“My crush on the model who married Salman Rushdie. Spider-Man saved me »- time.news

by time news

Mis it true that he wanted to be an ambassador?
“True. I enrolled in Political Science because I aspired to a diplomatic career. Then one day someone pointed out to me that my name was Pezzali, that I didn’t have two surnames, like Cimarosa di Camerino, and that I was the son of two florists from Pavia. And so I started writing songs ».

Pavia, the city with “two discos and one hundred and six pharmacies”.
«The city where there was no room for the middle. I was not the son of lawyers or surgeons, of those who enjoy the historic center on bicycles with a wicker basket. But I didn’t even have the bad charisma of those in public housing, of those who are scary. No, I came from the fire brigade area, a small middle class, a lot of work, the mirage of holidays and a permanent job. What dreams did I have? ».
What dreams did we have? Here is perhaps the heart of the songs of Massimo «Max» Pezzali, 53, former voice and words of 883 together with Mauro Repetto, a soloist for years, always a provincial poet of the nineties. That decade often referred to as “the summer of my holidays” (Jovanotti), but who knows.

Was it really easy to build dreams in those years, today so deified by symbols such as the walkman or the nail?
“No, because the traditionalists considered us kids of the time to be empty-headed, who snubbed the steady job, but it’s not that the so-called progressives looked at us better, quite the contrary. To say, if you listened to rap music and if this rap was not that of the Posse, you became an indifferent. And then it was not like today, that you just need a telephone to know what an American or an Indian thinks and therefore learn to dream with the dreams of others. We were prisoners of a province in which finding one’s own originality was a gamble ».

The province, in fact. Told by masters like Guccini and Vasco Rossi, but was that only the real Italian province? Or was it not also that, more down-to-earth, of the crowds of boys who reached Milan only to see the “girls dressed as models” in the discos of the center?
“Yes, perhaps most of us had smaller, more normal dreams. The ones I tried to tell in my songs. I was insecure, I had glasses as thick as the bottoms of a bottle, I saw America as a very distant horizon but Milan also seemed to me a metropolis. It was difficult to build a clear future. So I started to tell about this middle way between vitalistic impulse and self-preservation: boys who were afraid of heroin, but who, on the other hand, did not even want to be satisfied with a sad conformism ».

Max Pezzali: “The music, the Harley Davidsons and the digital technology that saved me”
The interview

In short, seen from the right or from the left, were you never revolutionary enough?
“But nobody really cared about the revolution in the 1990s.”

The DC was wiped out.
“I realized then that there was no certainty of anything. My mother used to repeat to me: “The only hope you have with your baccalaureate is to have a job as a delivery boy or factotum in a bank, because those are the institutions that will never collapse!”. Well, in the 2000s I’ll find out that he was wrong. ‘

In his songs there is a sense of inadequacy in front of others. Translated: feeling “loser”. Personal experience?
«Just tell about my first love. Seventeen, a girl from my school, I loved it. I don’t tell her anything for months, then it happens that we see you at a party. I stay there like a cod, when she comes to me and says: “Okay, let’s finish it”. And gives me a kiss. He hasn’t spoken to me since. ‘

A disaster.
“Yes, many of us were paralyzed in front of the world. Because if you lived in the province you were really provincial. You didn’t know how to behave with girls, when you went to the disco and the women came from Pieve Emanuele or Rozzano they seemed like goddesses to you ».

Sometimes (horror!) You would put the Arbre Magique in the car on the first date, to cover up the stench of smoke.
“Yes, horror, but I found out later. Everything was a discovery when there was no internet. America, where I spent all my savings to buy a Roland electronic drum machine, the TR-107. Exotic cuisine: I remember when the first Tex-Mex arrived in Pavia, because up until then the Chinese cuisine had been the best. I tell it in the last book, Max 90 (Sparrow & Copper, ed). And then the music, of course. In other words, salvation from the mean: I tried to be as original as possible in my tastes ».

