Sheet Music - History and Autobiography in Music

After an album, an EP and intense live activity, the partnership between Max Collini and Jukka Reverberi has kept solidifying. What many had taken for an occasional side project is instead slowly becoming a decidedly non-secondary chapter in the artistic paths of the former “ideologist” of Offlaga Disco Pax and the guitarist of Giardini di Mirò.

Here's an account of a very enjoyable chat with Max, held the day after the release of “Servizio d’ordine”, the second work released under the “Sheet Music” name. Serious and ironic topics followed one another, as could hardly be otherwise when you're talking to someone so sharp and forthcoming.

The first experiments between me and Jukka Reverberi date back about ten years, but they were small, almost improvised performances, sporadic and quite spread out over time. It was only at the end of 2013 that we decided to move to more structured songwriting and give more stability to our project. That's also when we chose the name “Sheet Music”. It's a fairly ironic name, since we came from complete improvisation and ended up naming ourselves after the fixed, defined notation on the musical staff. Exactly the opposite of how we often turn out to be…

Sheet Music started before the Offlaga Disco Pax experience came to its dramatic end (you already told me about it in a previous interview we did, in Latina during the “Prototipo Tour”), but it only took shape on record later on…

When Jukka and I decided to put our work on a more stable footing, Offlaga Disco Pax still existed, but they were on hiatus and broke up a few months later. At first, though, both of us experienced our collaboration as a kind of small holiday from our commitments to our respective bands. The tragedy that put an end to Offlaga Disco Pax, however, unfortunately forced choices on me that I would never have wanted to make. Almost overnight, "Sheet Music" became my way of moving forward, of not giving up, and I have to thank Jukka for supporting me through a truly difficult period, in which the only other option would have been to simply stop. Today Spartiti has become my main artistic occupation. It wasn't a given, nor was it predictable, and maybe things wouldn't have turned out this way — but who can say?

When we played our first show with Offlaga Disco Pax I was 36, the age at which many people quit, certainly not the age at which you usually start out. That said, I've never really led a band — I don't have much of an aptitude for giving orders, nor do I wear the leader's clothes well. I know that from the outside it might look different, but both with Offlaga Disco Pax and now with Sheet Music, the way things worked, and still work, has always been more about consensus than command. Every story has its own dynamics, and today's are different from yesterday's, but I've always had the feeling of dealing with something closer to the pure proportional system of Italy's First Republic than the hardline majoritarian logic of the Renzi era. In any case, I dare you to make Jukka Reverberi do something he doesn't already want to do. It's impossible, trust me.

Two years ago, to mark the tenth anniversary of the release of Offlaga Disco Pax's debut album, "Socialismo Tascabile", we reissued it as a "celebratory box set", complete with a poster, unreleased tracks and all the usual trimmings you put together to honor something you consider to have mattered, at least to us. The 500 copies of the box set sold out within days, all on pre-order. Our three albums have been genuinely loved by the people who followed us over the years. It was certainly never a mass audience, but one that was completely in tune with our work on sound and with our particular language. The artistic legacy is the love I felt for years for what we did — an almost religious esteem, attachment and respect for those records, those sounds, those contents. It's a privilege I never thought I'd have, to have left something of ours with so many people, and it's an unspeakable pain not to be able to share it anymore with the person who, together with me and Daniele Carretti, walked that unrepeatable path.

Both you and Emidio Clementi have embarked on well-regarded musical projects with a member of Giardini di Mirò (you with Jukka Reverberi, Emidio with Corrado Nuccini): curious, isn't it?

A curious coincidence, certainly, but I claim seniority: Jukka and I started our first work together back in 2007. Along the way, this chain of events also gave me the chance to collaborate with the full Giardini di Mirò lineup, on the show "Settant'anni, qualche mese, alcuni giorni", dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of the Liberation from Nazi-Fascism, presented on April 25, 2015 in Correggio, twenty years after the original "Materiale Resistente". We then did two more shows in Milan and Genoa, and it was an enormous honor for me to be able to engage with such a special band on such an important subject. I think it was one of the finest experiences of my artistic life.

On your recent EP "Order service", you continue to offer a balanced mix of "historical" narratives and autobiographical ones. How do you choose other people's writings to have your travelling companion Jukka Reverberi set to music? Are you struck by the stories themselves, or do you also pay attention to the musicality of the text?

I only choose things that strike me deeply, that I feel are mine, that I wish I'd written myself, that I think I can convey to an audience as if they came from me. At best it's a mechanism of identification; at worst, of outright appropriation. The story I want to tell, or that's been told to me, always comes first. My main task is to interpret the text so as to make it as effective as possible through music, especially when the words aren't my own. I hope, at least in part, that I've managed to do that.

Let's dwell on the highly enjoyable stories you present as autobiographical: did they really happen, are they fictional tales in which you're the protagonist, or are they a mix of reality and imagination?

It's almost always all true. At most I push certain details to the extreme to make things even funnier and more surreal, but I don't invent anything, almost never. I've had a fairly curious life, full of unexpected things, even though I've never really moved away from Reggio Emilia, except for the odd short holiday. Or maybe I've simply managed to make personal events, which should have been of little interest to the rest of the world, seem more epic than they actually were.

Does it ever happen that someone recognizes themselves among the characters you mention and gets in touch with you?

The people I'm still in touch with obviously recognize themselves, and so far I've always gotten away with it. With people I haven't had anything to do with for ages, I just hope that the small amount of fame I enjoy never reaches them. So far, no lawsuits, no threats, no reprimands. Still, the fact remains that in life you pay dearly. You pay for everything. Maybe not directly, and not as some kind of poetic justice, but the bill always comes.

