Staggerman - Snapshots for lonely cowboys

He's the man who staggers, the cowboy you don't expect. He goes by the name Staggerman, born Matteo Crema. He hails from Lake Iseo, but his songs border directly on the America of Wilco and Eels. On the occasion of the release of his second album "Don’t Be Afraid & Trust Me", Matteo Crema tells us, with passion and modesty, the story of the man called Staggerman.

To start off, could you tell us something about the beginnings of your musical journey? When and how did you realize you wanted to become a musician?

It was 1993/94, the year Nirvana were at the peak of their success, and you could almost physically feel that the air was changing... I was about thirteen and needed to find something important, engaging and demanding to justify my poor grades at school. I took my first guitar course at my town's public library, and I immediately understood I would never stop playing, thinking about music, and chasing the (for many, immature) desire to be a musician for the rest of my life. In short, music and playing became as necessary to me as oxygen.

How would you describe the local music scene you grew up in?

From the late Eighties through to the 2000s, my area was a pretty prolific breeding ground for bands and, above all, live music events. Too bad it all stayed confined to the area around Lake Iseo — I very rarely saw local artists or bands cross those local borders.

Either way, I consider myself lucky, because it was precisely in that context that I found the chance to test myself and grow musically alongside other musicians. Unfortunately, only a few of those scenes survive now, and the average listener would rather go to the summer festival featuring tribute bands than to a show with original material.

Satisfy our curiosity: where does the name Staggerman come from?

I don't remember exactly how it came to me, but the verb "to stagger" means both to totter, i.e. not walking in a straight line, and to astonish… it seemed fitting for someone trying to make music in an extremely serious way, while at the same time trying not to take himself too seriously.

The title of your debut album, "Tiny, Tiny, Tiny", sounds a bit like a statement of humility (an increasingly rare quality these days, especially in the indie world…). Was that your intention? And do you think there's still room today for simplicity as a means of expression?

All things considered, yes. With "Tiny, Tiny, Tiny" it was the first time I'd tried my hand at writing songs, and especially lyrics, so I wanted to make clear I had no pretensions of being seen as an already-mature songwriter. That's also where the title of the second record comes from: "Don't Be Afraid & Trust Me" is a kind of appeal to the listener… In other words, if you listened to and liked my first record, try listening to this one too. It's the same author, just trying to follow a path where he strives to improve each time: give him your trust.

As for simplicity, I personally set it against a very Italian tendency to look more at a single musician's technical skill than at the final result, which is, after all, the song. So, to put it simply (pun intended), it seems to me that people much prefer style over substance. They're impressed by a singer's voice but don't listen to what he's actually singing; they admire an instrumentalist's virtuosity but don't listen to whether what he's playing is actually serving the song or just ruining it. As I see it, a musician should always strive to surpass himself, but should never forget that his ultimate goal is the song, not his own virtuosic self-indulgence.

Work on the new album, "Don't Be Afraid & Trust Me", took shape across different places and times, as you also tell in the video included with the album. What was the recording process like?

The idea of recording in different places came from the sound engineer, and co-producer of the record alongside me, as well as a longtime friend, Ronnie Amighetti. I told him that three different drummers would be featured on the record and that we'd do three separate recording sessions. He jumped at the idea (maybe he was a bit tired of always being stuck in the studio) and suggested finding three different places to record in.

The first session took place at the home of Beppe Facchetti, a renowned and talented drummer from Brescia who agreed to record a few tracks as a favor to a friend.

The second was done at the home of Gian Paolo "Pega" Pegurri (another friend and invaluable collaborator of Staggerman: he's the one who desperately tries to land gigs for the band and who does his best to keep me on track whenever I try to dodge my musical duties. All things considered, he's the one who takes the doors slammed in his face on my behalf, and the figure closest to a manager) who made the two floors of his home available so we could record live the part of the album played by the band I also perform with on stage (Guglielmo Scarsi on keyboards, Lorenzo Colosio on drums and Salvatore Lentini on bass).