But in the end, what wrong did Spider-Man do to the coffee industries?
«Spider-Man was one of my heroes, among those who will later be devoured by the Manga. The allegory of the precarious who seeks revenge from injustices. And the coffee industries, for me, were the symbol of strong powers. I didn’t know anything about industrial economics but I saw that great actors and showmen were hired on television to advertise coffee. For example Nino Manfredi. I convinced myself that they must have been full of money and that they were hiding who knows what secret. “

A Trilateral of the cup.
“Obviously it was false, but when you can’t verify everything in real time, as we do today, certain beliefs hold out for years.”

In the song there is also the quote of the famous cocktail, which however becomes Margaridas », with the« d ». Because?
«A glaring mistake: I, a lover of American culture, had learned the American pronunciation. Another mistake I made was writing Kurt in a song Kobain con kappa. Grave ».

But success came with “They killed Spider-Man.” Though that fame wasn’t enough for a nightclub bouncer, who didn’t let her in because she was wearing jeans.

«It was a disco in Alessandria, Nicola Savino had invited me, I also tell about it in the book. The bouncer stopped me. I tried to protest and one behind me said: “Why, this is what Spider-Man wrote!”. The big man at the door looked at me and said: “You might as well have written the hymn of Mameli for me, you don’t enter here.” This is also to say how strict the rules were in the disco in those years ».

Despite everything, are you happy today not to have been a diplomat?

«No, but last year I spent a wonderful Sunday at the seaside with Bugo. Your wife is a career diplomat: I spent hours asking her all kinds of questions. ‘

Bugo could be part of one of his songs: a hero victim of pride.

«An exquisite person, very cultured. Like my friend Lorenzo Jovanotti, to whom I also have in common the jump at the toll booth ».

What is that?

«When there was no navigator you had to be careful not to miss the tollbooth on the motorway. Who knows why both me and Lorenzo have jumped the Riccione tollbooth several times ».

The friendship with J-Ax, however, cannot fail to bring some moments of madness.

“Do I really have to tell it?”

Yup.

“All right. One Sunday he, I and Jack La Furia took our Harleys and went to Oltrepò Pavese. To eat bread and salami. Said this way it may seem normal, but if you live in Pavia it is the best of the tamarro. But it was one of the best days for me ».

“How Come” is one of the few love songs from 883. Is it true that she didn’t want to do it? And why?

“No, because I thought it didn’t represent that kind of love with a happy ending. We sang the bad luck of unrequited loves, in short, I did not see what success it could have. Luckily Claudio Cecchetto put his foot down and told me: “I’ll take responsibility, and if the album goes badly because of this song, I’ll lose it”. It was
a success”.

An absurd thing he did for love?

“Love is a big word, but I once met a Swede. Who then went back to his home. I didn’t have the address and I wanted to send her some flowers. But without the internet how did I do it? Yet I’ve always been a nerd and was part of a small circle of people who knew how to use modems. In short, an ante litteram network. So I spread the message and, after a few minutes, a Swede answered me and wrote me the girl’s address ».

But with the success of the 883 the models also came in the end!

“Yes, but who found the courage to approach? We remained impaled, they stayed with us for a video or a shooting and then disappeared. But there was one that I liked a lot. Her name was Padma, she was very cultivated and she also cooked well. I met her in Pantelleria, she shot a video with us. We spent beautiful evenings, chatting in the dammusi. How did it end? She ended up marrying Salman Rushdie. ‘

The friend rule, of course. But, Pezzali, you must confess: you married Debora Pelamatti, the one who has been a friend of his for years.

«Yes, love with my wife came after a very long friendship. One day we said to ourselves: well, from now on we will change ».

But how, “the friend rule is never wrong”, we do not marry the one with whom we exchange confidences. And instead…

“Let’s say he hits ninety-seven percent right. And in any case, as we age, this rule tends to work less and less ».
Max Pezzali, in «Gli anni», sings: «Time passes for everyone you know / Nobody will bring it back not even us».

March 31, 2021 (change April 1, 2021 | 00:45)

© Time.News

You may also like

Leave a Comment