Riccardo Zanottifrontman and author of Nuclear Tactical Penguinswas a guest of SPOT – The Podcastthe program that Michele Monina And Massimiliano Longo they record live at Spot Music Fest of Bareggio. A long and personal conversation on the craft of songwriting and on a theme that runs through the entire episode: how to remain yourself when success becomes enormous.
CDs recovered from the garbage
Zanotti's history with music starts from an almost cinematic episode. In Albino, in the province of Bergamo, next to his house there was a large dirt field where the carnies arrived every year. One year they switched from sticks to old CDs, leaving a pile of them near the garbage. The young Riccardo recovered them, and among those records there was a greatest hits of the Queen. It was by listening Noddingwith his sudden flamenco transition, who understood what he wanted to do in life. He wanted the guitar, even though his mother, to exhaust his hyperactivity, put the drums in his hands.
Riccardo Zanotti: Writing and the IKEA effect
Today Zanotti keeps all his ideas in an endless note on his cell phone, words heard on the street, phrases, images from which to start a song. On the method of writing with other artists he talks about a theory that is close to his heart, that of the IKEA effect: when a person participates, even partially, in the construction of something, he attributes greater value to it. This is why today he prefers to write in the studio with the artist present, instead of sending a ready-made song. It is a method that, according to him, makes people responsible and preserves originality, and gives more value to the result because those who sing truly feel it as theirs.
On the relationship between single and album, Zanotti claims his love for the long format: the album is the territory in which he is most comfortable, where there is time to say something with multiple facets, while the single is the first hammer blow, the most immediate and universal language.
Stage fright and impostor syndrome
Despite the stages, Zanotti lives with constant conflict. He was born a guitarist, not a singer, and joined the Penguins as a drummer, before finding himself singing. The performance makes him anxious, and the impostor syndrome always accompanies him. He's worked hard to learn to sing as best he can, he says, but his true calling remains songwriting. In the studio, however, he is simply happy.
Covid told by those who were at the epicentre
An important passage concerns the lockdown period, fully experienced in the Bergamo area, among the most affected. For the band it was not only a professional issue, with the tour just announced and everything on hold, but above all a personal and collective wound. In that period the Penguins chose not to stand still and to continue releasing music, while almost no one really talked about that moment. Zanotti reflects on the fact that often such an all-encompassing experience is not narrated precisely because it becomes a taboo, something too big and cumbersome to face directly, like the air that surrounds us and which we never think about.
Continuity and discontinuity: where the Nuclear Tactical Penguins are going
When asked where the band is going, Zanotti responds with an image: a career is made of continuity and discontinuity, like an elastic band. You have to be continuous enough to retain a recognizable audience, and discontinuous enough to create that thrill of novelty. He mentions the choice to publish ballads, which they didn't want to do and which instead became a signature, and admires the courage of those who, like Francesca Michielinradically changes direction. However, he recognizes that for a band, having to come to an agreement, it is more difficult to transgress the boundaries of what one is.
The fear of becoming bourgeois and the lesson of Max Pezzali
The heart of the episode is the fear of losing contact with normality. Zanotti talks about the fear of becoming bourgeois, of ceasing to be able to tell an us when one ends up in a position of privilege. His point of reference is Max Pezzalidescribed as someone who literally remained his songs, still living as when he was born. To keep their feet on the ground, the Penguins impose small rules on themselves even on tour, from the single van for everyone to the canteen shared with the crew. The sentence that closes the reasoning is clear: he has never flown on a private jet, and he never will.
Having recently become a father, Zanotti finally talks about the awareness that one day his son will listen to his songs, and the difficulty of writing a song for him without falling into something already done. After all, he admits, a perfect song on that theme already exists, and it exists You will have Of Claudio Baglioni.
