sanremo." I told everyone to take it easy, to listen to the song we were going to bring first, and only then would everyone be free to make up their own mind.

How did it turn out?

We showed up at Sanremo with a complex song, with prog overtones, "L'uomo che ride," made up of four symphonic parts, with no chorus, and going to Sanremo without a chorus is basically suicide. We broke the mould with an out-of-step entry, and because of that we were eliminated immediately, on the very first night: that's how the rules worked back then. In the press room our elimination was seen as an injustice, and as a result the judges decided to immediately set up a Critics' Award for the "New Talents" category as well, since until 1990 it hadn't existed and had only been given to the "Big" artists. Following that injustice, the journalists wanted to give us the newly created award, the first ever Critics' Award for Young Artists. After being eliminated we had already set off back home, but they called us back; we returned to Sanremo and experienced the thrill of collecting that award alongside Enzo Jannacci, who won the same award in the "Big" category — something unforgettable.

And so we come to the Nineties, perhaps the unrepeatable golden decade of Italian "alternative" rock. You were fully among its protagonists...

The decade of the Nineties, together with the Seventies, remains, in my view, the one in which Italian rock had the most to say. Thanks to the award we won on the Ariston stage, the next day we were on the front pages of every newspaper, and in the end the rock world appreciated us even more, because in a way we'd sacrificed ourselves, we'd had the courage to go to the Festival without compromising who we were, something that would be repeated many years later by many other figures from the alternative scene, from Marlene Kuntz to Afterhours, from Subsonica to Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi, just to name a few. Our participation helped give a decisive push toward the later success of Italian rock in the Nineties.

It's no coincidence that your first record was produced by Gianni Maroccolo, one of the driving forces of that decade's independent scene...

"Colori che esplodono," our first record, was produced by Gianni Maroccolo, as was the following one, "Ritmo e dolore," during the period when he had just left Litfiba to join Cccp/Csi. Within just a few years we recorded "Viaggio senza vento," which in 1993 would become the first gold record in the history of the Italian alternative rock scene. A great satisfaction, even more so looking back on it now with hindsight. That's when not just our own story began, but the story of the new Italian rock of those years. As you well know, Gianni Maroccolo then went on to produce another landmark album, the debut of Marlene Kuntz, "Catartica," and record labels started to understand that Italian-language rock could sell too, that it could have a market of its own. It was a crucial turning point: we immediately sold 80-90 thousand copies of "Viaggio senza vento," which was, among other things, a fairly complex concept album. It was an extraordinary result.

Which bands from that period were you closest to?

Back then we bonded a lot with Marlene Kuntz; today Cristiano and I even teach together at a Catholic University in Milan, we share a course on creativity in the world of music and art, including the visual arts. We were also close friends with Clandestino, originally Ligabue's backing band, who later went on alone and often opened our concerts. Then I remember the arrival of Verdena, toward the end of the decade, in my opinion the most interesting phenomenon of the second half of the Nineties. And let's not forget Afterhours: Manuel wrote the foreword to this book, he was very generous with me. It's just that we in Timoria were provincial compared to other bands orbiting around the big cities. We came from Brescia, we weren't part of the Milan, Turin, Bologna or Florence scene.

Could that be what allowed you to preserve your own artistic integrity?

Thanks for being the one to say it, otherwise I'd have sounded presumptuous! I think not living in Milan allowed us to stay uncontaminated compared to, say, the bands that were part of the Milan scene, which tended to sound a little too similar to each other. Recently I wrote a song that's very beloved by Milanese people, it's called "Il cielo sopra Milano", taking the title as a nod to a Wim Wenders film I love, "Wings of Desire" ("Der Himmel über Berlin"). By the way, if you love my songs, you'll love Wenders' new film, "Perfect Days", which I found really beautiful. Wenders, incidentally, appeared in our video for "Milano non è l'America" well before he met U2. Timoria got to Wenders first, partly thanks to a stroke of luck: he was in Florence shooting a film, we happened to become friends, and he agreed to take part in our video.

What were you saying about "Il cielo sopra Milano"?

"Il cielo sopra Milano" is about this city, where I moved in 1999, when I decided to leave the provinces. Us provincial types, arriving by train, always look at Milan from the steps of Stazione Centrale: that's the first image we get of the big city. I grew up in Franciacorta, in the countryside, surrounded by serious wine drinkers. Milan either rejects you or has the ability to turn you into a Milanese: if you don't just sit around doing nothing, Milan can give you a great deal. In Brescia I was seen as a waste of time, someone with no future, while we were convinced that music could become an actual job for us. In Milan they understood us - Milan has the ability to let in anyone who has something interesting to offer, and most of the artists who helped make Milan great aren't Milanese at all, they came from elsewhere. Manuel's words in the preface of the book we're presenting fill me with pride, but I never really felt I belonged to that scene.

