Ricky Portera - Me, Lucio and the Stadio

Almost as a surprise, seven years after his last work, "Fottili" has just been released, marking the return of Ricky Portera to his, still unusual, role as a solo artist. In case he still needs any introduction, Ricky is one of the greatest guitar virtuosos this country has produced, for a long time the rock right hand of Lucio Dalla (whom you'll read a substantial portrait of), as well as Gaetano Curreri's alter ego in the first, glorious incarnation of Stadio. In truth Ricky never really went anywhere, since in all these years he's never stopped playing live and taking part in projects, which we'll discuss at length in our long interview. What's intriguing, though, is understanding why someone like him, historically averse to solo work (and the mere three albums in over forty years of professional career are there to prove it), decided to come out right now with an album that, starting with its title, looks very much like his manifesto. "Fottili", with its mix of unrestrained heavy rock and introspective ballads, is in many ways the summa of a career in which our rocker has always managed to leave his mark on every project he's been part of; it's the crib sheet in which Portera tells his own story like an open book, with no filters, and with the help of just a few illustrious guest friends (Pino Scotto, and Gaetano Curreri himself above all).

So the new album becomes the pretext for unleashing a lifetime's worth of anecdotes, from which emerges the figure of a direct, somewhat angry man and artist, with a great desire to communicate passions, the future, and memories utterly untouched by time. The amused irony that seasons the many delightful behind-the-scenes stories of a brilliant career, the rises, the falls and the unexpected comebacks - you'll find them all in here. Here's what we talked about.

Ricky, your new record has an emblematic title, “Fottili” ["Screw Them"] — but who exactly are we supposed to screw?

In my life I've always lived with a certain cockiness, not giving a damn about politics and institutions, but then one day I found myself experiencing the trouble that politics causes us, and I got angrier than you can imagine. In a way, like the singer-songwriters of the '80s used to do when they sent out messages, I'm trying to do the same thing myself. In the title track, I say: “Ti entrano anche nel cesso di casa tua” ["They even get into the toilet in your own house"], meaning, for example, that there's no such thing as privacy anymore. I'll probably get hit with some charge for glorifying crime because of this record, since it's not just this song that deals with certain subjects — but in the end “Fottili” is an invitation to screw over whoever's screwing us, to screw them for once when we get the chance. Just watching the news you can understand why I called my record that: everything has become insane, truly insane.

So a guest like Pino Scotto, who sings with you on that track, seems like a perfect fit, since he's always absolutely furious…

It almost seemed like I'd written the song for him. In fact he always tells me: “Hey bro… that's my song.”

It's a musically varied album, but it has a common thread, which is its autobiographical nature…

Absolutely, also because it was only with the previous record that I started writing lyrics. Like the other two, I didn't want to make this one either: I'd written the songs for other people, thinking I'd have Vasco sing them — one, for instance, I'd written for Patty Pravo. They convinced me to record it myself, and in the end I did, and once I had to face the need to write lyrics, there was nothing better than writing what I think, what I've lived through, or what I'd like to do.

Beppe Aleo, the executive producer of this record, had already contacted me a few years back because he wanted me to make an instrumental album, but I wasn't too keen on it because it would end up being a record for industry insiders. I don't want anything to do with industry insiders, because all they do is live off criticism and treat music as something sterile, whereas I want to play for hairdressers, for checkout clerks, for people the music gets into unconsciously. I wanted to make something far removed from the usual channels, so I went back to Beppe, who didn't even want to listen to the record — he took it sight unseen, because he's someone who listens with his heart first, and only then with his ears.

In the track “Santi e religiosi” there are explicit references to religion, while elsewhere on the record there are other nods to spirituality: what's your stance on these themes?

I was very much at war with religion, having gone through moments of deep crisis when I no longer believed in anything, but then I had an experience that made me stop and think, that made me feel that something does exist after all. Deep down I can't fully embrace it all, I can't go all the way into this spirituality with total conviction, but I've been a Buddhist for twenty-three years now, which isn't a religion but a path towards something: it's helping me a lot, and in fact what I write in my songs refers to the religion we carry inside us. We are Buddha, it's not some abstract entity we don't know and pray to. In “Santi e religiosi” I wanted to say that by now even people with deep spirituality can no longer manage to pray, because we're at a point where you can't believe in anything anymore: all the values we used to have are being called into question. The reality we live in is everything and its opposite at once, and it's all absurd. The other day I read about an old man, around here, who was arrested for stealing two apples to bring to his little grandson. Are we kidding? This while there are ministers asking for money while under investigation, getting away with all sorts of things. There's a kind of dictatorship in which we're supposed to keep quiet, and it'll suit those in charge just fine as long as we can still put something on the table for our children, but when people can no longer manage even that, then the trouble will start: in 1789 they stormed the Bastille for exactly these reasons. If we're capable of educating people, we're also in a position to do something worthwhile, not just cause chaos for its own sake, like always happens: I lived through '68 in full, I was fourteen, I was in school and part of the student movements, but there was too much confusion, too much sloppiness. Movements aren't a bad thing, but they also need awareness.

