Raf - Discovering Pop

A long conversation with the star of Italian pop in the midst of his theatrical tour “Self Control 40th Anniversary”, which includes various dates in theatres across Milan, Padua, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Bari, with shows running through December 2025. The musician from Puglia, author of countless hits over the past forty years, talks about his beginnings and the genesis of some memorable songs, such as the worldwide hit “Self Control”, as well as anecdotes about what he's currently listening to and his future plans.

How's the tour going?

Very good, I've never had an opening night like this, where everything went so smoothly. Everyone was as happy as I was, and that fills me with joy. And I'm also excited about this new theatre show, because we did a great job with the lighting but also with the setlist. There's a whole first part with just acoustic instruments, which really works well in theatres.

Is this search for intimacy also a bit of a mirror of the current phase of your career?

I don't know, you know, in the sense that in some ways I have a really bizarre repertoire. I actually started my career with a song like "Self Control", which I wrote starting from a riff from a song that I then turned into a hugely successful dance single.

Which is also its secret, don't you think?

Maybe so, because it was a bit unusual, in fact it was mistakenly classified in some way by many people, including colleagues of mine from that period, as an italodisco track, but it actually didn't have those characteristics.

The many remixes must have had an effect…

Yes, though let's say the sound was different, there was that famous bass on the quarter notes, which wasn't a typical feature of italodisco, so overall it stood quite apart from those Italian productions that had been successful across Europe, the sound was a bit different, and it was definitely an unusual track for me, for what I was doing at the time, since I was coming from other musical experiences that had little to do with dance music.

So basically you were catapulted onto the dancefloor.

Yes, I suddenly found myself singing and being recognized, in a way, as part of the dance music world of that period. Then I sought out my own space in Italian pop, also because I had listened to it closely up until then.

So before that you were more into foreign music?

Well, you know, the music I listened to as a kid was certainly not pop. I loved things that came from the progressive rock of King Crimson, or the psychedelia of Pink Floyd. Then I followed the punk revolution, and from there I grew fond of the Clash, with whom I had an adventure…

You mean when you opened for them in Bologna in 1980?

Yes, and they probably don't even remember it (he smiles, ed.).

In your autobiography, "La mia casa", you tell everything as if you were aboard a time machine. Thinking of the songs on "Cannibali", though, we're all taken back to the 1990s, to that golden age of Italian pop. Have you ever felt like the pilot of a DeLorean?

I really like "Back to the Future", even though it's not among my all-time favourite films, but in general I've never felt that sensation, that sort of responsibility.

What was Raf like before “Self Control”?

Well, to start with, at seventeen I left home and hitchhiked, basically. I ended up in Florence after knocking around a few festivals, where, let's say, you'd sleep in sleeping bags. It was a pretty adventurous thing for a kid from Puglia to do - distances were also much longer back then, it's not like today with all the flights available and endless ways to get around. When you left, you didn't have a mobile phone, so you were truly away from home in every sense. I talk about all this in the book too, about what eventually led me to move to Florence for good, where I'd started studying at the Istituto d'Arte, and that's where everything began, including my first band, Cafè Caracas. Those were years when recklessness reigned alongside a hunger for adventure and freedom, which led me to do things that at times could actually be quite dangerous. I don't know if it was some saint watching over me or just my own positive energy.

On “Raf40: The Unreleased Duets” you duet with Elodie and Levante. How did you find working with them?

I asked Elodie which song she wanted to do and she immediately said “Due”. Her choice didn't surprise me, since she has a song with that same title herself. So it all came very naturally. She really went out of her way, because she was super busy at the time. She was very generous with her time, and obviously talented too. With Levante, on the other hand, I was the one who suggested “Infinito”. She wasn't fully convinced, it's a song that rather intimidated her. Then I told her, “look, just try it, you'll see it'll work out.” She gave it a go, and it did work out. She's incredibly talented too, by the way - not just talented: incredibly talented.

Where are you at with the new album, though?

I'm writing new songs and I hope to put something out in 2026. Next year. As of now, though, I can't tell you whether it'll be an LP or an EP, but in the end something will come out, and it'll all be brand new material.

In “Allegro tormentone” you sing “niente ci salverà da una stupida canzone”. These days, though, it seems like summer hits are in short supply, and we wrote about that on OndaRock too. What do you think is the reason?

Summer hits were actually missing this past summer - I don't know if it's a trend that will continue in the coming summers too. Some say a lot of artists held onto their potential hits to save them for Sanremo instead, since the Festival has become this funnel everyone wants to squeeze into to promote themselves - it's more and more the most important showcase, in fact I'd say almost the only one left, at this point. And that's certainly not a good thing, because it shouldn't be that way. I also hope that the kind of summer hits produced in recent years has created a sort of fatigue in listeners, and that maybe we'll go back to making pop music that's a bit more substantial. After all, even easy-listening pop can be made in a more serious way. You should take the time a production actually needs, without having to shout or scream just to stand out. Let's just say reggaeton hasn't exactly helped in that regard.

Why doesn't any Italian pop musician feel the need anymore to say something political, even through hyperbole?

It's not simple - maybe everyone is tempted to do it in some way, but then the fear of not being liked by someone kicks in, so people try to stay as neutral as possible. It often happens that a singer who's actually quite engaged in real life, say on environmental or social issues, doesn't let any of that come through in their music. Nowadays people try to win over the audience by avoiding anything that might rub someone the wrong way. There's a sort of Christian-Democrat mentality to songwriting these days that I find rather cloying. You should dare more, that's the thing. Even in pop. I did it myself a few times in the past, and you know what happened instead?

What?

That when you tried to slip social themes into pop songs, even through metaphors, a lot of people didn't even notice, or else they'd say “he's always written little pop songs and now he wants to play the political artist.” So either you were openly a socially conscious singer-songwriter, or you weren't taken seriously. It's always been very complicated, really. I have to say, if you notice, even the old-school singer-songwriters who are somehow still making music today, none of them tackle social issues the way they used to.

What have you been listening to lately?

Well, there are various things, a bit all over the place. It's a huge melting pot of today's output, since I've stayed an omnivore after all. Then again, so much stuff comes out these days that you can't really pick out the true talents. Thanks to my son, though, I've discovered artists like Tha Supreme. If someone thinks of Raf without really knowing my work in depth, they always go back to “Battito animale” and that whole world. But actually, ever since I was a teenager, my attitude has always been to search out new sounds, beyond pop and rock - in short, I devour music, and films too.

So you keep an eye on the new scenes...

Sure, at sixty-six I'm not exactly hung up on getting into today's alternative music scene, but my playlist does have quite a few things my peers wouldn't normally listen to — and I never force myself to listen to them, I just genuinely like them.

And a musician who changed your life instead?

There are plenty, and they change depending on the moment. Today I might say John Coltrane, while tomorrow it could be Pink Floyd. But right at this moment I'd lean more towards Italian music — actually, right now I really feel like listening to "Rimmel" all the way through in one go.

(9 novembre 2025)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google