Two and a half years have passed since the publication of “DPCM”, the album that marked Visconti's recording debut, born after the dramatic period of the pandemic and inspired by the tragic events of those months. On the occasion of the release of the second chapter, “Boy di Ferro”, we met the Lombard musician, just a couple of days before the first date of the promotional tour, scheduled in Rome as part of the ALTRNTV review, included in the MarteLive programme.
Hi Valerio, nice to meet you. To begin, tell us what happened from “DPCM” to today…
Good morning, well, I would say that a lot of things have changed. I officially settled in Milan to finish my studies and start working, it's strange to me because somehow I feel like I've started living a life again that I no longer thought could pass so quickly after the pandemic stop.
I played a lot and delved into “the practical side” of “DPCM”, including many beautiful live experiences that I wish were much more commonplace. Some tell me that before the pandemic it was different, that there were more places and the tours were longer. I like to believe this is the case.
In 2022, after the Covid disaster, the live music sector managed to restart, despite a thousand difficulties, but more and more often we read about artists, even of a certain importance, forced to cancel tours due to unsustainable costs. How is the current situation for emerging young people on the independent circuit?
When I started touring to promote “DPCM” I had to face a system whose rules of survival were handed down orally, and I understood that after a date only the most resolute manage to go positive, thanks also to a good quality of their merchandising, which you can perhaps sell at the banquet. I quickly understood that it's all a big compromise and, after a few blunders, I'm now starting to get to grips with it, trying to follow the advice of those who have been musicians for longer than me.
I think I understood last summer, together with my band, that managing money well during a tour is almost as important as playing well, and in a moment in which the nails planted deeply in reality are the real engine for the functioning of the scene musical, all I had to do was observe and learn as much as I could. It's difficult, this is what I feel like saying, but fucking is the only real remedy, together with education to enjoy culture, which for now is not yet the responsibility of musicians.
Do you think that music shows and festivals, which are increasingly widespread and popular, can really constitute an opportunity for emerging musicians of your generation? Which then I imagine is far from simple to be able to be taken into consideration, given the enormous quantity of artists looking for dates and the few places available to play…
I think it depends on the type of project. In my case I have always decided to focus a lot on live as a true catalyst experience for Visconti and I know that playing around a lot is the best way to establish myself and keep the flame of the project alive. In other cases the nature of things can predispose you more to streaming from the start.
Everywhere we go we meet new people and I believe there is no more beautiful way to experience music, even if it is a fact that for a band from Northern Italy it is really difficult to go and play in the South: this seems to be our real limit for now . The best opportunity for me is being able to actively experience my music, playing it, and the few spaces left and a seasonality that imposes cold winters with no more clubs is the thing that scares me most in the future.
These days you're on the bill of ALTRNTV, the music festival included within MarteLive, in Rome, the first stop on your new tour. How are you preparing?
We are very excited, it's the first real date after the secret party we had in Milan for the release of “Boy di Ferro”. It will be October 30th, so we aim to celebrate Halloween dressed up on stage, let's see if we can make this happen.
For the rest we have a new set list which includes pieces from the album that we have never played and an irrepressible desire to galvanize ourselves with the high volume of the Monk. I don't think the rest of the tour will change much in terms of party atmosphere and desire for redemption. We have one new entry in the band Fight Pausa, with whom I collaborated for the album. For me it's an honor.
When I listened to your debut I was surprised by the many references present within the songs. I was struck by those guitars like Strokes in “La morte a Venezia”, I heard something by Federico Fiumani in the folds of “Narcisi amministrazione”, I was inebriated by the retro atmospheres that characterized “The Ides of March” (which made me think to the Baustelle, even if they have little to do with your style). Are some of these refractions homages, or did they come out unconsciously (maybe you've never even listened to some of these artists…)?
The musical references for me are almost always exclusively international, even if in that case I actually had something “Baustellian” going around in my head and I didn't stop myself from exploring and getting very foundering inspiration among indie relics Italian and post punk historian.
I believe that in that case the Italian “homages” were unconscious leaks of distant things heard long before, while for the Strokes and all the projects in which that type of lo-fi symphonicity echoes I have a weakness and suffer a perpetual and endless fascination .
