Bud Spencer Blues Explosion - Blues, grunge, and the desert

Adriano Viterbini and Cesare Petulicchio are two guys from Rome blessed with decidedly uncommon technical skills. Cesare's formidable drumming and Adriano's virtuoso guitar (and voice) are all it takes to build a devastating war machine. A perfect pairing that makes organization easier too, since life as a duo can be simpler: just a glance, a fleeting look, and off they go, no need for too many formalities.

Two-piece line-ups were much reappraised in the 2000s, just think of White Stripes, Black Keys or Kills, to name a few hugely successful examples. The duo's background is rock-blues, ranging from the Delta classics (Robert Johnson above all) to the giants of rock (Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix), all the way to the legends of the Nineties (Kurt Cobain and grunge, Motorpsycho), while always keeping an eye on what's happening closer to home (Verdena first and foremost).

The choice of name is significant, and original too, since it plays on paraphrasing one of the key groups of electric blues-rock from the last twenty years (Blues Explosion led by Jon Spencer), fusing it with the image of a Seventies cinema icon, blending Italy and America right from the initial idea. The musical choices would confirm this fusion of flag and stars-and-stripes too, focusing right away on Italian-language vocals set within typically Anglo-American sounds: Mississippi blues, the psychedelic-tinged blues rock that marked the twilight of the Sixties, and more recent indie rock.

Adriano's guitar is perfect at reproducing that imagery, and he often takes on covers that don't make him look out of place even next to the greatest sacred monsters — just consider how an untouchable like “Voodoo Chile” is handled live.

In spring 2007 the debut album by BSBE is released, titled Happy, a blistering self-produced record containing their first ten compositions, half of which clock in under two minutes.

Happy is an initial experiment in which the duo's intentions are already clear, with a couple of tracks that would establish themselves as their first classics, namely “Fanno meglio” and “Blues di merda”, on which the two playfully declare themselves fans of grunge at the expense of blues and its clichés. They're bluffing big time, but the track instantly becomes a rallying cry among their earliest fans, who quickly start multiplying, especially around Rome, thanks to intense live activity that highlights the impressive power of their sound and their extraordinary skill on their respective instruments.

National recognition isn't long in coming: finalists at the Heineken Jammin' Contest 2007, they perform on the main stage of the Heineken Jammin' Festival in Mestre, winning the award for best band, which earns them a spot at the Open'er Festival in Poland, their first European showcase. It's a dream starting to come true, and the duo believe in it, but they understand that reaching major results requires hard work, so they keep honing their skills, playing non-stop.

2008 is spent performing in clubs across Italy and writing the songs that will make up their self-titled second record, released by Yorpikus and distributed first online, then by Audioglobe, which puts it in stores starting in July 2009, adding the two tracks recorded at the May Day concert in Piazza San Giovanni. On that occasion they delivered one of the most blistering sets of the day, winning the Siae prize in the “Primo Maggio tutto l'anno” competition, “by virtue of the tremendous energy unleashed onstage, combined with the originality and freshness of their artistic proposal.”

Just off the stage of the May Day concert, BSBE fly to the United States for their first overseas tour, with dates in New York and Seattle, chronicled day by day in words and pictures on the “American diary” published on the website of one of Italy's major web portals. From that moment on, their popularity grows steadily, with the best clubs across Italy competing to book them, interviews in major music magazines, and appearances on some of the most important national radio shows. More than once, hosts on air decide to break the rules, turning the usual interviews into genuine mini live-concerts over the radio.

In the songs on Bud Spencer Blues Explosion, entirely different worlds naturally coexist: they move with great command from Led Zeppelin (explicitly paid tribute to on the opener “Mi sento come se”, with a killer riff reminiscent of “Celebration Day”) to Chemical Brothers, covered in their own take on “Hey Boy Hey Girl”, which would quickly become their first big hit, bolstered by a video in heavy rotation on Mtv Brand New. Anyone who, judging by the name, imagines a band with a goofy slant is catapulted into an unexpected world, built on a foundation strongly influenced by blues (“Frigido” and “Blues” are illuminating examples in this sense), onto which, alongside electric vigor (“Good Morning Mike”, “Esci Piano”), solid acoustic ideas and even a few successful electronic detours (“Here I Am”) are grafted.

