Venerus' music is good for you, it is a kind of natural medicine, produced in Milan, but with the idea of a mental and psychedelic escape from the city, crafted by hand, with the care and timing of the artist in search of inspiration, and not those of the disposable consumer hit that trends for a week on Spotify and then disappears. Despite these premises, Let's hope sothe new album out on November 7, is a more pop record than the previous ones which ideally travels towards the streaming charts, but “with the awareness of wanting to delve deeply into the art of songwriting”. His words, extrapolated from a concise press release, which find testimony in the 14 tracks in which the musical genres on which Venerus' taste was formed – from experimental and dance electronics, through funk, singer-songwriter folk, jazz, r&b and hip hop – find a common home. The address is a bohemian loft in Bovisa, its headquarters which becomes a refuge, warm and dense like the musical mood, for those who listen.
It is not uncommon to meet Andrea Venerus – unlike the majority of Milanese artists – at concerts, at electronic music evenings, from raves in the suburbs to the Conservatory, as proof, if any were needed, of the artist's passion and dedication. Of course, living on music in 2025 is not easy, but Venerus' hope is that this is the only possible cure in a world that often no longer hopes.
We meet him in Milan, in front of the windows of the Universal building on a rainy and gray morning, before he leaves for the C2C in Turin. He is curious to see Nourished by Time and Blood Orange concerts and it comes naturally after listening to Let's hope sothink of these musicians, artists and experimenters without losing sight of pop, as the engines of a wave of devoted innovators of contemporary sound of which Venerus is also part.
Let's hope so arrives two years later The secretwhich was a concept album recorded live, with a more defined musical connotation than the variety of new pieces.
Just finished The secret I had the feeling that we had found a method, a sound, a direction. I, Philip (Cimatti, the producer) and Cleopatria (Andrea, co-author of the lyrics, painted the oil painting on the cover), who is my writing partner and artistic companion, we didn't want to stop. We immediately started writing and recording. Some ideas on this album come from then: for example, in the last chorus of The key you can hear the whole band coming in and that part comes directly from the first demo recorded a month after the release of The secret.
Were there different phases in the writing? It's a very heterogeneous album.
Yes, absolutely. There was a period, immediately afterwards The secretin which we still wrote with that same energy; then a moment of detachment, study and research; and even phases of crisis, moments of clarity. In two and a half years we threw everything into it; and in the end what remained was what resisted. It's as if we had kept a bonfire burning for two years: everything that couldn't hold burned away, and what you see today is what remained attached.
From a creative point of view, it seems like a more writing-focused album…
That's right. With The secret we started from the music, from sound suites on which I then built the lyrics. Here we did the opposite. For months we only wrote texts, sentences, images. We wanted them to hold up even without music. We often passed the papers to each other and read them aloud, as a test: if they excited us on their own, they worked. It was a new way of writing, more literary, more cinematic.
Photo: Clara Borrelli for Rolling Stone Italia. Outfit: Bottega Bernard shirt, Lutchmiah shirt, Adidas trousers, Sonora boots, Alchetipo hat
Photo: Clara Borrelli for Rolling Stone Italia. Outfit: Bottega Bernard shirt, Lutchmiah shirt, Adidas trousers, Sonora boots, Alchetipo hat
Is it a writing where the main character is always you?
There are no names, there is no chronology. I'm more interested in the image that remains, the impression of a feeling. I try to ensure that the “I” doesn't always dominate the song, that there is space for the listener. Even when I start from myself, I want those who hear to be able to wear the song, make it their own.
There are also more rap songs, like Coolfeaturing Side Baby, Mahmood, Jake La Furia, Mace, o Thoughts part 1 with the participation of Izi…
At a certain point, after years of not rapping, I felt the need to do it again. It's like a video game: you get inside the beat and you have to find a path. It's a way to bring out sides of me that don't emerge in song form.
I mentioned a few artists you brought on the record. There are others like Gemitaiz, Marco Castello, Cosmo and Altea. And it often seems like you are the one entering their sound world, and not the other way around, as is usually the case.
They are all people I respect and who, in different ways, are part of my world. I don't like the idea of remote featuring, where you send a beat and someone puts a verse on it. I prefer to create together. With Marco Castello, for example, we met in Sicily: Filippo and I were there to write, he came to us, we took two guitars and wrote the piece at a table, recording it with the telephone. The first version was the most magical, and in fact we went back down to do it again on the beach, with a microphone and the sound of the sea around us. With Cosmo instead we went to Ivrea: we had two different ideas, coincidentally in the same key and in the same BPM. We merged them and from there a song was born about a friendship that crosses distance. It was all very natural.