You were the main songwriter for Timoria. Let's talk a bit about Timoria's style, which broadened enormously over the course of your career. The first phase was closer to a certain classic rock, with some progressive influences, guitar solos and all. With "2020 Speedball", though, you can hear that grunge had arrived - on some songs you sound like Alice In Chains.

Well, you've named a band we loved enormously. Alice In Chains and Soundgarden were the bands we listened to most at the time. In our early days Timoria was a mod band - just think, we redid the RAF roundel, the mod symbol, using the colors of the Italian flag, that circle you see on our T-shirts. The historic standard-bearers of the mod movement were the Who, who've always been my reference point, so we started out looking at the Who, at Paul Weller, then along the way our rock got heavier, and in the early Nineties, with the arrival of grunge, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden openly declared they drew inspiration from the Who and from the grittier side of Neil Young. Our guitars adapted to that sound.

Every Italian band of that period had its own reference points, usually coming from the English-speaking world. Diaframma drew on the dark-new wave scene, Marlene Kuntz looked to the dissonances of Sonic Youth, Afterhours to the Americana of Afghan Whigs, Almamegretta to certain dub roots, Subsonica folded in elements of rave culture. Timoria, at least initially, was more tied, as we were saying, to a certain classic-rock imagery, but blending in elements of the Italian singer-songwriter tradition...

Initially progressive rock was one of the decisive influences on our sound - our formative listening included Pfm, Banco, Area. The cover of "Ritmo e dolore" was designed by Gianni Sassi, the head of Cramps, who also produced Area. Then we gradually shifted, and Timoria became, in our own small way, one of the symbols of grunge in Italy: that scene became ours. The musical DNA that inspired us was certainly English, but for the lyrics I drew on the Italian singer-songwriter school, which along with the French one has the best lyrics in the world. English lyrics are sometimes embarrassing, unless we're talking about Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, who drew on the Beat Generation. While abroad the focus is generally on the musical side, in Italy attention to lyrics has historically prevailed, thanks to the great tradition of singer-songwriters we've had in this country. I was keen for the lyrics to be sung in Italian because I attached particular importance to them; you could say that for the lyrics I rinsed my clothes in the Arno, while for the music I definitely rinsed them in the Thames.

On the next record, "Eta Beta", the stylistic range widens even further...

Before we recorded "Eta Beta" we played a lot abroad, especially in France, coming into contact with bands like Mano Negra and Les Négresses Vertes, with whom we bonded a lot, entering into that gypsy, nomadic world. All of this certainly influenced the songwriting process that produced the songs on "Eta Beta", a couple of which were sung in French. There was also our cover of "Zobie la mouche", taken straight from the Les Négresses Vertes catalogue. It was an intense period, and we soaked everything up like sponges.

And so we get to the split with Francesco Renga, who at a certain point decided to leave the group to pursue a solo career. Would you give us an honest assessment of his path? Which, among other things, also led him to win the Sanremo Festival, with material that - in my opinion - leaned heavily into the mainstream, losing a lot of what made the Timoria experience distinctive, obviously without taking anything away from Francesco's vocal talent.

Well, we brought home a few gold records ourselves with Timoria! And back then, to earn a gold record, a hundred thousand people had to walk into a shop, buy your album and take it home. During a show I took part in on Sky, they introduced me to a young artist and told me he'd won twelve gold records and seven platinum ones. That's the kind of thing that in the Nineties would have made you Michael Jackson! Nowadays they're calculated from streaming numbers, and for us old-timers that's a bit annoying - they should call them gold streams, not gold records. Someone who buys a record, or a book, gets to smell it, there's a kind of fetishism involved, even toward works of art. Today it's just streaming.

Are you dodging the question about Renga?