Ricky, you have the privilege of being the only person in Italy for whom being called a giant son of a bitch is a compliment rather than an insult, or am I wrong?

Can you imagine how happy that makes my mother… (laughs)

True, but at least the son is happy, because if a great songwriter like Lucio Dalla had you in mind when he wrote “Grande figlio di puttana” ["Big Son of a Bitch"], a song that went on to become part of Italian pop music history, that's more than a little satisfying…

Clearly, as you said, that's an epithet meant as a compliment, because Lucio's lyrics didn't come from anything negative. It was 1981, and we'd gone into the studio to record the first Stadio album, but at the time I was on tour with Eugenio Finardi, and I had little time to go play, so I recorded some guitar parts over just one drum track. When Lucio heard them, he exclaimed: “Would you look at that son of a bitch — even when he's not around, he leaves us some ideas to work with.” Then there were other things that inspired it too, like the fact that I'd always been very susceptible to feminine charm — I was someone who fell in love easily, and Lucio once found me banging my head against the walls of the Stone Castle Studios in Carimate, crying over a woman.

But now you have to tell me who this woman was…

Ah, I was head over heels in love with Loredana (Berté, of course — ed.), in '79 I did a tour with her, and I lost my mind.

But was it reciprocated or not?

Clearly, if they found me crying, it wasn't a happy relationship… unfortunately it was something one-sided.

What kind of person was Lucio Dalla, and what kind of relationship did you two have?

Lucio was a character you had to handle with kid gloves, he was a great psychologist… I met him on a Wednesday evening. It was 1977, and I was fresh out of a pretty irreverent artistic experience with a band put together for Renato Zero, called Sua Maestà, a project that actually sparked Vasco Rossi's desire to sing: we had become famous on the Emilia circuit, and he always invited us to the parties of Punto Radio, the station he worked for, which were always packed with thousands of people. He fell in love with that scene, and we were the spark that pushed him to start singing. Just think, I met Vasco when I was 8 years old, at a music school in Modena run by the late maestro Bononcini, where we used to take part in competitions called "L'usignolo d'oro", which he always won, by the way… even back then he was two steps ahead! Anyway, going back to your question, in the end nothing came of the Renato Zero project, and I suddenly found myself in a situation where I didn't even have money to buy cigarettes. I told myself: "Okay, I'll do two or three months with Lucio Dalla…", because I didn't even know who he was!

You'd never even heard of Lucio Dalla?

He was a bit hard to follow back when Roberto Roversi was writing his lyrics, he wasn't for everyone, he was for a niche audience. To tell the truth, I did know his name, but only because in 1967 he'd taken the song "Bisogna saper perdere" to Sanremo alongside the Rokes, who were my idols at the time. Anyway, I met him that Wednesday evening at a venue near Modena where he was due to play. He looked at me, didn't say a word, except: "Tomorrow afternoon at 3 I'll be expecting you at my place, on Via delle Fragole in Bologna, we'll rehearse." So I went to his house, we rehearsed, and the next day we were already playing at the Teatro Uomo in Milan: that was our first concert together, in December, with buckets on the theatre stage because the roof was leaking. I told you about Lucio the psychologist, well, he immediately understood who I was and started, on one hand, to love me, and on the other, to rein me in hard. He'd already figured out I was the exuberant type, and he knew exactly how to hit me where it hurt… just because someone's dead doesn't mean you have to speak well of them no matter what, he had his own bullshit like every human being, so our relationship was always love-hate: on stage I was always the one who liked to hog the spotlight, and he wasn't exactly thrilled that a chunk of the audience had their eyes on me. So there were always battles, but with great mutual respect, because I was the only one on stage who could do his own thing: I almost never even went to rehearsals, and he'd tell me: "Get up there and do whatever comes to mind."

