The appointment is on Skype. Cristiano De André smiles from his home in Sardinia, talks about his new life, how much he likes living and breathing the sea. Today, July 13, the De André #DeAndré – Best of Live Tour starts from Termoli, the concert in which he reinterprets the most famous songs of his father Fabrizio to keep his memory alive and maybe light up the eyes of the kids. The tour will continue throughout the summer with a finale in Brescia on September 7.
Cristiano is an artist to know, listen to again, re-evaluate. It is true, Fabrizio De André has created immortal, lucid, sharp pieces, capable of instilling doubts and igniting (even today) debates. Cristiano has demonstrated over the years that he is not just a “son of”, but that he has a compositional sensitivity and that of a true musician. Examples of this are albums like Songs with a long nose or Superstitious. He is a man who has punched life, sometimes he has won, sometimes he has been knocked out, but he has always gotten back up, getting back into the game and thinking about the future.
You come back with a tour where you sing Fabrizio De André's songs. Why are those songs still important today?
His words can make you a better person, they fall from a magic wand like fireflies that envelop and illuminate, they show hypocrisies and make us more human.
How much hypocrisy have you found in your life?
Everywhere, all the time, from politics to social issues. Even in those who fill their mouths with my father's words and then don't put them into practice, one thing bothered him in the last period.
Oh yes?
He used to say: “I've been writing against wars and in favor of minorities, the underprivileged for 30 years, but nothing has changed.” How can you blame him? His songs always sell out, but you can't go home after listening to them and not put them into practice. We're always looking for someone to change things for us, but we also have to do something, in our own small way, to improve the world. It's an important aspect that shouldn't be underestimated. You can't just be on the side of words.
What is his most current song today?
Piero's War. It is the absurd and ruthless mechanism of war. The doubt that this boy has about shooting another boy in a different uniform. That is the doubt that we must come to and find a way to remove the conflict gene from ourselves. There are those who, through meditation, try to send positive energy and maybe I will start doing it too, we must find the will to be on the side of peace. Those who meditate thinking positively send positive waves that harmonize the brain and heart. We are made of energy: if we channel it in a certain way, we can use it at best.
Where do you find your harmony?
Since I've been living in Sardinia, surrounded by nature, it's been much better. Here, in front of Corsica, where there are the Straits of Bonifacio, there is constant movement: the sea is stormy and then calm, the days change the colors of a landscape that seems the same, but is constantly evolving. I'm happy to have left Milan.
Reason?
It represents everything that doesn't interest me.
Meaning what?
Talk only about money. It is a city where the law of the smartest prevails. The big cities are imploding without evolving into something better, beauty is no longer recognized. Milan lives on a fashion that is now frustrated, finished. They try to make an impression, it is a bit of a mirror of these times, of the emptiness that surrounds us.
There is a solution?
Singing my father's songs is a godsend. For the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing I'm taking around the best I've produced about him and I would have liked him to sing. I say this as a musician: it was a project we wanted to do.
In what sense?
He told me to take some of his songs and reinterpret them in my own way around. It's something he would have liked to do, but then I did it myself. But many of the songs I've worked on he would happily sing.
How do you see the world of music today?
I really don't hear much music. I hear things that are prepackaged to be successful, they provoke immediate emotions, but they don't last long. A sort of very commercial language where everything ends there. There is no depth because there is no generation and historical moment that allow you to speak with a language that is not superficial and shallow.
Anyone you like from the new generation of singers?
Without offending anyone, there are still those who carry on the desire to tell and tell themselves, but I evaluate the moment of decadence that we are living. Perhaps the only way is to hope that it passes quickly.
But will it pass?
It will still take some time, but we could not expect anything different given how the last 40 years have gone politically.
You haven't made records with unreleased songs since 2013, the year of the album As in heaven so in war. For years you have been taking only your father's songs on tour. Don't you think that this path has, in some way, tarnished your career as an author?
In some ways yes, but being the son of a genius I have come to realize my limits. Interpreting my father's songs is perhaps better than bringing out my own things. Singing him does good to the heart of many people and also to mine. There are high sensations, I feel good and it is also a way to feel him close.
How do you feel close to him?
It's like a part of her voice belongs to me, like she's on stage with me. People smile, they get emotional, they're happy. It's beauty.
But your career, Cristiano's? What do you say?
I also made my own records, they went as they went, good, less good, but I will come back with something of my own in 2025 or 2026. I had lost the desire to do my own things.
Why?
It is difficult to describe these times in a certain way, I can't find the right words. Maybe even my father would have difficulty.