(laughs) There's no need to be ashamed of success, and you should be proud of winning Sanremo. Then it all depends on how you go about it. He took a shortcut. With that beautiful voice of his, he chose to sing very catchy songs, and that way he could afford to buy a villa with a pool, which everyone in Brescia envies him for. I think he made certain choices not so much for art's sake as out of practical, financial necessity. I don't want to be offensive, especially since he's not here, and I don't like speaking ill of people who aren't present, but he knows anyway: whatever I had to tell him, I've often said through the media. It makes me a little sad, because when the Timoria experience started, the premise was different. Earlier we were talking about Italian prog-rock - well, we drew heavily on that scene, and when Gianni Sassi took us under his wing, handling our album covers ("L'uomo che ride") and coming to Sanremo with us, he loved calling us the new Area. He was a sort of father figure to Area, to Alberto Camerini, to Eugenio Finardi, to a good part of Milan's intellectual music scene. At Sanremo he gave us that hat with three matches tucked inside, which we left on stage when we walked off: it was his hat. On "Viaggio senza vento", the song "Frankenstein" was dedicated to him, after he died. Sassi used to tell me I was a kind of synthesis of Fariselli and himself: Fariselli wrote Area's music, Gianni Sassi wrote the lyrics. To him, Francesco was the new Demetrio Stratos, and I can assure you that at 25 Francesco Renga really did have all the makings to become the new Demetrio Stratos, if only he'd kept going in that direction of exploration, as the rest of us were doing too. Instead he didn't, he chose a shortcut to success: I'm sure that if he's remembered in the future, it'll be more for what he did with Timoria than for his solo career.

Don't you think he was also looking for more room as a songwriter?

But he used to ask me that! He wanted to write, and I had tried to get him to write - not just him, mind you, but all the other members of Timoria too. If we'd all written, we'd have had an even wider pool of songs to choose the best from. And he wrote "Nessuno sa perché", he wrote "Non ti far male mai", Diego wrote "Ora che non ci sei", and I decided to record all of them. I understood they wanted to write, and even though they didn't strike me as masterpieces, I decided to record them, because otherwise the balance within a band risks falling apart.

They say that within bands there are fundamentally two reasons for fighting: money, or women…

Francesco and I actually fought over a woman, too bad she was mine and not his…  (laughs heartily). You make money by writing songs, but I don't think Renga was ever much of a songwriter: he had a great voice, but his songs and lyrics were pretty banal. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that for years now he's had others write his songs for him. He belongs to that category of singers whose songs are credited to a long list of names, with the singer's own name tacked on at the end just so he can collect some songwriting royalties too. But there's no fire in him for writing songs. There was fire for singing, and that he did very well. I wish him all the best in continuing to sing, and in finding songwriters worthy of the voice he used to have… because these days he may not even have the voice he had ten years ago.

They say that when you put everything into your voice, you should take the money and run…

Yes, because if you put everything into your voice you're not guaranteeing yourself a long career the way you would if you focused on artistic choices instead — your voice might abandon you over time. It's better to spread your art out over time: when you go for the big score, like he did, you end up forever stuck having to win Sanremo again. This year I think it's his tenth Sanremo, and everyone's there reminding him of that time he won it, or maybe that time he took home the Critics' Award with Timoria, because you enter a cycle where you constantly have to prove you're still up to the task. I don't look down on him, but when you aim for certain results, you step more into the world of the industry than into the world of art or creativity. I chose creativity, for good, and that doesn't mean I'm better than him, let's be clear. When things between the two of us became too extreme, it was right for each of us to go our own way. Few people still ask me these days why we split up — I think it's obvious to everyone by now: we're two very different natures, pursuing very different paths and goals. Under the roof of Timoria's songs we managed to coexist well, we made a good pair, I still think so today, even though our artistic separation now dates back twenty years.

You went to Sanremo as a solo artist too – besides twice with Timoria – and you even won the Best Lyrics award. How did that go?

I experienced going there alone too, and it was traumatic because, especially during the first performance, I kept turning around wondering where the others were. I'd spent twenty years playing in a band, and alone I felt almost naked in front of the cameras and all of Italy. Once I broke the ice, I was glad the organizers had accepted my song, because "Lavoro inutile" is a complex song, with no chorus, three parts, a bridge — I had no idea how it would be received. On the album that contained it, "Vidomàr", there were certainly other, more Sanremo-friendly tracks I could have brought, but I chose "Lavoro inutile" for its subject matter: it's about the work of the artist. For that song I found inspiration in Kurosawa's film "Rashomon" ("Le quattro verità"). After winning the Critics' Award on my first try and finishing last in the rankings on my second appearance with Timoria, in this solo venture I wanted to present a song with real substance — it was a way of safeguarding my future path. I had no intention of going to the Festival chasing some big mainstream hit; I wanted to offer four minutes of music that also concealed other art forms — for instance, in the lyrics there's a reference to the Naked King, when I talk about the figure of the court jester. That song earned me the award for Best Lyrics and gave me the starting note for a new beginning. Many wrote that it was a great launch, and I started dreaming of a solo future, without Timoria.