Speaking of expressive freedom, I noticed that on the live album "Dallamericaruso" they completely cut your solo from "Washington", which instead appeared in full in the documentary aired by Rai. Do you know why?

I'll answer you with the words Red Ronnie said to me, when he had me on his show "Sapore di mare", after I laid down a beautiful solo at the end of "La sera dei miracoli": "Ricky, it's no use, solos don't pay." We were at a point in time - we're talking about the '80s - when people had somewhat lost the habit of listening to guitarists, so they kept clipping my wings. It's something that drives me up the wall to this day, even on the radio the solo is exactly the moment when the DJ starts talking over it, and that's truly terrifying.

At a certain point you went more than ten years without playing with Lucio, and you came back in 1996 with the album "Canzoni": what happened in that period?

The falling-out wasn't with Lucio, it was with Stadio. After six years of songs that had left their mark on Italian pop, we were still known as Lucio Dalla's backing band, and people barely even knew our faces. On television it was always him out front and us in the background, so I started pushing the idea that the band should leave Lucio, not out of hostility, but to let us carve out our own path: too bad the others disagreed. You see, it was the classic problem of two roosters in the henhouse, because back then I was recognized as the leader, whereas usually in a band that role belongs to the singer.

In that period I was also pretty rebellious, but I have to admit, also a real jerk, and the only one who could keep me in check was Lucio himself, so he couldn't be abandoned, because there was a fear that I'd take over completely. So much so that, as soon as I left the group, Stadio went in the direction I would have wanted, and that just proved what I'm telling you.

So how did the 1996 comeback come about?

It was completely unexpected. I was going through a very dark phase of my life: in 1990 my first solo record came out (as I told you, I've never liked making solo records, I was always forced into it), and you can hear all the negativity I was carrying in it. It was a financially tough period, I'd gotten married and realized I'd made a mistake, I wasn't the jerk I used to be anymore, I'd become a good person, and when you become good you enjoy more, but you also suffer more. So I started giving guitar lessons and doing other things I hated: once I found myself doing a solo gig, it was a night in March 1996 near Ovada: after a while I ran out of songs to play, so I started telling jokes. At the end of that dreadful evening, while I was coiling up the cables, a guy started taking photos of me. A bit heartened, I asked him: "Hey, why are you taking pictures of me now?" And he said: "Well, seeing Ricky Portera coiling up cables and packing away his own gear, that's not an everyday sight." Honestly, I got tears in my eyes. But then, once I left the venue, while I was on the motorway, I found a voicemail on my phone with a voice saying: "Hi, it's Lucio, your dear friend Lucio Dalla, I'm at Fonoprint, call me, we need to start working together again." I hadn't heard from him in ten years, but it felt like only two days had passed. I couldn't believe it, I called him back right away, he was still in the studio and invited me to Milan for the next day: of course I was already there, and from that moment the collaboration started up again, until other people and other events managed to ruin everything all over again.

What happened?

Another guitarist came in who started stirring up trouble, because in that band the focus wasn't really on the music, it was on securing a place in the sun. Lucio was the type who, if he saw you giving him things, would use you, whereas I always minded my own business. Then there was the involvement of another person who was convinced they were the best of all, and who was bothered that someone else was getting the biggest applause. On top of that, Lucio, at that stage, was going through a really difficult time, with health problems that had tested and weakened him, and that played right into the hands of whoever was putting ideas in his head that shouldn't have been put there. So I got fired without even knowing it, in the sense that I found myself out without anyone telling me anything, and that's the thing that hurt me the most.

Did you manage to say goodbye to him in the end?

Unfortunately, I didn't. And look how strange life can be: before that fateful tour on which he left us, I'd gone to play a show in Siracusa, and on the Sunday evening, while I was heading to catch the plane back to Bologna, I ran into Gionata Colaprisca on the bus, who was his drummer at the time. Being a good Sicilian, he said to me, "Ricky, has Lucio called you? He's been talking about you for two months, saying he needs to call you, that he needs you..." Unfortunately, though, this time Lucio left and never came back.

"Canzoni", the album that brought you back together to play, also features "Ayrton"...

