“He’s exorcising the loss of the 883, I’m happy”

When Mauro Repetto decided to leave 883 from one day to the next, despite having been its founder, author, mind and body, Max Pezzali found himself alone in command of a huge machine. And she managed to grow the project and then put an end to it to give life to her solo career which, as we know, was also successful. Repetto left because after years of giving everything for 883 he no longer found himself in that music, that life, in the role he had carved out for himself and, at the same time, because he decided to pursue a model – who he will never meet – but above all a sort of American dream, as he also said in the interview with Fanoage.it.

Relations between the two stopped for a while., for the time that Repetto decided to break away from everything and everyone, but in recent years the two have become closer again, from the San Siro stage to messages on Whatsapp. A few months ago Repetto, who in the meantime has become a big shot at Disney, published an autobiographical book in which he retraces both the years of the 883 and what happened afterwards and on which so much mythology has been built. In the interview with Fanpage.it, in which Pezzali talked about the new single Le discoteche abandoned, the singer also spoke about Mauro Repetto and how his friend is facing, in hindsight, that period that led them to success.

“I’m happy that Mauro is exorcising the loss of the 883 – Pezzali told Fanpage.it -: I metabolised it because I was there and I moved forward with that stuff, I had to do it, in some ways, in spite of myself, while he never had time to metabolise it , because he moved on to something else, then returned to that thing and is trying to historicize it and see it in perspective (…). I think he’s dealing with that thing, then we continue to talk on Whatsapp even just because of bullshit” and he reiterated: “I think he now wants to tell his version and he’s right to do so because you can’t remain in the doubt of not dealt with it completely.”

Pezzali explains that this desire to put the pieces back in place also derived from the awareness acquired when Repetto saw in front of him, at San Siro, what they had built and from which he had distanced himself: “I believe that now he wants to tell his version and he is right to do so because you cannot be left with the doubt of not having faced it completely. I think that when he went on stage with me at San Siro he realized what we had done, the fact that for all those people our songs had become fundamental. If they tell you, it’s one thing, but when you see it you know it’s time to face it.”

Finally Pezzali tells his version – which does not differ much from that of Repetto – on the credits to Gli Anni. What is one of 883’s most loved songs, in fact, bears the signature of Pezzali alone, although his friend also began to write it: “Gli anni is the song we were making when he left. Let’s talk about Easter in 1994, in fact he didn’t sign it because he didn’t finish it, we were starting to put it together and he was already feeling that that direction no longer represented him” and in fact Repetto told Fanpage how at that time he was no longer reflected in that song: “‘Same story, same place, same bar’, I realize the song is beautiful, but I don’t want the same story, or the same place, or the same bar.” And Pezzali reiterates, in fact: “He suffered a bit from that bar thing, which was my experience, the friends were mine, he joined in, it was my little world that was expanding, so I think it was natural for him look for something broader.”