Then the unexpected happened…

I had just won the award at Sanremo for "Lavoro inutile", a genuinely high-quality song, and at that point I felt like the happiest guy in the world — I was 36. That feeling lasted about two months: I was about to leave for the tour, and on the day of the first date, in Padua, I got out of bed that morning, collapsed on the floor, and woke up in hospital two days later, out of a coma, already operated on. The doctors discovered a serious heart problem that has been battering me for 19 years now, for which I've already had to undergo seven delicate open-heart surgeries. The doctors immediately warned me that I would have to live with this condition for the rest of my life. For a certain period I was forbidden from performing live, so I reinvented myself, writing and working for television, radio, publishing and theatre. If music has been my wife, theatre has been my mistress. Out of that grew the semi-hiatus from which this book also emerged. I say semi-hiatus because, ten years ago, thanks to another surgery, I was able to start singing again. Today I can proudly say I debuted twice: the first time at 18, the second at 44.

You mentioned a debut, but that's not quite accurate, you already made a solo album back in the '90s…

"Beatnik", an album where I wanted to pay tribute to the Beat Generation. Who would have thought I'd one day write a song with Lorenzo Ferlinghetti? On that crazy album I did everything I was no longer allowed to do with Timoria. It was recorded in 1995, right while Timoria were at the peak of their success, having already earned two gold records. Both "Viaggio senza vento" and "2020 Speedball" had already come out, and I was starting to feel a bit cramped in the rockstar's clothes — I was going out less, people kept stopping me for autographs, and the record labels kept demanding new songs. When you're not successful, nobody gives a damn about you, but then if you're unlucky enough to have a hit song, every six months they want a new one. I was pretty disoriented by all the attention that was building up around us at that time. So I asked Angelo Carrara, our producer at the time, if I could make a different kind of record. He told me that by then I was Omar of Timoria, and if I came out with a solo work everyone would have their guns pointed at me, everyone would think Timoria were about to break up. To avoid that problem, I asked every member of Timoria, except Renga, to play on the record, so the audience would understand we weren't fighting, that there was still friendship between us. "Beatnik" was a crazy, poetic, deeply literary album — it even included a piece by Piero Ciampi. Anyway, our producer said okay, but that they would press "only" ten thousand copies.

Which today would be more than enough to hit number one on the charts…

Very true! But back then that choice felt like a demotion. "Only" ten thousand copies, so that once they sold out nobody could complain about unsold stock. So I shut myself in the studio with the band, with a fairly tight budget, twelve million lire, and to make the most of the time we had I agreed to fifteen days of non-stop work, day and night, without ever sleeping. Let's say back then we also relied on a bit of chemical help… Then there was Ornella Vanoni, who lived right above the studio and would sometimes come down to have a drink with us: we had some great laughs together. A crazy record, recorded with two sound engineers taking turns, while I was always there with the musicians. What came out was a decidedly dazed-sounding album, you can hear it, with psychedelic touches, but containing interesting ideas. The subtitle "Il ragazzo tatuato di Birkenau" struck the audience a great deal, not only because tattoos back then didn't carry the aesthetic weight they have today but were loaded with other meanings, but especially because that phrase was taken from a song by the Smiths, another declaration of love for English music.

I don't think anything off that album got any radio play…

No constraints were placed on me regarding radio — in fact, Carrara told me straight out that if I chose to make a record with such particular characteristics, I couldn't expect to have a single to bring to radio: he wouldn't even take it there. No, it wasn't a record made for radio, and 28 years later I can say there are some meaningful, remarkable elements in it, but also some incredible garbage. Speaking of trying to make choices that stand the test of time, I should mention that album includes a dedication to River Phoenix, and today I feel vindicated, because he's a figure who has since become mythologized over time. The song "River" is dedicated to him, the young revelation of that era's cinema, who died prematurely of an overdose outside Johnny Depp's club, on a Los Angeles sidewalk, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers present, who were close friends of his. At the time River was a cult figure, known to only a few connoisseurs, and went almost unnoticed by the general public. Now that some of River Phoenix's siblings have become famous, not just the well-known Joaquin but also his sisters Rain and Summer Phoenix, some people are rediscovering that song…

References to cinema in your songs aren't rare…

Cinema has moved me, it's inspired songs in me, it's an art form I love, and I'm terribly sorry that it doesn't work the way it used to, that theaters are so often empty these days. It's a feeling I wish my kids could experience, being in a dark theater as the lights go down, being a prisoner of a work of art, as if inside the mother's womb. I love going to the movies alone - back when the first multiplexes started opening, I used to try to see multiple films with a single ticket, leaving one screening and sneaking into another. They even caught me once. Some popcorn, and for 6-8 hours I'd watch everything I could.