Post-grunge excitement merges with the visceral pull of the twelve-bar blues and a fundamentally vintage attitude; the result is a sound that harks straight back to the Seventies, but revised and updated to suit today's sensibility: tradition and contemporaneity perfectly fused together. Closing the tracklist is a new version of “Fanno meglio”, already featured on the previous record. The only flaw lies in a handful of overly reassuring ballads (“Qualsiasi qualunque” is the most soporific, “Metereopatia” the least successful) that soften the album's midsection a bit too much, winking excessively at a certain late-teen teen pop.

The summer of 2010 is used to the fullest to continue their live activity and consolidate the band's growing fame: on May Day the duo return to the stage of the big Piazza San Giovanni concert, joining the event's main lineup, and they also take part in major festivals and showcases such as Miami and Italy Wave. Meanwhile, they also devote themselves to top-quality side projects. Cesare plays drums on “Atto terzo”, the excellent second album by Valentina Lupi released in early 2011, while Adriano forms Black Friday with Luca Sapio of Quintorigo, a guitar-and-vocals duo whose debut “Hard Times” tackles blues standards to excellent effect.

Then there are the one-off collaborations, among which at least the hugely successful tour undertaken in autumn 2010 alongside Alessio Bertallot and Saturnino deserves mention, on which occasion B.S.B.E. becomes the acronym for Bertallot Saturnino Blues Explosion.

A few weeks earlier the four of them had gathered at the Officine Meccaniche in Milan to record a storming version of “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”, the modern classic by LCD Soundsystem, a track released online as a free download and accompanied by a video documenting its making-of.

At the end of this adventure, Bud Spencer Blues Explosion go back into the studio to record “Io sono il terribile”, a track that would later be included on the compilation dedicated to the hit TV series “Romanzo criminale”.

On March 14, 2011, a concert at the Circolo degli Artisti in Rome is recorded in its entirety (the audience had already been informed a few days earlier), and parts of it end up on a live EP released on May 6 under the title Slow burn.

The tracklist gathers six explosive tracks (and the word truly fits). After the more than six minutes of the opening “Intro” come five thoroughly wide-ranging covers: an unrecognizable “Killing In The Name” by Rage Against The Machine, a far more faithful “Voodoo Chile” by Jimi Hendrix, a revisiting of Alex Britti's “Esci piano”, “Hommage à Violette Noizeieres” by Area, reinterpreted in a Zeppelin-esque key, and Blind Willie Johnson's anguished blues “Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground”, with slide guitar that goes from faint ember to a full blaze of the soul.

From May to September 2011, Bud Spencer Blues Explosion play over fifty shows across every corner of the peninsula, welcomed everywhere by an increasingly enthusiastic and growing audience, culminating in a show held on September 3rd near Aprilia, where they play in front of around 1,500 people, acting as mentors for some of the best emerging names on the Rome scene, among them Desert Motel and Moseek.

It's the tangible sign that, from aspiring professionals, they have now become a solid point of reference for the new generation of the national scene, who look up to them as an example to follow. And the accolades keep coming: Adriano is named “best live musician of the year” by the Keep On 100% Live showcase.

In the few quiet moments, the two focus on writing tracks for the new album, which, after being postponed several times, is released on November 4, 2011 under the title Do It, as if to underline the urgency to act that has always permeated the two musicians' artistic path. One of Do It's main goals is to carry over onto record all the liberating energy that characterizes the duo's fiery live shows.

The album opens with “Più del minimo”, the exact fulfillment of everything BSBE had promised so far, a devastating electric blues that kicks off like a modern “Immigrant Song” and unfolds showing off the duo's immense technical skill, between Zeppelin-esque riffs and powerhouse drumming. The same attitude is also found in “Giocattoli” (effected vocals and Adriano's blues soul running wild, between languid slide work and massive wild guitars), “Rottami” and “Dio odia i tristi”.

Strip away the modernist drive, and the blues returns to being wonderfully roots-oriented in the reworking of the traditional “Jesus On The Mainline”, previously tackled by Ry Cooder and Aerosmith. Scrape off the blues patina, and what's left is magnificent stadium rock, such as “Squarciagola” and the even sharper “L’onda”, one of the album's most successful moments.

Within the folds of Do It there are also contaminations that hint at interesting future prospects. In this sense, the enjoyable “Skratch Explosion” takes on particular significance, bringing out hip-hop hybridizations thanks to the guest of the moment, DJ Myke; unfortunately it's a burst of energy that doesn't even last a minute, when it would have deserved more weight within the album's overall balance. Other digressions on the theme come through the Rhodes piano that enriches “Cerco il tuo soffio” (the first single) and the easy-pop openness of “Come un mare” (the usual wink at the female audience?).

