PFM - Rock Messengers of the Good News

On the phone with the three protagonists of the Pfm adventure: an inimitable past shared with De André, prog and rock.

Anno Domini 2010: Premiata Forneria Marconi once again grappling with the music and words of Fabrizio De André's "La Buona Novella", forty years after the release of the album that had seen them, almost by chance, working as session musicians in the studio. The result is a substantial remake, with a bold extra half hour added to the original sections. We gathered the opinions and stories of the three surviving members of the historic lineup, Franz Di Cioccio, Franco Mussida and Patrick Djivas, in a phone call made while travelling between dates on the sold-out tour that is currently taking them around Italy's arenas.

"In the setlist of the historic 1979 tour", Mussida begins, "there were already two tracks from 'La Buona Novella'. Since it was the fortieth anniversary of the album's release, and since the same number of years had passed since Pfm's founding, we asked ourselves: why not rework it, our way? Faber's work is conceptual, rigorous, the singing is almost spoken, it sounds like a litany; and the songs certainly lose a little something within those narrow confines. So we tried to give space and meaning to the imaginative element, matching the concept with today's colours. That's how 'Laudate Hominem' loses its mammoth, baroque choir and becomes a heavy rock track. Or take 'Il ritorno di Giuseppe': in the original record the sound of the desert was conveyed solely by a sitar, here it's evoked by the whole arrangement. Or again, 'L'infanzia di Maria' becomes a contemporary tarantella, pure Pfm style, and 'Ave Maria' is told through the atmosphere of a dance hall from the Mantua countryside... In short, we wanted to use musical language to create particular imaginative moods, ones that would give new colours to the density of Fabrizio's message and poetry".

'La Buona Novella' came out at a rather particular moment, in the aftermath of the student protests and on the threshold of the turbulent 1970s. De André seemed to almost foresee the fate that befell those who actually carried out the revolution. What meaning can these words hold today, and in what spirit is Pfm reissuing these songs? "Each of the three of us", the guitarist explains further, "has a different approach to life, so I'll speak for myself. And I believe that today it's essential to get younger generations thinking about this figure of Jesus as a representative of humanity. For Faber that was, and would still be, the case. For me Christ is also something more, he is divinity on earth. And Fabrizio himself always had to reckon with this: in 'Laudate Hominem' there's a kind of constraint placed on the human, with all those 'I don't want to', 'I can't', 'I mustn't'...".

A rather curious fact is that, in these very months, Fabrizio's son, Cristiano, has been touring Italy performing his father's songs. As with Pfm, albeit for different reasons and with different overtones, there seems to be a shared desire to act as messengers of De André's art and poetry, to make it immortal. Might we one day see them together? Franz Di Cioccio, Premiata's singer and drummer, still the same live wire he was in the golden years, is clear in keeping the two projects separate: "In '79 Cristiano was just a kid, today he's reclaiming a figure, a legacy. It's a family matter. Pfm, on the other hand, was an artist on a par with Fabrizio, a rock band whose collective nature still gives it a very broad expressive range today. Back then, for the recording of 'La Buona Novella', it was chance that brought us together, in the person of Gian Piero Reverberi: we were two artistic entities with very distinct cultural backgrounds, and in the end all we did was give a sound to Fabrizio's idea. In '78, the year of our second encounter with De André, we were certainly more aware of each other's abilities, and we were essential to one another: with our arrangements, Faber finally became popular, more accessible (take the ballad 'Il Pescatore', which we turned into a joyous stadium anthem). With his sensitivity, we learned to pay attention to lyrics, to the introspective dimension. And today, what we're doing is, if you like, what Pivano did for American poets, an act of spreading awareness of De André's work. And I have to say that our return to the stage with Faber's music and words has proved hugely stimulating, spawning a whole wave of similar projects. The difference being that ours, far from being a nostalgia trip, is a thoroughly philological exercise".

Forty years since 'Storia di un Minuto'. Few can boast, in Italy or anywhere else in the world, a career so long, so glorious and so varied. The strength lies in the stimuli you're still able to find. And it seems that, over the years, Premiata Forneria Marconi has always managed to find new and original ones. "You'll find the answer in the album booklet", Di Cioccio explains, "where we explain that we deliberately tried to venture into unknown territory. It's a challenge, a wonderful one because there are no winners. It's a passionate artistic quest that's keeping us sparkling. The 'La Buona Novella' that's passed through our hands is an apocryphal work through and through: first hidden away, then rediscovered, and now unashamedly rock. It was like picking up a work by Shakespeare and giving it a whole new staging. And with lyrics like these, which speak, indeed shout, about life, I can assure you it's been a real joy".

Today the very notion of the band seems to have got lost in talent shows that reek more of pretty faces than of sweat and stage time. But somewhere out there, there might be one or more heirs to Pfm's live spirit: "Well, I'm not one of those people who believes there's a new Battisti, or a new Pfm", says Franz again, "music moves forward, with new faces, words and sounds. Of course, you have to see how long it lasts: when someone is exposed to critics and audiences for more than a year and still stands firm, that's already a good sign. We're the history that doesn't step back in the face of what's new coming through, and that can sow experience and the will to still have fun."

Patrick Djivas, the band's elegant and virtuosic bassist, expands on his bandmate's view, on the subject of what still drives them to get on stage in 2010: "The fact is, we're pure musicians, and we still consider ourselves as such. Pfm was never meant to be the end point of our journey, each of us has always followed his own path regardless. That's the secret: never feel satisfied, but constantly question yourself. And then there's also the fact that we still make room for improvisation today, as an artistic way of renewing ourselves, of constantly stimulating each other. That's why we avoid using sequences and computers live: not out of snobbery, I use them often and gladly in the studio. But because on stage that limits you, and we want to feel totally free instead. And finally, the most important thing: there's deep mutual respect between us. To me, honestly, these travelling companions are the best I could ever find in Italy."

Pfm was among the leading figures of the legendary era of Italian prog, still celebrated today through reissues and new editions. And Djivas can rightly be considered one of its founding fathers, having played in the earliest incarnation of Area before being recruited into the ranks of Premiata, with whom he conquered America with a tour and an album that have gone down in history: "Prog here in Italy was, to all intents and purposes, a scene, not a genre. Neither with Area nor with Pfm did I ever feel the drive to follow a particular trend. I had literally fallen in love with the jazz-rock that was emerging in those years, and I brought that spirit, made of improvisation and creative freedom, into both bands. And Pfm, especially I think on "Live in Usa", is the perfect demonstration of structure (as in European-style progressive) and improvisation (the jazz-rock of Miles Davis). All of this was only possible, though, because there was never a leader in Premiata: me, Franz, Franco, each of us always had room to bring in and develop our own ideas and opinions."

Behind the words of these three protagonists, then, lies the recipe for the longevity and freshness of a band like Pfm, still able to innovate and explore even after five thousand concerts around the world.

Ride the wave of great music

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