Uzeda - The standard-bearers of Ital-noise

The first Italians to sign to a US label, the first Italians to be guests on the John Peel Sessions, the first Italians to play at the prestigious All Tomorrow's Parties festival.

On the occasion of the release of their new work, "Stella", we managed to have a chat with Giovanna Cacciola, the band's lead singer.

Oh Giovanna, I'm so happy to talk to you. I got to know you watching "Indies" on TV and I've followed you ever since.

Wow, that's quite a while ago! (we're talking about the early Nineties).

Yeah, exactly. In fact, the moment I found out "Stella" was coming out, I could hardly believe it. You made us wait eight incredibly long years. Eight years is a lot!

Yes, eight years is a lot. There was a biological pause, (she smiles) in the sense that we really needed to get some distance from each other: we'd played together, shared so much time over the last twelve years, so we felt the need to step back for a while. Everything was too close, too shared. We preferred to stop and let time tell us when it was the moment to start again.

So you never thought about breaking up.

(very firmly) No, never. Never thought it, never said it. Many times, even when we started the Bellini adventure (Giovanna and Agostino Tilotta's side project) and even after a while of not doing anything, when people asked us if we'd split up, we'd answer: "No, we're just on pause." We never broke up. In fact, when we started again, it felt very natural because there had never been a breakup.

"Stella" came out for the foreign market just over a month ago. Is it too early to know how it's doing?

They usually give us a report after six months, but I can tell you what the feedback was in the United States with the tour, and it was great. I think it's going quite well also because at the Touch & Go festival (organized for the label's twenty-fifth anniversary) we got a very strong response to the album too.

I don't know about Italy, because the album just came out.

We're happy either way because we like what we've done. If other people like it too, we're even happier. If they don't like it, obviously there's nothing we can do, no way to force it or make anyone like it.

That brings me to my next question: what does it feel like to be better known abroad than at home?

Hmm... I don't know? (smiles) I don't know if we're better known abroad than in Italy.

The United States is certainly a very large country, and proportionally, maybe, we're better known there than here, but I couldn't really say. Honestly, I have no real sense of where we're better known, also because, up until our last shows in Italy, we were getting a good response, people were showing up.

Sure, it's a strange feeling to arrive somewhere and see that people know us even though we've never played there before. That, yes, that does feel good, obviously, and it makes us think.

I'll tell you, I got back from Tokyo a couple of weeks ago, and the first record I saw walking into Disk Union was “Stella”.

Look, Japan was the big surprise I was telling you about: seeing people come to Bellini's shows who already knew the album, knew the band and the music, was astonishing to us. But that's not all! They'd bring along Uzeda records too, so it was even more surprising to us because it was completely unexpected! Since we're also involved in other projects, we often have no idea whether we're known in a given place or not.

Let's go back to the Touch & Go festival. I wonder if there's a kind of curiosity on the part of American artists toward an Italian band that nonetheless has a very international sound.

I believe music has no borders, and once you use a musical language that originates somewhere and it spreads elsewhere, anyone can make it their own and use it however they like. I don't think there are huge differences, especially when you're focused on doing what you want, on expressing what you want to express, full stop.

I don't know if we're an international band. We're a band that makes electric music, like so many other bands on the face of the Earth. I don't think there are borders anymore, especially if you don't put them there yourself, in your own head.

So that press coverage which, referring to Italian bands finding success abroad – like Zu , Disco Drive , Yuppie Flu , Julie’s Haircut – talks about a “new Italian indie scene”, makes you laugh out loud.

Labels or definitions are often handed out, I realize, to simplify things, to explain a bit what it's about, but they often end up being a limitation for the people listening to the music, and readers end up more confused than anything. Then, rather than actually being interested in seeing the band live – where you can really understand what a band does and whether you're interested in following what they do – people end up stuck behind the lines, behind what they've read or heard, just because a label was slapped on that maybe doesn't match the intentions of the people playing, which are, instead, the intentions that matter most.

I believe all these bands are working hard to develop their own musical intentions, and everyone is putting a huge amount of energy and commitment into it.

We all live in Italy, so of course we're Italian, but talking about an “Italian indie scene” complicates things enormously, in my opinion: it creates confusion and might not even do listeners any favours.

Let's go back to Uzeda. In twenty years of career, how have you managed to keep such a recognizable sound, never letting yourselves be influenced by other genres or trends?

Well, look, we're not kids, and we weren't even when we started out – we were already mature people. Now even more so, obviously, and... it's not that we don't get influenced, it's that we have so little time to devote to what we love that there's simply no time for it: there's only commitment, willingness, desire, and if we don't do what satisfies us, we're not happy. When we play together we're more busy, or preoccupied, with each of us expressing what he or she wants, rather than talking things over and agreeing on which trend to follow, which line, which fashion. There's no time for that; it's a much more practical thing than something thought out or deliberated.

Well, but you know, maybe it's not something conscious – I didn't mean to imply that I imagined Uzeda wondering what would be convenient to play. I was thinking it's natural to be influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by what you listen to.

So many things influence us unconsciously! Each of us follows and loves different things, each of us is more interested in some things than others, and as a result we're influenced by them, and I'm sure that maybe we don't even realize it, but listeners can pick up on nuances or hints that remind them of other things. We've never thought about following one trend rather than another, also because, as I was telling you, since we're not kids, we'd feel ridiculous doing that.

But... after twenty years, is it natural for Uzeda to still have such an angry sound?

And how could we not be?

Well, you know... oh dear, it's awkward to put it this way, but as you grow older you tend to have a calmer attitude.