We can define Let's hope so a pop record?
Yes, but not pop in the sense of compromise. It's a clearer, more direct record. We decided to pass the music through precise filters, as if we had clear silhouettes. A clear, bigger image emerged. It's also a record designed for live: every time we worked on a song, we imagined what it would be like live, how we could deconstruct it on stage. In this sense it is more pop, because it is more performative.
We met recently, and by chance, at a demonstration for the Flotilla. In the same period you created a performance lasting four consecutive days in the Lancetti station in Milan, transforming it into a living page on which to write and erase the lyrics of the tracks of Let's hope soa performance that you interrupted precisely to participate in the ongoing mobilization for Palestine. In the lyrics of the album, however, it seems that political and social current affairs remain outside.
I wonder about it a lot. I think there are two ways to react to evil: either you absorb it and throw it back out as it is, or you transform it into something that heals. I'm looking for the second way. That performance in Lancetti was born from a total tilt: I could no longer process the amount of pain in the world. I decided to stop, to meditate through the artistic gesture. A gentleman, seeing me on TV, came to me on his bike the next morning. He didn't know who I was, he brought me a bag of Spanish chalk and told me: “I used to draw on shop windows with this, have a good life.” It impressed me a lot. He didn't need to understand the context, he understood the intent. And I think that's a bit of what I try to do with music: create gestures that connect, even without explanations.
Photo: Clara Borrelli for Rolling Stone Italia. Outfit: Adidas shirt, Msgm vest, Ascend Beyond trousers, RSF glasses, Fiorucci shoes
Photo: Clara Borrelli for Rolling Stone Italia. Outfit: Federico Cina blazer, Alchetipo shirt. Sunnei trousers
Despite everything, your album doesn't have a dark tone. It's full of hope, indeed.
Yes, because I still believe in the possibility that music heals. We are in a moment in which everything – society, politics, music itself – seems to be sliding towards consumption, distraction. But music has always worked miracles, it has always given people support in dark moments. The title Let's hope so it comes from here: from a somewhat naive but necessary faith.
How do you build a song that lasts? It seems to me that this is your goal.
With self-criticism, a lot. You must have the courage to destroy what you do, to rewrite, not to settle. Filippo and I trust each other a lot: we discuss, we clash, but we know it's for the good of the song.
You often talk about your relationship with Milan. How much of the city there is in Let's hope so?
I wrote almost all of it in Milan, but it is never the protagonist. It's more the effect the city has on me. I think about the second part of Bovisa stationwhich I wrote one morning at the bar near my house. There are the corners, the nights, the sounds. Milan for me is a necessary place, but also a place to escape from. Sometimes I love her, sometimes she hurts me.
In the past you often cited books that had inspired you. Were there any for this album too?
Yes. Whose empty houses are there? by Ettore Sottsass e Dharma wanderers by Jack Kerouac. Two books that talk about travel, freedom, interior spaces. They accompanied me in the most intense moments of writing.
And today, as an omnivorous listener, what surprises you?
Listening is still everything to me. I listen a lot, and there are many friends I respect, like Marco Castello, who is one of the greatest talents we have. I love artists who bring their own personality into play. And even if sometimes I feel like a white fly in the Italian music scene, that's okay. In fact, that's what keeps me looking.
Photo: Clara Borrelli. Outfits:
Act N°1 blazer, Haikure trousers, Sonora Boots ankle boot
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CREDITS
Talent: Venus
Photographer: Clara Borrelli
Interview Curated By: Giovanni Robertini
Editor In Chief: Alessandro Giberti
Producer: Maria Rosaria Cautilli
Art Director: Alex Calcatelli for Leftloft
Fashion Editor: Francesca Piovano
Graphic Designer: Stefania Magli
Talent Press Office: Outloud Pr
Talent Label: Asian Fake, Emi Records Italia
Style Assistant: Giorgia Calia
Make Up & Hair Styling: Rossella Pastore
Post Production: Nicolò Amoretti for The Circumstances
Digital Ph. Assistant: Francesco Barrella
Light Designer: Nicola Cattelan
Gaffer: Matteo Dozio
