Alessandro Cortini - Sonoio - Thanks Trent, but now it's my turn

An interview with Romagna-born Alessandro Cortini, who spent four years behind the keyboards of Nine Inch Nails and is now working on his latest project, SONOIO.

"The name is in Italian, SONOIO as in 'Sono Io' [It's Me], a simple statement of fact: this record was created and produced entirely by me. No arrogance intended, I just wanted to highlight the intimacy of solitary work as opposed to the - in some ways stressful - dimension of the rehearsal room." Alessandro Cortini is a 34-year-old musician from Forlì who, ten years ago, decided to head for the Americas and never look back. Behind the fairy tale of the kid with a backpack and guitar seeking his fortune lies a story as simple as it is incredible, made up of choices, sacrifices, coincidences, and run through with a constant passion for music.

1999. Alessandro wants to study guitar in the United States and moves there. The idea is to stay at least a year, "but then I ended up staying because of a series of particular circumstances. I worked as a waiter for a year, then I realized the only path that would get me where I wanted was auditions. My first adventure was with Mayfield Four, an Epic Records band. I played with them for a year: it was my first American family. Then I did other things, and started earning my living working at the Musicians Institute, within KIT (Keyboard Department)."

Then, one day, Alessandro's eye falls on a flyer posted at the Institute: guitarist and keyboardist wanted for a tour with Nine Inch Nails; Trent Reznor, considered one of the most influential figures in America, is looking for new blood to tour the world. It's an opportunity not to be missed: "even though the audition was scheduled for two days later, I threw myself into it, prepared two songs - 'Wish' and 'Closer' - and showed up in front of the drummer and bassist at the time, Jerome Dillon and Jeordie White. The following week I was called back and performed in front of Trent. They then invited me to the studio (Nothing Studios, ed.) to spend a day together, to clear up any remaining doubts. After some time, I got the news that I was in Nine Inch Nails. I remember finding out while I was in the middle of teaching a single student: I took him outside, bought him a coffee, and told him we wouldn't be able to have any more lessons."

The rehearsal period in preparation for the tour was intense and grueling, also because from the very start Alessandro's role wasn't that of a simple session player: "I'll tell you more than that - I felt almost like an actual member of the band. The fact that Nine Inch Nails is split into two entities, one in the studio (which coincides entirely with Trent) and another live one, embodied by four other different personalities, basically let me do what I wanted: I carved out my own individual space within the project." Despite not technically being a keyboardist, Alessandro thus appeared on stage behind a varied and complex array of electronic instruments: "I think they wanted someone with artistic flexibility; with Nine Inch Nails I only used about 5% of my purely technical skills - the hardest work from that point of view was transferring the backing tracks recorded for the previous tour onto the actual instrument. Especially with the older songs, Trent proved to be very open to using new sounds." The pace of the tour was that of one of the biggest rock bands in the world: two months away, a week at home, then off again: "at the start it was thrilling, I won't deny it. It's every musician's dream and I tried to live it properly for at least a couple of months. Then I adapted to sober Trent's pace, also having the immense fortune of working with him in the studio once the first leg of the tour was over." Alessandro is referring to the production of "Ghosts", the unconventional 36-track instrumental album that brought together, under the same roof, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Brian Viglione of Dresden Dolls and Mr. Adrian Belew: "an unforgettable, spectacular experience. Paradoxically, it was that period - so free and creative - that made the following tour weigh on me so heavily; also because part of the band from the 'With Teeth' tour was no longer there. For me, staying on even as I would have been the sole survivor of that lineup would really have been too much." So, the farewell. After exactly four years, Alessandro leaves the band and returns to his own artistic projects and to teaching. His relationship with Trent had a few minor aftershocks: "yes, at first there was a bit of friction, we lost touch for about a year. But recently we've reconnected, especially around my latest work. As soon as I finished it, I sent him a copy right away: not only did Trent like it, he was fantastic in spreading the word. And - easy to imagine - just the fact that he talked about it helped the distribution enormously."