Coming back to the book, it doesn't just deal with music, but also touches on sport, cinema, literature, wine, and beautiful women. There was a period when several singers had major romantic relationships with very beautiful women, who were also prominent TV personalities. I'm not just thinking of you and Elenoire, but also Francesco Renga with Ambra Angiolini and Federico Zampaglione of Tiromancino with Claudia Gerini. For a while there was a fil rouge linking musicians (rather than footballers) with gorgeous women from the world of entertainment. How did that happen? Were they your fans?

Abroad, if you're with a model you're considered cool, whereas in Italy there's always a lot of envy: I've experienced it firsthand, people rarely forgive you for being with a beautiful woman, one of those who do calendars. You know, we moved in similar circles, so we knew each other, some sparks could fly and you'd start seeing each other. But, I have to say (he laughs, ed.), actresses and models used to date rockstars, then footballers started stealing our role, and these days models prefer to date chefs! And I have to say that even getting the chance to take part in the Sanremo Festival at 21, so young, is another thing not everyone forgives you for, especially if you live in a small provincial town. At a certain point I decided to leave Brescia, I moved away partly for that reason.

"Cane sciolto", whose title, let's remember, comes from one of your songs, is also a very spiritual book, from which your path of searching emerges...

When I got sick it was hard, but not so much because of the illness itself. You know, the picture of the perfectly wise man says you should live every day as if it were your last, and learn every day as if you were never going to die. When it comes to facing death, we're all more or less ready, it's something that has to happen sooner or later in life; what I wasn't ready for was facing artistic death, living without being able to devote myself to music anymore, without being able to play anymore, without being able to have contact with my audience anymore. They saved my life, I was very lucky, but imagine what I must have felt when I was suddenly told that my life would have to go on without music, because singing could cause problems for the 230 stitches I had inside and outside my heart.

You've spent time at an Ashram, but not only that...

I recently released an "Ave Maria", it's on last year's album, "Sospeso", and I had the pleasure and honor of handing it personally to Pope Francis. An event I've never published even a single photo of, because I consider it a very intimate moment. I believe spirituality is the cornerstone of our lives. Spirituality doesn't mean faith, which is a further step up, but it's already something that can set you apart from the crowd. It's important to have an awareness of god, of the absolute, of immanence. Mine is an "Ave Maria" written as if I were talking about an ordinary woman, like so many others: I also made a video for it, featuring a Maria with a black eye - I was even afraid of coming across as blasphemous, but the message is meant to be that if Mary came to Earth today, she would face the same risks and the same problems as any other woman of our time, harassment and all. A woman, not a divinity - a figure, that of Mary, who could unite religions, religions that today keep fighting each other, as is happening with the endless conflict between Israel and Palestine. I like to present it as the most transgressive song I've ever written, more than the ones where I've written about love, sex and drugs. A spirituality different from Eastern spirituality. I'm an activist for the cause of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet, I've been going to a Tibetan Ashram for almost twenty years, and when the Dalai Lama came to Italy I was lucky enough to be by his side three times, and he told us that there must be only one god. God, Buddha, everyone follows what their own culture points to, but there's only one god. When all religious leaders embrace that view, it will solve the problem of all the wars born of religious ideology.

The customary closing question is about future plans...

Now a stretch of hospital stays awaits me, every six months I have to be admitted for about ten days, and I've started the preliminary clinical tests. Incidentally, I married my heart surgeon's daughter, and some people say that if he'd known, he wouldn't have saved my life... I've been given permission to do at most two concerts a month - this month I did one last week in Milan, and I'll do one next week in Taranto. For me every concert is almost like a rugby match, every rock concert with the band I lose three pounds, so they keep an eye on me to gauge how much live performing might risk damaging my heart. I'll probably have to undergo another operation fairly soon. Maybe I'll play live less and less and devote myself to other things, like writing songs for other artists, something I've never wanted to do, turning down even big names in Italian music. It's just that I'm very protective of my songs, but maybe the time has come to write them for other voices, like I used to do with Francesco.

Good luck, Omar!

Thank you, friends, it's been a pleasure chatting with OndaRock!

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