To close things out, we get a new version of “Hamburger”, already released on “Happy” and always a mainstay of the band's live performances, and “Mi addormenterò”, a seasoned bluesman's interpretation able to update the twelve-bar form once again with a wise pop aftertaste. Once more, emotion and technique chase each other with great balance, in an album that consolidates everything positive that has been said about them over the years. Once again the Bsbe prove they are neither mere collectors nor nostalgic revivalists, but rather among the very few able to handle decades-old musical material and recontextualize it in the new millennium with stunning results. No longer a potential great promise, but confirmation that they have become first-rate stars, among the few in Italy who can boast genuine international appeal, delivering what is so far their best record, the most personal, the most accomplished and complete, the one where Bud Spencer Blues Explosion show the world they have a clear idea of the path they intend to pursue.

On March 25, 2013, Adriano Viterbini releases his solo debut Goldfoil, in which he gives concrete shape to his personal tribute to the roots blues he loves so much. All his innate guitar skills are put to the service of ten compositions steeped in delta blues, roots attitudes, desert visions and even Tuareg suggestions. Everything strictly instrumental, intimate and evocative.

Viterbini is alone with his guitar, except for “New Revolution Of The Innocence”, where the synths of Alessandro Cortini, already a collaborator of Trent Reznor in Nine Inch Nails, make an appearance. A triumph of slide guitar, a parade of assorted virtuosity, a tribute to the roots, in which Adriano once again expresses all his love for stripped-down, minimal blues, a thousand miles away from Bud Spencer's charging arrangements.

In June 2014, BSB3 comes out, once again highlighting the duo's tremendous technical and compositional skills, with Adriano as usual ready to tackle different guitar registers, always winning the challenge: from the crossover viciousness of “Duel” to the Hendrix-like immersions of “Mama” and “Croce”, from the grunged-up rock of “Rubik” to the Tuareg visions of “Camion”, from the Indian flavors found in “No Soul” to the introspective sweetness of “Troppo tardi”. As usual, Cesare matches his movements with precise drumming that can be powerful or delicate as needed. Co-produced by Bud Spencer Blues Explosion and Giacomo Fiorenza, BSB3 is a record of healthy alt-rock, tight and well played, a further piece that will help consolidate the band's credibility and authority.

In October 2015 comes Adriano Viterbini's second solo effort: Film O Sound. The lean, passionate cover of Sam Cooke's “Bring It On Home”, made with Alberto Ferrari of Verdena, is the most anticipated track of the bunch, as well as the only sung piece on the record. Other notable features are evenly spread across the eleven tracks (six originals), a parade of guests among whom stand out the names of Bombino, Fabio Rondanini (the drummer of Calibro 35, currently also in the line-up of Afterhours), Stefano Tavernese, Enzo Pietropaoli and Ramon Caraballo. Adriano says this is the record he himself would want to listen to and buy today, and he made it himself, using as an amplifier the cone of a filmosound (hence the title), a 1940s reel projector that gives exactly the tone he had in mind for the sounds in his head, sounds that read like the account of an ideal journey around the world. His passions are almost all summed up in these grooves: we already knew about the blues and grunge-tinged alternative rock, but here he speaks a more “world” language, with atmospheres borrowed from North African Tuareg culture (transposed into the original tracks “Tubi innocenti” and “Nemi”) or steeped in Spanish-tinged impressions.

The ethnic flavors of “Tunga Magni” (a Boubacar Traoré piece) hint at the roots of what is now skillfully mainstreamed by Tinariwen, the languor of the dreamy “Sleepwalk” lulls us gently, the original jazzy-tinged ballad “Solo perle” drags us down those Tex-Mex paths so reminiscent of Ry Cooder. Rounding out the record are the gripping ethnic jam “Welcome Ada”, the Hawaiian flavors of “Mondo Slack Key”, the wonderfully bare, nocturnal blues for guitar and violin alone of “Bakelite”, the Swahili chant “Malaika”, a famous Kenyan pop song also performed in the past by Miriam Makeba, here enriched by Ramon Caraballo's trumpet. The endless melancholy of “Five Hundred Miles” is the gentle epilogue of a work that definitively establishes Adriano's crystalline talent even among guitar and world-music purists.