But in a certain sense, we are calmer! Even musically: we think this record is quieter than the others, in certain respects, in certain nuances, but we're not living in times where we feel less angry about so many things. The fact that we've gotten used to it, or accepted living alongside these difficulties, hasn't yet taken away our desire to say that these are conditions we don't like. That we don't like, that we don't want for our children or our younger siblings. Each of us still feels, inside, the need to express this. Certainly with more depth than before, but we still don't feel we can calmly accept what made us furious in the past and still makes us furious today. Keep in mind too that if things are hard in Italy, here in Sicily they're often impossible.

“Stella”. Your first title in Italian.

(smiles) It's because we like this word. Because “stella” means so many things. Because it's understood as a female name, the same way it is in English.

Given the large number of people of Mexican descent in the United States, “stella” is a very well-known word precisely as a female name, so you often find yourself having to explain what “stella” means.

While we were writing the songs for this record, one of the topics that kept coming up between us was, precisely, desire, dreaming, still being able to look up at the sky in wonder, and that's where the idea for “Stella” came from, and all four of us were really excited when we decided to call the new record “Stella”.

Great. That brings us to the obvious question. It's obvious for you, sure, but it's obvious for me too, since I happen to ask it every now and then, though I can assure you the answers I get are all different.

Why do you sing in English?

Look… um… yes, I've always been asked this question. The answer is extremely simple, (smiles) maybe even more banal than the question itself: because it's much easier to use a language that's far more pliable than Italian — like English — to follow irregular musical phrasing.

That's the reason. After all these years it's even easier: with a very short phrase you can say so many things that in Italian would take up a lot more space. I'm just not able to do it in Italian; very humbly, I simply can't manage it. Other bands, other people, write in Italian, they're capable of it. I can't, so I keep doing what I feel most able to do, rather than doing other things badly just because that's what people expect, thinking it should be done a different way.

You did, however, write some songs in Italian for another project, if I'm not mistaken.

Nnno… write… wait, let me think… I've sung songs in Italian: partly for fun, partly because they were part of a German project, I sang three songs in Italian and recorded something in collaboration with Cinzia La Fauci (singer of Maisie and co-founder of the Snowdonia label, ed.), but write in Italian… write… write, I really don't think so, I've never written in Italian.

Then again, it doesn't mean I won't manage it in the future. For now (smiles) I can't.

Very good. Now that we've got the banal question out of the way, it's time for the nasty one.

Objectively speaking, how much did big names like Steve Albini and John Peel matter to the band's visibility?

They mattered because a lot of people need credentials before they'll listen to a band they've never heard of.

Then, obviously, if what you're hearing doesn't win you over, it just doesn't win you over, full stop.

I think the people who come to our shows… I think they've gradually gotten used to Uzeda and become interested in them precisely by coming to the concerts.

Listen, satisfy my curiosity: can you tell me how Steve Albini and John Peel found out about the band?

Albini, look, quite simply: like every band on Earth, we sent him a demo saying: "These are our songs. We'd love it if you recorded them." And he replied: "Fine, I like them. I'll record them. Where and when?". We told him: "Here in Sicily, because it's cheaper for us". He came down to Sicily and recorded our second album, which wasn't on Touch & Go yet at the time.

And that's how our friendship began, as well as our collaboration.

With Peel it was a bit different: Emma Anderson of Lush, with whom we'd toured Italy, played our record for John Peel and he liked it. Then came the request to do the first, and later the second, Peel Session.

Simple as that.

Things unfolded in a pretty ordinary, unremarkable way.

We were very surprised when we were invited to do the Peel Session, but even more so when they decided to put it out on record. That, yes, that really moved us, because it came, among other things, at a time when we couldn't find a label willing to put our records out in Italy. For us it truly was a moving moment: finally there was someone willing to release what we were doing.

Actually, we never met him in person — we left each other little notes here and there, but we never, ever met face to face. I have a great regret about that, because when we went to All Tomorrow's Parties in 2004, he walked right past me and I was tempted to call out to him, but since I'm notoriously, sadly, very shy, I didn't do it: he'd just finished his DJ set and I didn't want to bother him. Unfortunately I had no way of knowing that, shortly after, there would never again be a chance for us to meet and get to know each other.

Two last questions.

The first one, quick: will you be touring?

I really hope so, very soon. Late November, early December, I think. If everything goes smoothly, that's how it should be.

And the very last one. I heard a rumour that you were the ones who founded Indigena Booking.

Yes. When we decided to commit to doing what we actually wanted, rather than whatever might be profitable or get quick results, we were, alas, forced to also get a day job to make a living. We chose occupations that would leave us as much free time as possible to go around and play. Some people chose to become teachers, some opened a business with a sibling so they'd be free to move around whenever they wanted — and that's what we did too (Giovanna and Agostino): we thought we'd put to use, for the benefit of all the bands that were maybe unknown and struggling to get gigs in Italy, the little experience we'd gained organising concerts for Uzeda. That's how the story of Indigena began, which is also a shop selling records and vintage instruments. A bit of everything, really — we scrape together all sorts of things to make ends meet, that's the truth of it.

Is it difficult to organise concerts for bands that are melodically not very accessible?

Yes, it's extremely difficult, and I have to say that, in Italy, the involvement of a lot of promoters and venues who championed the cause was essential. Interzona in Verona was a reference point for everyone who started doing this work before us, alongside us and after us, and we really hope it soon becomes part of the Italian live scene again. Alongside them, of course, there were plenty of other venues in Italy too: Covo, Link, Leoncavallo, Hiroshima and many, many others that aren't coming to mind right now.

The conversation ends with the usual thank-yous, and Giovanna wishes me well and hopes I'll always manage to do whatever my heart desires. I'm moved.

(28 September 2006)

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