by Andrea Laffranchi
Kekko Silvestre, voice of the Mod, talks about his illness on the eve of the festival where the band competes with Let me: pre-concert panic attacks. One day I woke up and I couldn’t bend my legs, I couldn’t get out of bed. The band performed with Fermami in Sanremo. The leader Kekko Silvestre: I suffer from depression. I couldn’t bend my legs, I couldn’t get out of bed
Kisses and poison, memories and suffering and finally the first day without you. No woman is the cause of the suffering told by the mods in Leave me, the song they bring to the competition at the Sanremo Festival. I chose a metaphor to leave room for interpretation: the end of a love, to be universal, or a depression, to tell my experience, says Kekko Silvestre, the band’s leader.
When did you realize you were depressed?
On April 29, 2021: I woke up and couldn’t bend my legs. I thought it was the flu, but after ten days in bed I was concerned it might be a degenerative disease. I went to the neurologist and was diagnosed with depression.
A bolt from the blue?
I understood everything later. For years I had panic attacks before concerts, but I always denied them and also showed my strong sense of responsibility towards my family and my parents. I was building too much and my brain ended up locking up my body. Depression is a dark evil that doesn’t show itself and lives inside you.
Go back to the first signs…
On the 2017 tour, the one after the two San Siros, I felt like my legs wouldn’t hold up, I was confused… on the last date, my mother held the rosary… I thought about giving up altogether. In the months that followed, my daughter Gioia asked me several times: “Dad, why don’t you sing anymore?”. I told her it was a sore throat. My heart sank when the pediatrician prescribed her an antibiotic and she told her to give it to me too.
Then?
After two years, another record, “Heads or Tails”, and another tour: I was so devastated that I welcomed the news that the tours had stopped because of Covid… The pandemic, on the other hand, gave me the coup de grace. When you’re in that state you try to only keep the things you feel safe about: the usual restaurant, the usual friends… Covid took that away from me too. There were moments that were not easy, I remember when my loved ones saw me staring into space… Then came the physical blockage: a month later, on May 11th, I started treating myself. Drugs are the poison I’m talking about in the song. At first you see them like this, you think these drugs are given to lunatics. I was ashamed, but slowly I returned to seeing the bright side of life.
how is he now
I’m not cured, but last year’s tour left me with an adrenaline rush and made me realize that staying on the couch doesn’t heal. That gave me the courage to face the festival.
What are your expectations?
Sanremo returns to be the master of Italian music. We’re confronted with artists who dominate streaming, but we’re old, we’ve always been viewed that way. Having Sanremo in the Palmares is a dream but we will never win. We go there to let our unfollowed fans know and there are many that we’re still around.
Did it bother you to be branded as a musically old band?
If being old meant filling stadiums and arenas, that was a good thing… Now I accept that, back then it annoyed me that our results were never taken into account. There has always been a prejudice against those who make nationally popular music, like now with Ultimo, but fashions pass, the songs remain.
Fourth festival in a 20-year career. The first in 2005, with the record company that let you down… How did it go?
We quarreled because we didn’t trust the promoter they wanted to use to organize our summer concerts. We drove our car to this Sanremo, to a hotel 15 kilometers from the city… We got eliminated the first night and I drove back to Milan mad at night, leaving the band at the festival to do the interviews. What a bad memory.
In 2011 Emma was with you and Arriver took second place.
My balls spun a little, but not because Maestro Vecchioni won. For us it was the Sanremo of salvation and I would have liked to hear “the festival wins… the mods”.
2013 Podium with If you could not die…
I experienced it more calmly because I knew that between Rome and Milan nine sold-out arenas and an important tour awaited us. And then, two years earlier, I understood that it’s not just about winning.
January 29, 2023 (change January 29, 2023 | 07:05)
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