Finally, we went into the studio (Diesel 24062) to record the drums played by Fabrizio Finamore and to do the necessary overdubs.

Compared to the previous album, your songs sound like a more personal, more intimate reflection, but they also show a broader sonic range. What difference do you feel compared to your debut record?

Maybe the difference lies in the fact that I'm starting to believe more in what I'm doing. The first one can be seen as a playful experiment; now I'm working on being more confident in myself and, as a result, more intimate in what I write. I try to make an effort to really know what I'm singing about, rather than simply reciting from memory something I wrote some time before.

More than once, the landscapes of your homeland seem to surface between the lines of "Don't Be Afraid & Trust Me". What connection do you have with the places you come from? Do you think those landscapes have an influence on your music?

They definitely contribute to giving my music that country tinge you can hear on both my records… But maybe that's just a suggestion of mine. I like comparing the place I live in to the American countryside.

I think it's natural to be influenced by your own surroundings: maybe if I lived in a city I'd be shaped more by skyscrapers than by the lake.

What's the ideal moment or place for you to write a song?

Usually at home, and when I'm alone. I generally carry a basic idea around with me (a riff, a phrase, a melody) for a long time, then eventually the epiphany hits and I get it all down in one go. I think that's more or less how a lot of other people write too. I'd just like to be less lazy and a lot more prolific.

The artwork for the new album comes from some of your own drawings. How did that idea come about?

They're sketches I made four or five years ago while I was sitting around waiting for the aforementioned epiphany. Needless to say, nothing came of it at the time, but years later I found the drawing fit perfectly with a lot of what I'd written for this latest album.

How do you experience your relationship with live performance?

It's always a mix of conflicting feelings: at first I don't really feel like performing, I can't wait for it to start so I can get out of there as quickly as possible… Then we start playing, I open my mouth at the microphone and feel like an idiot, but right away something happens. The three guys I'm playing with aren't there by chance, and I know they're holding things together, so I try to give as much as I can to them and to the audience in front of us. But by the time all this happens, we've almost reached the end of the set, and I find myself wound up like a spring, ready to keep going for another two hours… Too bad the limited number of songs we have doesn't allow it, so we say goodbye and all go off for a drink, slapping each other on the back because “it wasn't as bad as we thought.” And in the end, out of the six people who came to listen to us, two even bought the record.

What kind of reception do you find in Italy for music with such an intimately American feel as yours? Do you ever feel that writing in English limits your ability to express yourself directly and without mediation in your songs?

On the occasions when I do get to play, I have to say the reception, though always limited to a small number of people, is generally pretty good… Too bad it's practically impossible to actually play live.

As for English, well, I use it because it feels like a more direct language, so it lets me pass off even not-so-illuminating things as credible.

Last year you took part in the volume of our OndaDrops project devoted to the “outlaw country” scene, with a cover of the classic “Summer Wine” as a duet with Laura Lalla Domeneghini. In your view, what does it take to truly make someone else's song your own?

You have to think of it as if it were yours, without asking yourself too many questions about what the person who actually wrote it had in mind… I know that doing this risks, in other people's eyes, giving less credit to the original author, but it's absolutely not a lack of respect—if anything, it's a way of getting closer, by chance, to the feelings experienced by whoever wrote it.

An album that changed your life (and why).

There are many, from different periods of my life. Just to name a few, I could mention everything from “Green Mind” by Dinosaur Jr. to “Unknown Pleasures” by Joy Division, from “No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave to “A Ghost Is Born” by Wilco, from “Déjà Vu” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to “Welcome To Sky Valley” by Kyuss, from “Cure For Pain” by Morphine to “Till The Sun Turns Black” by Ray LaMontagne… and many, many others.

The reason? Because there was something in there that I was looking for and hadn't managed to find anywhere else.

After the release of the new album, what are your plans for the future?

Trying to play live as much as possible.

Ride the wave of great music

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Gabriele Benzing, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition