Time.news – Last in Sanremo represents, at least on paper, the most important of the coups scored by Amadeus for his fourth festival, because at the moment the singer-songwriter heir to the great Roman school is one of the most attractive and marketable artists on the Italian music scene.
Niccolò Moriconi, thus at the registry office, has already sold over 250,000 tickets for the stadium tour that awaits him this summer, a phenomenon of gigantic dimensions, in terms of FIMI certifications, could redecorate the house in gold and platinum with all those it brought home; but above all Ultimo has laid the foundations for remaining, for almost assuming a role in the life of those who listen to him, especially the very young, for whom his music is particularly significant.
Why Sanremo at a time when you are, in fact, one of the very few in Italy who wouldn’t need the boost from the Festival?
Precisely for this reason, because it is a moment in my career in which I feel that I have to write my record history, present “Alba” in Sanremo it means so many things. First of all, presenting a record with that light there is a gift that I can give to my music, in the sense that I make it heard by as many people as possible, and then to close the circle with Sanremo in a different way, I simply go to present one of my songs and to see that song in a light that, in my opinion, it deserves.
What is special about “Alba”?
I wrote “Alba”, which is the piece that made me write the whole record, and I had the feeling, perhaps only mine, that it was something different from the others I had written, it doesn’t have a verse-chorus-verse structure – refrain, it doesn’t really have a refrain, it has a crescendo, and the idea of presenting it there came to close a circle and make it clear that they are also something different from what I have done up to now and that I will be other what’s this. It is normal that I have grown artistically after four years…
Do you feel the need to come full circle because of that bad scene in the press room when you finished second behind Mahmood?
Do you want to get some sort of revenge? No, no, I’m not going there for a rematch, then you win in different ways, both in life and in music; I believe that the Sanremo stage is not for not being forgotten but for presenting one’s own song in which one believes and in fact I go there to participate. For me that stage is important, I am grateful to it and I will take “Alba” there, which represents my artistic growth, the answer is already in the fact that I go there.
The greatness of your success often makes us forget that you are young and on the scene for a relatively short time… do you feel a need to evolve artistically?
Sure, but even more I feel the need to get involved, it’s not that if one builds stadiums then he can’t do Sanremo, I build stadiums but that’s a live path that exists, then in terms of recordings I feel that I still have to write my story, I still have to create my repertoire, which I can then sit on in X years, I still can’t afford it.
In ten/twenty years, you will still be young, maturing, do you ever wonder what kind of artist you want to become?
Yes, and I do things today in such a way that this can happen, for me it is important to be able to last over time, because it is one thing to arrive and another thing to be able to maintain yourself. And you do that with songs, that’s why I say it’s important today to jump in and write your own story, because you’ll find this job tomorrow.
I want to be an artist who may or may not like it, as it should be, but who has his own story, of songs, of concerts, and believed in his own songs. So much so that it’s a courageous choice to participate and bring a piece like “Alba”, which I didn’t write for Sanremo, also because perhaps I would have songs on the album that would be even easier from an accessibility point of view, but not it made sense, I want to come back with something a little different.
Will your fans like it?
I can’t know because when one writes songs then they do what they want, one has in mind that one has to go one way and then goes another, like a deflating balloon, the path of a song is unpredictable.
What does it feel like to write such meaningful songs for the listener?
There’s a new song on the new record that really talks about connecting with my audience, which is unique; because I realize when I sing at a concert that there are people in tears, I realize that people go to concerts not to hear me but to hear themselves and above all that a song is not just a song but a lot moreover.
A song on my new album is called “Le usual fears”, which is a piano and voice piece and I really say that, it’s true, I should also have a life, because many times I close myself off with music and live 26 hours a day in music, truly, in all respects, and this also limits my private life; and in the piece I say “I should have my own life too, but I chose to use mine to create a collective one”, which is precisely the meaning of my approach to piano and songs.
For me the first thing is to respect the blood pact made with my audience, with whom there is a truly carnal relationship, of closeness of souls, I feel this thing strongly. I’m also pleased by the fact that I have multiple generations, I see fifty-year-old women in the front row and it’s something that personally makes me believe a lot in the music I make, because it makes me understand that I’m on the right track.
It’s also a big responsibility, isn’t it?
Yes, because you feel, I’m not saying an example because it’s too much, but something important in people’s lives, but at the same time this responsibility can’t eat me away, because otherwise it would change the approach I have in writing. I have to remind myself that I write for myself first, because writing for me is healing, and then that, like all human beings, I’m fallible and that if I had to write a song that doesn’t reflect all these people, never mind, it can happen.
I don’t claim to always do the right thing, but I do what is important to me and I see that this sincerity comes and they experience this experience as a sort of transfer and for me it is a source of great pride.
