Olden, a singer-songwriter from Perugia who has lived in Barcelona for many years, made his debut in 2011 with an album of the same name in English. “Trust me”, the first track from the album “La Fretta e la Pazienza”, to be released in autumn by Vrec, is a profound and universal ballad, which talks about bonds.
Hi Olden, it's nice to meet you. You have lived in Barcelona for many years. The first question that comes naturally to me is: what does Italy look like from there? Both from a general and musical point of view.
Hi, it's a pleasure for me to meet you too 🙂 Indeed, quite a few years have passed since I came to live here, seventeen to be exact, next year I will become a “Catalan adult”. The geographical distance from your own country helps you to understand things better, I think, to not be too conditioned and involved and above all it becomes almost natural to feel what you miss and what you would no longer be able to bear if you went back.
Italy today, in my opinion, is a country that is afraid of change, and which is undergoing a dangerous reversal of trend with respect to progress, both from a social and cultural point of view. In my album “Prima che è tardi” I told of my fears and fears towards certain populist tendencies that wink at old ideologies that we believed were now outdated and archived. When the “progressive antibodies” are completely lacking in a country and when the streets are abandoned and the true needs of the people cease to be intercepted, the result can only be this, especially when society becomes culturally impoverished.
The slogan wins, the easy message, the shortcuts, the illusion of order and security. And for music I think I can say that it's the same, the contents are no longer so important, what works is what burns quickly and doesn't leave a mark, the “mainstream” radios are subject to the market, the big record companies invest only in sure, often or almost always on artists released from a talent show, and even the so-called “indie” is often “independent” only in name.
I notice a great conformism in the Italian musical system, an almost total absence of courage on the part of those who should and could discover new talents and communicate that there is much more than what they would have us believe. The moment we start treating music as if it were a washing machine or a car, we are probably really on the verge of collapse. In Italy we have very great artists who are unknown to the general public, not because they aren't worth it, but just because no one wants them. to occupy. The discussion would be very long, I'll stop here 🙂
“Trudati di me” is a song dedicated to a farewell. You talk about how much love can change us, even when it's irretrievable. It's a difficult topic, even when it's not about a song but about personal reflections. How did you choose the words to use?
“Trust me” does not exactly tell a definitive or accomplished fact, it is rather a message sent far away, and which hopes to reach the right hands.
Love needs space and time, and cannot and must not be in a hurry. And above all, it is never irrecoverable.
Often relationships don't go as we would like just because it's not the right time, just because the present we are living in makes us feel that there is no solution.
But love remains, in another time and another space, hidden. I didn't choose the words of this song, they arrived on a random afternoon, suddenly, while I was sitting in front of the piano, like a kind of caress that tries to move the pain to a safer place.
I quote you: “everything has been thought, everything has been said, everything has been sung.” Today you have chosen a ballad, based on a classic and particularly sweet arrangement. How does this genre speak to you?
The idea of arranging this piece was precisely to be able to create a sort of 70s ballad, with few elements, a vaguely Beatles-esque piano and the lyrics in the foreground, an attempt to combine the “sweeter” colors of a feeling with the darker ones of an angry reaction to pain. This song speaks about me perhaps more than any other I have ever written, because it is deliberately spare and raw, without compromises and without hidden messages.
Aren't you afraid of placing yourself outside the dynamics of editorial playlists?
I'm used to it, it couldn't possibly scare me; I am this and I would never be able to be someone else, I would realize it immediately and then I would be ashamed.
Furthermore, I believe that an artist must always express himself in harmony with what he is experiencing at the moment in which he writes, it is the only way to create something that has a value and that does not end up resembling many photocopies that last the time of a story from social. Today, I am this, just as I was another person when I wrote the songs of “Black Heart”, as Whitman said “I contain multitudes” 🙂
“”Trust me” is a letter written in one go and never sent, but publishing a song corresponds to having a message reach its destination. When you write, do you always have a recipient?
No, I don't always have an addressee, at least not just one, sometimes you write talking to yourself, other times to several people, to the world, and other times still to someone in particular. But as I said above, it depends on the moment. Until now I have always had a bit of modesty in exposing myself, I have always put some filter in front of my songs, imaginary characters, or phrases that are not too clear, hidden messages. Not today, today I feel the need to speak without fear, to look my target straight in the eyes, so as not to later regret not having said everything.
Tell us about the production of this new project of yours and the differences with your previous works.
The creation of this song, as well as the entire album, is a work that we could define as almost “artisanal”, given that it was produced by me, together with Ulrich Sandner, a great musician and author, with whom I am fortunate enough to working since my first album in Italian “I went to bed early”. I say “artisanal” because it is completely outside of any market logic and does not refer to anything that today can be defined as “successful”; but that was the only way it could be, otherwise he would never have come out.
We found ourselves in a house in the middle of the mountains, far from the city, with a computer, a piano, some guitars and little else, because that's what I needed, because anything added would actually have been a subtraction.
My previous albums, from “Prima che sia tardi” to “These years” were produced by Flavio Ferri (Delta V), a very important person for me, fundamental in my artistic but also human path.
Before starting to record this album we discussed things, we did some “experiments”, we talked a lot. And in the end we both understood that I would have to make this record on my own, exactly as I felt it, with all its fragilities and imperfections. I called Ulrich and we got to work; after quite a few months of rehearsals and canceled auditions, we had the final versions of the pieces. Flavio then took care of the mixing and mastering, and the result is really what I had in mind, I'm very happy.
This is the first step towards the publication of the new album of unreleased songs, “La Fretta e la Pazienza”, can you tell us something?
As partially anticipated in the previous question (sorry for the spoiler :)) “Fidati di me” is the first single from the new album “La Fretta e la Pazienza”, out on October 18th with the “loyal” Vrec by David Bonato (by new with me after “Before it's late” and “Cuore Nero”).
It will be a nine-song album, in line with the arrangement and mood of “Trudati di me”, together with me playing the piano (purists have mercy, I'm not a pianist, but a self-taught singer-songwriter :)) and obviously sung, there are the guitars of Ulrich Sandner and the cello of the talented Simona Colonna.
From my point of view, despite its simplicity, it is a record that I could define as “experimental”, very minimalist and absolutely without filters or hiding places.
In these songs there is the story of overcoming pain, which passes through our most painful and difficult moments, through the exercise of patience, without succumbing to the rush of having to find an easy, hasty solution. It is an invitation to listen and listen to each other, to understand that for everything there is a space and a time.
And it is also a gift, a message in the bottle entrusted to the waves, which will surely do their duty, without haste.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