A difficult decision, then, carefully considered, but taken at a crucial moment in Alessandro's life. He picks back up the thread left with Modwheelmood (alongside Pelle Hillström), releasing the beautiful "Pearls To Pigs" (a collection of three previously released EPs), and arrives, over the past year, at work on SONOIO.

The record, released throughout 2010 in various formats (including the brilliant idea of pairing the digipack with a minisynth, "SuONOIO", created by Alessandro specifically for the occasion), is the result of a particularly inspired studio process: "the only limits I set for myself were those of the machines I used (Buchla, ed.). Does the sound seem homogeneous? To me it doesn't: when I'm in front of the instruments I don't know what I want, I might immediately get a clear idea for a track or a four-hour noodling session... I accept whatever comes. It's chain reactions that give birth to the tracks, like a puzzle. That's why I try to work with a fairly limited number of tracks, and above all I force myself to start with the machines before moving on to software." On this point, Alessandro is crystal clear: you learn with the keyboard in front of you. And not so much (or at least, not only) as a matter of a teacher's mindset, but as a genuinely different dimension of creative approach: "when I was lent a real Minimoog, I understood how essential the interface is. The interface is a surplus of creativity! Inspiration necessarily passes through your fingertips, that's how music is born."

In making the record, the exchange of ideas with Jon Bates (Mellowdrone, Big Black Delta) proved especially fruitful: "we've been friends for a long time, and it was he who insisted I include something Italian in what I was doing. We ended up working individually on some tracks and giving each other suggestions." The album nonetheless remains the work of one person, and partly for that reason it's unlikely to be followed by a tour: "I really don't love playing live. It's as if they asked me to take my high school final exam fifty times all over Italy... when I create, I'm satisfied and at peace; that's why once an album is finished, I rarely listen to it again and actually want to start producing something new right away. I think every time you play a track live, it loses something: I realized that very clearly with the Nails." This speed of composition, these feverish creative rhythms, make Alessandro's relationship with any label complicated: "I don't think my timing is compatible with record companies. For me music is therapy: if I can't do things the way I want, I drop everything and go back to being a waiter. Get it?" And in order to manage with SONOIO on his own, Alessandro took a marketing course aimed at reaching the customer (the fan) and made use of the possibilities of web distribution. The plan now is for at least two or three albums a year: "I'll certainly do a few live sets, and for now there's an opening slot for Recoil on the schedule. I couldn't say no to a legend like Alan Wilder. It'll all be very simple though, few instruments on stage, a light lighting setup."

Alessandro is firmly convinced that music's only viable future lies in free digital distribution paired with enhanced physical packaging, and this idea now seems to be taking hold even among the American majors: "a lot of record labels here are adapting; maybe they're not giving the album away for free, but that's the direction things are heading. Today an artist's role has to be very hands-on, across the board: you have to promote your own music yourself, using the tools suited to the audience you want to reach. Try to stay in touch with your listeners as much as possible, building quality connections rather than sheer quantity: paradoxically, you only get artistic freedom by not selling millions of copies. That's why I came up with the idea of pairing the deluxe edition with a synth I built myself, 'SuONOIO'. We need to find the right ways to make the physical format of music appealing again - I really believe in that."

And what about Italy? Will the young man from Romagna with the backpack and guitar ever go back? "I could never do in Italy what I'm doing here, so I've never really thought about it. That's half a lie, though, because I won't hide the fact that I'd like to do something with Italian artists too. Bluvertigo's work thrilled me as a teenager, and it would be great to work with one of them, for instance. But generally I still see Italy, and Forlì especially, as the country that wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do. There's affection for the people I left behind, but also a bit of resentment for not having achieved my dreams there. On the other hand, I'm living proof that if you don't get what you want in one place, you can make it happen somewhere else."

Living proof that building a decent artistic career requires a whole lot of variables and more or less fortunate coincidences to fall into place, but above all it requires the certainty of a constant, mathematical, unavoidable and unconditional pursuit of personal fulfillment, of one's own happiness. "In my case, the whole point was following my own current, letting it take me wherever it led. It's a habit of mine: knowing that if I'm not happy, I can change."

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