The solo in that song, which I think is one of the finest things I've ever done in my life, was born after an Ac/Dc concert in Bologna. I stopped by the studio around two in the morning to see what the others were up to, and Lucio asked me if I wanted to record my part, so I plugged my black and yellow guitar into the amp and played whatever came to me in the moment. You should know that the producer was Mauro Malavasi, a well-known guitar-hater, and when I asked him to send me the recording so I could work on it, he told me: "Goodnight Ricky, you can go." That solo was never touched again, it was a first-take thing: I started, went all the way to the end, and that's what stayed. I wanted to mention it because that's something I'm proud of: usually you have to work an solo out a bit, but that one just happened like that.

We've talked at length about Lucio Dalla, but only indirectly about Gaetano Curreri. Since I saw he was a guest on this record, and on the previous one too, I said to myself: "So Ricky's going back to Stadio..."

(Here Ricky takes a pause, then bursts out laughing). Ah, look, that could never happen! I'd love to, but they're probably not ready to have me back in the band yet. I scare people a lot, I've scared plenty of artists I've had a few run-ins with because of my exuberance, which tends to steal the audience's attention, and that's why I'm one of the most famous guitarists in Italy, but also one of the poorest.

But when you ask Gaetano to come play with you, he does come, so that must mean things are good between you...

Of course, he was thrilled, so much so that besides the video for "Fottili" with Pino Scotto, I also shot the one with Gaetano for "La tua vita". Things between us are always great, obviously when you get down to the details there might be the odd clash, but I started working with him when I was 13, and if there weren't any conflicts everything would be incredibly static.

Among the many projects you've taken part in, there's one particularly interesting one with Stefano Ianne. Among the fine musicians who took part in it, there's also Nick Beggs, a great bassist who a lot of people initially wrote off because he'd been in Kajagoogoo. But then many people realized his extraordinary talent, and he's worked as a session player on countless records and live shows. What's Nick like?

In that very particular project, which I'd describe as being in the 2000s prog vein, I found myself playing with two madmen, one is Nick and the other is Terl Bryant, John Paul Jones's drummer, who used to call me "Silver Fox" because of my grey hair and because I was always up to something. Nick has this trait of seeming like a completely upstanding person, standing there with his top hat on, his long coat down to his feet, his long bleached-white hair and sunglasses. But then he'd come out with the most insane things: once, at the peak of some rock explosion, he came up to me and licked my ear! Another time Terl shot a video of him in which he was standing in the middle of the street playing the perfect English-man, but at a certain point, as if seized by some fit, he started swaying his hips like he was gay and casually stripping off. He's completely mad: he always keeps up his dandy persona, but he's an absolute loose cannon. Wonderful.

Let's talk about your other collaborations, since you've also played with Ron, with Loredana Bertè, with Eugenio Finardi and many others. Do you have any anecdotes about these musicians too that you can tell me?

Anecdotes? I'd have to stay here a week! Anyway, working with musicians who have different backgrounds and play different kinds of music is definitely something that helps you grow. I can tell you about the time I was on tour with Finardi in Lagonegro, when they had me out and about until seven in the morning because they were looking for a rooster to strangle, since the last time they'd stayed there, the rooster hadn't let them sleep. It felt like being on the set of a horror film, wandering around Lagonegro in the dead of night looking for the rooster to kill: luckily, though, we never found it, otherwise I would have ended up defending that poor little rooster myself.

With Loredana Bertè, once we were in Porto Cervo, we used to hang out at a club called Ritual, and they'd given us two Fiat 500s to get around the island: she used one with the two backing singers, while the five of us squeezed into the other. On the way out of the club, we took the wheels off her 500 and put stones in their place: we stood there waiting for the girls, who, once they got in, started waving at us and revving the engine, except the car obviously stayed exactly where it was. To get her revenge, two nights later Loredana got the master key from the hotel, went into our room, emptied it out and carried all our clothes down to the beach, along with the mattresses and furniture too: when we walked in, the room was completely empty. Those were the customs of the time, when music was made with real enthusiasm and tours were basically one long party.

With De Gregori, in Florence, at the Teatro Tenda in '82, we did three evening shows and one afternoon show: I got booed, because I was a pretty boy and so, apparently, I had no business playing with this prophet of the left, though I called him something else, not exactly a prophet...

Ah, so you don't have a high opinion of De Gregori? And yet he's written some beautiful songs...

