Piero Pelù jokes about it. “What?”. The question is repeated to him and he still pretends not to hear, even putting his hand behind his ear. Last summer he had to cancel a tour and stop work on an album to treat tinnitus, a hearing disorder.
Two weeks ago he announced his return with the aggressive rock of «Novichok»tomorrow it’s up to that melodic-ethnic of «Cursed Heart»waiting for new album «Deserts» (7 June) and of concerts restart on June 29th.
How are your ears?
«It was an accident at work. I was in the recording studio and I suffered an acoustic shock. I had changed headphones and the sound engineer didn’t do the calculations well: I lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Added to that were my mistakes: I didn’t do the checks immediately and I overlooked the problem. The damage is irreversible, I have recovered a little but there is no healing from these shocks. I can surround the problem with technology. A well-calibrated acoustic system allows me to face the stage again: I have to create sound hell outside, but in headphones it’s as if I had Casadei».
In the post announcing his return he confessed to having “fought depression”…
«The worries about health were added to the thoughts related to the end of Litfiba. I sought professional help, which I still turn to, and I was able to open some beautiful doors. In “Maledetto Cuore”, for example, I sing “I need you”: we rarely say it, but we need others so as not to get lost in those black holes I’m dealing with.”
Did it end badly with Ghigo Renzulli? What did you think after Litfiba’s last show, shame or luck?
«My being Litfiba deep down, I even tattooed it on my belly at the end of the tour, hoped that the egos would calm down and that, despite the announcements, it wouldn’t be the last tour. And yet… You don’t change people’s minds. And to say that we are mature people, not a boy band. There are those who want to remain anchored to the past, see also the historical moment we are experiencing today, and those who instead try to keep alive the word freedom which in the case of an artist means experimenting”.
Speaking of historical moments and the past, in «Novichok» he sings about winners who make history and about short memories…
«An attempt is underway to rewrite history, see Scurati’s speech on April 25th censored by Rai. It seems that someone doesn’t remember that our democracy, born from the ashes of fascism, allowed Almirante and the MSI to enter Parliament. In democracy there is plurality, in dictatorship there is not.”
Ghali says that musicians don’t expose themselves for fear of losing consensus.
«He was right to say and do what he said and did in Sanremo on the Palestinian issue (he spoke of genocide ed). Plus she had a great song too. I too have never stopped exposing myself. On that issue, I am worried about Israel’s thirty-year apartheid towards the Palestinians, but I also think that Hamas’s apartheid is terrorism. I have always exposed myself, but I attribute the most serious faults of not exposing myself to Berlusconi. He instilled indifference and opportunism within each of us. I also have a song in my drawer called “It’s all Silvio’s fault”. Sooner or later I’ll get it out… Today, however, we prefer to talk about the Ferragnez’s evil deeds.”
«Novichok» is the poison that supposedly killed Navalny… and in the text he talks about yellow and blue skin, like the colors of the Ukrainian flag…
«In reality the yellow and blue on the skin are effects of that nerve gas… That Putin uses it against his opponents is a fact, but the song has a broader meaning. We are in an era where everything is poisoned: food, air, news. It’s difficult to be an aware citizen.”
It’s been 25 years since «Il mio nome è maipiù», the pacifist song with Ligabue and Jovanotti born during the war in Kosovo and whose proceeds went to charity for Emergency…
«It was born when the fighters left from the NATO bases in Italy to bomb Belgrade… We have forgotten it, but Putin and the Serbs remember it well… I have never stopped playing it, I have never stopped saying “never more” to wars. Today we talk about Palestine and Ukraine, but we forget about Sudan, Afghanistan, Burma and other conflicts. I am a pacifist and conscientious objector thanks to grandfather Mario, an anti-fascist who instilled in me the repudiation of war and weapons. I really miss a figure like Gino Strada (the founder of Emergency ed.). Today I think it’s difficult to find the right words for a new anti-war song, maybe rappers could do it… I put my version on the album for the anniversary but anyway we’re talking again, me, Luciano and Lorenzo, to understand what to do”.
He made his recovery official with a secret show in via dei Bardi, in the cellar where he started with Litifba. What would today’s Pelù say to that bad boy?
«I hadn’t played there since 1988, it felt like I was going back to the beginning and not just because of the humidity that broke my bones. I have rediscovered a contact with my roots and to that Piero I would say to always study reality, himself, the present and others.”