Do you like the definition of "novel to listen to" that we used in our feature on "Order service"?

I realize that what we do as Sheet Music isn't easy to define, but the substance of it is that we love telling stories by immersing them in a sonic fabric that isn't exactly traditional, nor merely accompaniment. In the end, to us, they're songs, even if not always strictly conventional ones. "Novels in the form of a song" or "songs in the form of a novel" — I like that idea. Maybe one day I'll actually go and write that blessed novel for real.

In my opinion, Sheet Music has been the best way to carry forward an idea of socio-politicized narrative of which Offlaga Disco Pax were, in recent times, the most brilliant, significant and successful expression. Do you recognize yourself in this analysis?

My way of telling stories has to reckon with both the music and the content, but the voice is the same, that's inevitable. Jukka Reverberi's sonic world is really different from that of Offlaga Disco Pax, fortunately I'd say, so I think the end result is different too, containing certainly some affinities, but at the same time just as many, if not more, divergences. In general I prefer to think in terms of discontinuities rather than imagine a linear path, but obviously that judgment is up to the listeners more than to us. I put my whole self into Offlaga just as I put my whole self into Sheet Music today, that's the only thing I feel I can claim about two stories that I don't perceive as overlapping.

Some of your arrangements move through post-rock territory, others wink at a certain strain of electronic music. Do you decide on them by mutual agreement, developing a musical research path together, or do you leave Jukka free rein on what to do?

The roles between us in Sheet Music are, precisely, "scored" [spartiti]. Each of us enjoys broad freedom in his own area. We know each other well, we almost always know right away what we will or won't like from the other, and the level of internal conflict has certainly always stayed very low. We're both willing to listen to each other and over time we've also become friends, which all things considered should help in working together.

On the Ep's last track you pay a heartfelt tribute to "Qualcosa sulla vita" by Massimo Volume. A circle closing?

We have no way of doing traditional covers, since I'm a singer who doesn't sing, but soon we'll surprise you with new special effects on that front. "Qualcosa sulla vita" is a song we both love enormously and in which we both recognize ourselves, and both lyrics and music are on a level unreachable for pretty much all of us mere mortals. "Tribute" is the right word. We preferred to release a live version, even if imperfect, rather than record the track in the studio. A respectful tribute, with no ambition beyond that. It's closed our shows for a long time now and we still haven't grown tired of playing it. There must be a reason.

Speaking of Massimo Volume: at one point Emidio Clementi called in Manuel Agnelli to produce "Club Privé", and tried to sing. Do you think that was a mistake or a brave experiment? Would you do it, or would you not feel comfortable?

A couple of years ago, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the release of "Epica Etica Etnica Pathos" by CCCP, Zamboni, Magnelli, Canali and Maroccolo, that is, the "post-CSI" crew, invited me – along with other guests – to sing for them at the Leopolda (!) in Florence, at the concert celebrating the anniversary, later repeated in Rome at the Auditorium a few months after. I sang, in the true sense of the word, a duet with Dario Brunori on "Aghia Sophia" and then, solo, "Campestre". There were two thousand people and I was, genuinely, very scared. All things considered I came out of it alive, so never say never, but to say I felt comfortable would be too much. Maybe it's because I almost never feel comfortable on stage. I think Emidio Clementi may have felt more or less the same sensations I did, both singing on that record of his and then playing those songs live, the sensations you feel when you're doing something that isn't in your nature, but that you still want to take on. Every now and then it's nice to do it, but with the awareness that your main job remains something else.

Speaking of Agnelli: I'd like to know your opinion on his role as a judge on the talent show X-Factor.

I couldn't give a damn about X-Factor, but I've always said and thought he was right to go on it. It seems to me he handled it very well and that in the end on TV we saw the same Manuel Agnelli we've come to know elsewhere, no more, no less. Strengths and flaws, like everyone, and without too many filters. Honestly, I expected worse.

After the success achieved by Massimo Volume and Offlaga Disco Pax, a lot of new bands have thrown themselves into the field of spoken-word delivery, not always with good results. But there's been some good stuff too, like the early releases by Management del Dolore Post Operatorio. Do you feel like you in some way lit the fuse?

I couldn't say, but if for someone Offlaga Disco Pax were a source of inspiration, or a motivation to start their own story, I can only be extremely proud of that.

What music has been spinning in your CD player these past few months?

I'm a man with his obsessions, like many others I suppose. The one from these last few months is called Francesco Motta.

And what does Jukka prefer to listen to instead?

Jukka is an explorer of sound, he listens to things often unknown to most people, and he has an admirable curiosity and devotion to music. Soundtracks, ambient and experimentalism of various kinds and origins are, I'd say, his main preferences. In general he listens to few Italian things, unlike me. Sheet Music, as always, even in this.

Are there any emerging Italian bands you're following with particular curiosity?

I've been an admirer of Be Forest for quite a while now, but my favourite of recent times is, as I said, Motta.

Let's change subject. A look at the Italian political situation: how are things looking?

Around here we say "like three people on one chair".

A couple of words on Trump and Brexit?

No, thanks.

At this point, what does the crystal ball say under "Future"? How do you think the Sheet Music experience might continue?

After the end of the "Order service tour" I think we'll take a bit of a break, but only to recharge our batteries and inspiration. Where that will lead us, right now I really couldn't say.

Besides the path shared with Jukka, what are you working on? Do you have other projects in the works?

I should write this blessed novel, but I'm lazy and I fear it will never happen, despite Jukka's urging. In fact, these very days I'm discussing a truly spectacular proposal, but I can't reveal anything yet. If it goes through, you'll hear about it. If it does, it should be scheduled for next autumn. Let's hope for the best...

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