Absolutely not. That said, it's true, he wrote some beautiful songs, but we also know of dictators who wrote beautiful poems, without wanting to go any further into that. Anyway, I'm writing my own biography, which should come out, I think, next winter, and it'll be called "There are things che non posso dire", but even there I held back a bit on certain things. As I was saying, during the afternoon show someone in the crowd was throwing beer cans filled with sand at me. Those guys had the bright idea of coming back that evening, but maybe they didn't know that all the circus's roadies worked with us, including a truck driver who was like a gentle giant: well, he managed to spot them, took them outside the tent, and I suppose it wasn't just their urge to throw cans that went away, but also their taste for going to concerts.

You're a guitarist who loves to improvise, but there are some of your colleagues, whom you might even like, such as Steve Vai, who aren't all that into improvising…

Wait a second though, I never said I like Steve Vai. I was offered the chance to play his guitars, which then led, thanks to Mogar, to my own Ibanez model, customized in America to my specifications and promoted by the Japanese. If anything about it recalls Steve Vai, it's only because for a period of my life I dedicated myself to teaching, so I had to have a wide range of guitarists to draw on, but love is another matter entirely, and it goes to other names. As you were saying, I don't like clichés, or anything preset that always stays the same.

On the other hand, one name that all guitarists agree on is Jimi Hendrix.

Jimi Hendrix turned my life upside down, because for the first time I heard something that went beyond the normal way of playing guitar. When I first heard him I was 13, and in that moment he just "got" me, that's all. Then, over time, I tried to analyze why, and I understood that he, like Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher and Eddie Van Halen, who are my idols, are the ones who showed me what lies behind the guitar. The guitar doesn't stop at fingers and brain, it has to go far beyond that, it's something that becomes embodied inside you, and you have to become part of the instrument.

It's a bit like the voice…

Absolutely. Listening to these guitarists I could actually see their lives, really understand how they lived. One evening, on my Facebook page, I posted Eddie Van Halen's "Catherine" and someone asked me why I liked that track. Well, I like it because it's a piece that makes you understand the suffering of whoever's playing it: when Eddie plays "Catherine" he's telling us about his own suffering, and that moved me deeply. Let's not forget that when they asked Steve Lukather (leader of Toto, ed.) who the best guitarist in Los Angeles was, he pointed to Van Halen's house.

"Catherine" is on the soundtrack of a porn film by a highly visionary director in that genre, Michael Ninn…

Yes, the cinematography in that film is really beautiful…

Ha, yes, just that… (and here we both burst out laughing)

But seriously, what Eddie does is rock'n'roll. Every time I go talk to the kids during workshops, I try to make them understand that the first thing you need to be a musician is to play yourself, and that's why the guitar can't just be hands and head. One evening I was at a Frank Gambale seminar that I happened to catch in my hometown, Messina, and two guys came up to me asking for an autograph, both very composed, dressed all fancy, and they told me: "You know Ricky, we've got a band too, we play hardcore". So I looked at them and replied: "Get the hell out of here!". Come on, try picturing Lemmy playing jazz, try to imagine it, and then you'll understand what I mean: everyone has to play the way they live, that's what music is.

I have one last question for you. It's mostly just curiosity, about "Piazza Maggiore", the instrumental track that closes your new album: is it by any chance dedicated to Beppe Maniglia, the busker guitarist who's been performing for years in Bologna in that square?

Ha ha ha! Beppe Maniglia goes around with a motorbike rigged up like a stage, he's almost seventy but he's still got a frightening physique, and he only eats walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds and vegetables, and during his show — between one song and the next — he blows up two hot water bottles, the really hard plastic kind, until they burst.

Anyway, no, "Piazza Maggiore" has a different story behind it. It came about because we played a wonderful concert in that square, organized by Guido Elmi and Vittorio Corbisiero, called "Ultimate World Guitar Exhibition", which brought together everyone from Malmsteen to Stef Burns, from Timo Tolkki to Jennifer Batten, all the way to Doug Aldrich, while the show's opening set was done by me, Maurizio Solieri and Max Cottafavi. So, to avoid always playing covers, in one night I wrote this piece to perform live specifically for that occasion. But I want to tell you another little anecdote about that concert…

Tell me…

That afternoon, before the sound-check, I went to the hotel, which was behind Piazza Maggiore. Walking in, at the reception desk, ahead of me were two old men, one of them wearing glasses as thick as bottle bottoms. I thought to myself: "Look at these two old guys, tonight they're going to die, with the racket we're going to make..." Well, that old man turned out to be Glenn Hughes, who once he got on stage turned the world upside down, giving a concert that brought tears to your eyes.

Thanks to Davide Sechi for his invaluable contribution

(23/07/2014)

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