In March 2018, after four years of recording silence, Bud Spencer Blues Explosion return with Live Die Blues Repeat, produced by Marco Fasolo of Jennifer Gentle. The friendship binding Adriano Viterbini and Cesare Petulicchio cements a partnership that always finds reason to exist, despite the many commitments of two musicians who have, over time, become among the most in-demand session men, not only within Italy's borders. Viterbini has wrapped up the tour with Nic Cester, who wanted him by his side on the run of dates promoting his solo debut, and is ready to dedicate himself to the duo's official comeback, which brings to fruition a year and a half of work carried out with passion and artisanal rigor. Live Die Blues Repeat opens the door to substantial outside contributions: Umberto Maria Giardini writes as many as four lyrics and sings on three tracks, Davide Toffolo of Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti writes another four lyrics and sings on “Io e il demonio”, an Italian adaptation of the Robert Johnson classic “Me And the Devil”. Toffolo's lyrics lean on slogans, while Giardini's tell stories, contributions that enrich and diversify the menu starting from two alternative perspectives, grafted onto a work that nonetheless remains firmly anchored in blues imagery, not only because of the explicit reference in the title, but by virtue of the mood that characterizes many tracks, such as the measured opener “E tu?” and the following “La donna è blu”.

Elsewhere things veer toward a more conventional alt-rock (“Dove”) or a thoroughly enjoyable indie-pop (“Di fronte a te e di fronte a me”), building boombastically funky passages (“Allacci e sleghi”, “Enduro”, the only lyrics written by Viterbini, together with Diego Giacomazzo) and letting the world influences (which Adriano has accustomed us to, through his many collaborations – Bombino – and his solo records) surface, particularly in the instrumental interlude placed at the center of “Presto sarò chi sono”. The most surprising track is the closer, “Calipso”, a sort of hybrid between Queens Of The Stone Age and Verdena, that hints at possible future scenarios, seeds of novelty within a fundamental continuity with the past. If on one hand Live Die Blues Repeat tones down the explosiveness of their early work, letting emerge a newfound compositional maturity that in some ways softens the songwriting, on the other it strongly confirms the duo's singularity. Something changes, something evolves, but Bud Spencer Blues Explosion remain one of the brightest Italian points of reference in the realm of urban electric blues sounds.

2019 opens with a new project shared between Adriano Viterbini and Calibro 35 and Afterhours drummer Fabio Rondanini. I Hate My Village is the name of the supergroup, whose line-up also features the voice of Alberto Ferrari of Verdena and production by Marco Fasolo of Jennifer Gentle. I Hate My Village is also the title of their album, in stores on January 18, which will be followed in 2021 by the EP Gibbone.

In 2022 comes a new work credited to Viterbini alone, the EP Solitario Solidale, which continues his sonic exploration aimed at transcending any geographical or stylistic boundary. The three tracks took shape out of experiments carried out with his trusted collaborator Marco Fasolo. The self-penned "Trash Of Europe" is the album's most rhythmic track (drums and percussion are played by Corey Wilhelm), through which Adriano brushes up against a tribal psychedelia with an ancestral flavour.

The ritual continues with the evocative "The Homeless Wanderer", a cover of Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru (born 1923), finely rendered through the use of unusual instrumentation, such as the ngoni, a traditional stringed instrument typical of West Africa. "Plain & Sane & Simple Melody", the only sung piece, is also a cover, in this case of Ted Lucas, a Detroit musician who died in 1992 with only one album to his name, but who played guitar, sitar and harmonica on numerous Motown productions in the Seventies.

Solitario Solidale is also a project marked by particular attention to visuals: each track is accompanied by a video, three short films made with the involvement of videomakers Donato Sansone, Dandaddy and Paulonia Zumo.

Another year goes by, and at the end of October 2023 Bud Spencer return as a duo with Next Big Niente, a work in which the ethnic influences distilled from Viterbini's solo experience merge with the usual expertly sandpapered urban blues, and with electronic experimentation pushed further than ever before. Five instrumental tracks, plus five enriched with vocal lines, one of which - "Come un raggio" - features lyrics written for the occasion by Umberto Maria Giardini.

Pleasingly disorienting sounds and alchemies, at times dreamlike, at times cybernetic, which reveal the evident studio research work in pursuit of the most poetic disturbance, the most meaningful frequency, the least predictable groove. A kind of escape room in which the contradictions of our everyday life find their place, acidic world music 2.0 for the new millennium, a universal album and, in its own way, a political one too.

After more than fifteen years of career, Bud Spencer Blues Explosion are a reassuring certainty, continuing to stand out for their virtuosity on their respective instruments and for their technical skill, providing a significant plus to an independent scene that isn't quite as "disposable" as many would have us believe.

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