But the really crazy track for me was “DPCM”, because it opened a giant door to some of my favorite bands of the Eighties and Nineties. When you shout “A concept of sociality”, or raise your tone in the final sentences, you seem like a strange hybrid between Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and Manuel Agnelli. A song that could have fit very well in “Germi” by Afterhours, in my opinion. Having said that, what were your formative listening experiences?
Aside from a catechistic childhood based on Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, I seriously challenged my free will thanks to YouTube around the age of 12 and spent my summers in middle school watching Queens of the Stone Age live.
From high school onwards I never detached myself from post-punk and hardcore, including all the more experimental and electronic derivatives. Among Italian influences I had many historical groups such as Afterhours, CCCP and Teatro degli Orrori.
What do you mainly listen to today?
Lately I've been listening to a lot of electronic music for the first time, especially IDM and Jungle.
At the same time I have a very keen eye for this new resurgence of shoegaze and electronic punk that is happening in the USA.
In the new album “Boy di ferro”, I notice a change of direction: no longer a very heterogeneous range of influences, but greater uniformity, greater focus. Was the intention to narrow your field of action to characterize yourself more clearly?
Definitely, it's a record in which I have different awareness, including that of wanting to self-determine.
Now I hope I'm not being insulted, but I find “Boy di ferro” a very powerful post-punk album, but a post-punk as Achille Lauro could have conceived it (from my point of view it's meant to be a compliment, I want to point it out) . I feel it a lot, for example, in a chorus with obvious pop overtures like that of “Wandervogel”…
Ahaha, no, I don't take that as an insult! I'm fascinated by pop music as well as difficult and experimental music and putting these things together for me was the great incipit of this album.
I'm happy that this is the result!
However, there is also much more, such as certain bossanova influences in the incipit of “Ascendente”, or the danceable breakbeats of “CTIPP”…
Yes, they gave me the opportunity to experiment with very different lyrics and metrics.
We were talking about post-punk. Do you consider yourself influenced by the more recent scene, the one led by bands like Idles and the first Fontaines DC, or do your references remain the groups that determined the characteristics of the genre between the Seventies and Eighties?
I believe I have a strong seed coming from the rougher sounds of the genre, whether ancient or contemporary but always secluded and underground.
I've looked at Idles and Fontaines DC with great interest since their inception, and then got a little bored. The torch of inspiration illuminates my research into more broken and caustic sound territories, so much so that in the end the Italian language softens everything.
In your lyrics I find references to Maya Vestita / Maya Desnuda, to Picasso, are you a fan of Spanish art?
No, actually no, for figurative art I'm exactly a poser, haha. I like symbols and how they cover the highlights of my life.
Maya reminds me of my girlfriend, while in that other case I had learned in a university course that Picasso had driven many of his partners to the brink of madness and the image was vivid in my head and explanatory of things I felt at era.
I know you don't mind talking politics. Do you want to give us a couple of flashes on the current Italian situation?
I wouldn't know what to say. It is a dark moment, of strong social crisis and repression of ideas.
I work with music and, even if it is not politicized, it is also the weapon I have at my disposal to counteract the course of things as they are now, the moment will soon come when it will no longer be enough.
Would you like to name some of your fellow Italian musicians that you respect most, perhaps explaining the reasons?
I strongly respect Post Nebbia, with whom there is a strong elective affinity and a common desire to sow terror, as well as the entire “underground” banner common to both. Same thing goes for Jesse The Faccio, who was like a dad the moment I started becoming Visconti.
Outside of Dischi Sotterranei I am very close to Generic Animal and his latest album which for me is one of the best albums of this year: we have made a beautiful friendship and we share many visions on music in addition to the fact that I will accompany him as a guitarist in tour in 2025. And Montag, together with Giallorenzo, who adopted me as soon as I arrived in Milan.
Instead, a couple of international artists with whom you would like to collaborate…
Good question!
I'll make a list without reasons: The Garden, Porches, Sword II and Powerplant.
Final ritual question: what are Visconti's future plans. Now there's a tour coming up to promote the new album. Then what will happen? Projects in the drawer?
Well, I don't know. I'm empty and full at the same time now that “Boy di Ferro” has been released. Even if soon something will be released about a new project that I've been working on for some time together with Giulio Patarnello (Post Nebbia, Pants are yellow), but I can't reveal anything else.
For the rest I already have several new pieces that I will start to get my hands on, but not for a few months.
(November 2024)
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