But is this the secret of Ultimo? Sincerity?
It’s everything, sincerity is everything, for better or for worse, especially for a songwriter. If you sing about things that aren’t yours, maybe the audience doesn’t understand it right away but they sense it and don’t trust you…
…in short, you can cheat him once but not forever…
That’s right, the public always chooses something real.
Earlier you were talking about a piano and voice piece and I thought you were talking about a piano and voice piece from your new album while the discography goes elsewhere…How do you live this being, on paper, totally different from what goes on the charts Right now?
I think it’s always a matter of sincerity, when someone hears something true, whether it’s bad or beautiful, they reward it. Then, in my opinion, in Italy we have a great culture of melody, but today it has decreased a lot; but in reality there are, even in rap, many songwriters, the rapper is a songwriter…
Well, Marracash won the Tenco…
Exactly, if you think about him, he’s a songwriter, he raps, but his writing is deeper. O Luchè, who in my opinion writes in a very sensitive way, some songs are really beautiful from an emotional point of view. I’ve always listened to songwriters, my reference music is another, that of Antonello Venditti, De Gregori, Baglioni, Vasco, everything that represents Italian music 70/2000.
Cesare Cremonini himself is a great example for me, he is another who manages, after a long time, to be so present in music, and that is truly a feat. Today I think about the seven years of my career and in a world where you are forgotten after three months seems like a lot, but I realize how difficult it is in music to win time…
…even in life…
But one way or another you sit down and you find a solution, you manage to survive. But staying is a feat.
Looking at the images of your concerts last summer, in front of that flood of people, one realizes that one cannot go beyond that; Yours is a profession whose fuel to go forward is the dream, and once you reach these goals, what more do you dream about?
You feel fear and desire to keep working to be able to last over time. Playing 15 stadiums is a huge thing, so you feel the responsibility twice as much. And then you try to work, which doesn’t mean playing stadiums all your life, but being placed with an important repertoire that lasts over time, that’s important.
“Alba” is a piece that I had the sensation that could remain over time, then one can say that it is beautiful or ugly, God forbid, but in any case there is a truth inside, something that in some way could be captured by the people.
Is there a piece you haven’t written yet? Your “Cannon Woman”, your “This little big love”…
Sure, the feeling I had with “Alba” (let’s not talk about the songs you mentioned which are masterpieces) is that in my discography it’s a song beyond, for better or for worse, it has a structure that doesn’t make sense, however it gave me something that the other songs didn’t give me when I wrote them.
The live dimension has now become central for any artist, let alone for you who play stadiums; when you write new stuff do you think about that dimension? Do you think what you write needs to work live?
Generally no, but there have been exceptions. Like “Come into my heart”, the piece I released this summer, I wrote it with the tour in mind, in fact it got the response I was hoping for. But this thing doesn’t manifest itself so much in the writing phase but more in the arrangement and production phase.
Maybe the thing that works best about your pieces is the structure, always so solid…
I believe that mathematics is important in the structure of a song, I strongly believe in the sound of the metric.
In this new album what do you feel grown up in?
Certainly in the lyrics, there is a slightly more abstract, a little more ethereal, a little more suspended research, and then, as it is natural, album after album there is growth. Then we need to understand that growing doesn’t necessarily mean for the better, you simply become something different, this must be specified otherwise one always associates growth with an improvement. I hope so, but maybe not. As I write today I feel that I am going a little deeper.
I know you can’t tell me which song you chose for the evening of duets in Sanremo, nor who you chose to accompany you…
No, also because I’m the only one of the four who has rehearsals the day after tomorrow and won’t try the cover because I don’t have it yet…
Didn’t you choose it?
Not yet
What kind of performance would you like?
Just what I don’t know yet.
Must be hell picking a piece…
Yes, it’s very difficult, among all those pieces, but I guess I have to choose shortly.
Eh I guess so … nobody would say no to you for a duet.
Yes, but also for the choice of the piece
And I guess you will choose the featuring over the piece…
Yes sure.
And you don’t even have a list of names?
No. I swear not. I had my mind on other things, when I get back from Sanremo on Sunday I have 3-4 days, I concentrate and choose.
Are you more inclined to choose something that has nothing to do with the piece you wear or something that fits you perfectly?
No, I’ll pick something I like, something I feel like doing on stage.
Instinctively one thinks that you could call Fabrizio Moro…
I don’t know because we have dueted a lot, we have done many things, then I have a wonderful relationship with him, we are truly brothers, we often talk, we often see each other, I must say that artistically we have done many things, so I don’t know…
What is the best result you could get with this Festival?
That “Alba” is understood by as many people as possible, that’s my goal. Bringing “Alba” and making it heard by as many people as possible and that as many people as possible are able to improve something about themselves in those three minutes.