We are in the attic of Milan Central Station and the voice announcing the trains is muffled by the silence generated by the floors below us filled with books and readers. In the television studios of Maremosso, a magazine produced by the Feltrinelli bookstores, we meet Massimo Pezzali, known as Max, and DJ Rosario Pellecchia, known as Ross, who recently released Now that I met you (Feltrinelli). It’s the story of Lorenzo, a real estate agent in crisis who is about to die and is rescued by Zoe, a blues soul, who offers him the coup of the century: stealing the guitar of Robert Johnson, the one who learned to play by selling his soul to the devil and writes blues pieces that have made music history. Like Love in Vain, where the lights of the train carrying away the woman he loves are the bluesman’s eyes. Pellecchia and Pezzali, who happen to be sitting on the sofa in the same pair of sneakers, smile spontaneously, like grown-up boys. Pezzali has a sweatshirt with a wrestling scene on it. Let’s start from there.
What do you like about wrestling?
Pezzali: “I like that we Italians have trouble understanding wrestling because we’re always surprised when we realize it’s all fake. And Americans say, “Hey guys, we’ve been calling it choreography since 2002!”, but we don’t understand why we’re always looking for something autobiographical in a book, a song, or even a show. We, when Bruce Springsteen speaks of “Blue Collars” in a song, ask him what his experience in the factory is…because we struggle to accept and understand the difference between reality and fiction, between lived experience and music…literature is a fact”.
Pellecchia, if your novel was a Pezzali hit, which song would it be?
Pellecchia: «I would say A love song because it combines the love of music and the love of a person who saves you». Pezzali, I was thinking North South West East. “I’ll look for her, or maybe for me…” »
Pezzali: «Well yes. The journey is a search for oneself. Lorenzo and Zoe naturally find each other, but to be together, each of them must find themselves: you can’t make a couple, a 1+1, unless you put one back on its feet has. The Nashville part of the book impressed me because I was also there when it tells the story of Johnny and June, so Johnny Cash and June Carter, their love story and their music story: without them we wouldn’t exist, we, the us live on music exist because it’s Robert Johnson, Elvis… Obviously it’s an imaginary America, like North-Southwest-East, where I laid down my idea of America, my dreams, between Tex Willer comics and Leone’s westerns Prairie, the village, the shaman. They are the obsessions of my childhood…experienced by Pavia!».
Pellecchia: «The difference between the old west as it was in reality and the wild west in the cinema is called Ennio Morricone, because we associate the western with its fantastic music, but it certainly didn’t go into the era of the west, and then they came from Italy”.
Pezzali I’m going to ask you a very Italian question. What’s your most autobiographical song?
Pezzali: «Well, I would say The Years. I contend a song is something assembled, you have to get it all done in three minutes or it won’t get played on the radio if it’s too long. As reality shows, there is a part written by the authors, otherwise you get bored. However, over the years there are many true memories and I also remember the moments when I wrote it».
For example?
Pezzali: «I remember that I was in the bar that I visited in Pavia, the Dante bar, there was a roundabout and I parked the car in front of it. Provincial pubs are used for many things and one of them is parking your car or motorbike because you can control it. So I go in and sit at the counter, I look out the window, at the sidewalk, at the car. I remember very well that the headlights of the car looked like eyes to me, and they were a little bit sad, and then I wrote: “And I see the headlights of the cars, they / are looking at me and seem to ask me who we are looking for “”.
I continue with the autobiography. Is there someone who saved you in life?
Pellecchia: «My wife. I was an unrepentant bachelor then with her I saw an opportunity to have a lasting relationship that would make me happy and to become a father. Zoe also resembles my wife physically, although my wife is a consultant and non-musical. Let’s say metaphorically that Zoe is also music that saved me, made me realize a dream”.
Pezzali: «I would also say to my wife that she has changed my perspective a bit, but the person who is at the helm now is my son. I didn’t realize what fatherhood meant. Yes, at first I liked my son, with his big head, he smiled, but I expected that maybe he could annoy me a bit too, I don’t take it for granted that I should like my son. Instead I discovered we have a lot of things in common, adhesions, now that he’s 14 we’re almost the same age because he’s growing up and I’m regressing. We make the same jokes, we have our own language».
For example?
Pezzali: «Recently he discovered Verdone’s voice in Un Sacco Bello and repeats «E starreve zitti!» or “Soni, come in, pretend to be at the door”. He talks like that all day and we laugh, only we understand».
His wife can’t take it anymore…
Pezzali: «Yes, one day something bad will happen and the neighbors will say: «It looked like a normal family». To kid! But it’s nice if you like your son.”
Were there other people with whom you had this harmony, complicity?
Pezzali: «Well, Mauro Repetto, fellow adventurer in the 883. Last year, after years, we got together again to play at the San Siro and jokes were made during rehearsals that only we understood.»
quotes? code words?
Pezzali: «The keyword is «zero dignity». That said, there are moments in life when you don’t need to be too subtle, you don’t need to question whether it’s appropriate to do something or not. Should we defend our dignity? No. Zero».
How was it born in the past?
Pezzali: «I remember once we went to a disco to take two girls. Mauro had a new jacket, a biker jacket, but made of suede and poor quality in my opinion. He was tired, he fell asleep on the couches while we waited for the right moment. I wake him up: “Mauro, let’s go” and he gets up and I see that the color of the jacket he slept on has remained on his face; I didn’t have time to tell him that we met in front of the girls and he made his face like one of Kiss! It was something that could kill you with shame, instead we made it a workhorse: Zero Dignity.”
Back to Pellecchia’s novel. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil to learn how to play. What would you sell your soul to the devil for?
Pellecchia: «I would have sold it to make a radio and I succeeded. Now I would sell it for purely altruistic reasons.”
Pezzali: «I would sell it without haggling, to be able to write like Lennon or McCartney. Or Gallagher. Not the rapper, but Noel from Oasis.”
Tell me something more devilish. A bad wish that must be granted…
Pezzali: “Okay. If I were the master of the world, I would abolish reggaeton».
Pellecchia: “I’m fine. But let’s be honest: all musical genres have the same dignity…».
Pezzali: «…everyone! Except for reggaeton.”