You were last in Sanremo ten years ago. Have you ever tried to compete at the festival again?
No. In the 2014 one, two pieces were brought. I presented The sky is empty And Invisiblewith which I won the Critics' Award. I would like to participate in Sanremo with a new project. Although I hope that the festival changes and opens up a little more to music with a capital M, that of the author. In recent years there has been little openness from this point of view.
Have you seen the festival this year?
I haven't seen it for some time: it no longer represents what I would like to see.
Really…
I've heard that some things have turned out better than others, but I just haven't seen it this year. However, from son of art to daughter of art, I'm happy for Angelina Mango, she's very cute and nice.
Is it difficult to be the child of a genius?
It means that we must abandon the Oedipus complex because genius always wins (laughs). You can't equate yourself with someone like Fabrizio De André. And he had suggested it to me.
Meaning what?
I liked making music, playing the guitar and he said to me: “Look, if you become a musician you will be crushed by your own last name, it's difficult. Why don't you become a veterinarian, come to the countryside to me and do something else?” A painful life was in sight.
And you?
I preferred to suffer, rather than put my hands in a cow to give birth to a calf.
Biggest difficulty?
People compare everything I do to my father. It's as if someone were saying to me: “What are you writing?” It takes me longer to accept what I compose and this has created problems for me in letting myself go when I write. I am better at the role of musician and arranger, taking a piece and giving it another dress. But this does not erase the fact that I have something of my own in my hands that I would like to propose to Sanremo.
In this regard, in Behind the doorwith which you participated in the festival in 1993, ranking according to songs that “There are nights that I would never want to erase”. What would you never erase about yourself?
My being determined by Capricorn and Capricorn ascendant. And then my kindness. I am not resentful even if I have had difficult moments with people who have hurt me a lot. I have never felt hatred or resentment towards anyone. I am good and many recognize it. I have a lot of self-esteem: I have recovered from many difficult situations. For a year and a half I have not even smoked anymore: I went from three packs a day to nothing. My father smoked five, but I preferred not to follow him, for a few years I have been in love with life and I prefer to live.
The darkest moment?
When I couldn't make sense of things, I didn't know if what I wanted was right. The confusion distanced me from myself and others, making me take refuge in alcohol and other substances. I risked my life. Then I got clear with myself and got out of it.
They often bring up the story of your past and drugs, aren't you a little tired?
I've been on stage since I was 17 and I played with Tempi Duri. Today I live with dignity of what I know how to do. And I'm satisfied. Yes, I get annoyed if you talk about it, because I don't care anymore. I'm a health conscious person, I take long walks and I even gained weight after I stopped smoking. I'm working hard and this will be a great tour. I'll have fun.
What kind of father were you?
Unprepared. I became a parent very young, at 22.
What made you unprepared?
All the controversies of those years: I had to understand who I was and what I wanted from life and these thoughts make a father incapable. Over time I learned more and perhaps with my daughter Alice, the youngest, I was better. With my other children there was a separation in the middle and everything was more difficult. But I have always been altruistic and I have never let them lack anything.
What was the main problem?
It was difficult to find harmony between me and my ex-wife so as not to involve our children who, instead, were involved in incurable relationships.
Have you solved it now?
I have a very good relationship with my daughter Alice. With others it is up and down for many reasons. Now everything is much calmer.
Precisely because of your family issues, you have sometimes been at the center of TV programs, despite yourself. What is your relationship with the small screen?
I don't watch television anymore, I'm not interested because there's nothing true in it. I only watch Rai 5 willingly. For a while I watched On Tuesday or A clean sweep for the interesting debates. But I'm a bit bored with those too. I prefer reading, fishing and doing all the things possible at the seaside.
What is the sea for you?
The journey, the unknown, the adventure, the dream. I live by the sea and I like it, there is a constant movement. I have always had the sea close to me. The sea gives you the freedom that the city takes away.
Fabrizio De André's most important lesson?
When he told me, “Try to be a good, kind, respectful person and write when you really have something to say.”
If you had the chance to see him again, what would you tell him?
Let's go back to working together, as we were, with the same passion as always.
What was the biggest disappointment of your life?
The one with Tempi Duri, the band I was part of.
What happened?
They confused us so much that they made us split up. We were doing well and I believed in it so much that it was a huge disappointment to separate us: we could have been one of the most important groups in Italy. Instead we listened to a record producer on one side, then a record producer on the other. They wanted me as a soloist and they broke the magic.
If you met your old self, the Christian who used to put himself down, what would you say to him?
I would hug him and say “I love you.”