“I smoked marijuana with Dodi Battaglia before going on stage, we did everything wrong”

Next May 1st, Roby Facchinetti will accomplish 80 years old. The well-known keyboard player of Pooh he retraced his long career with the band, from the beginning to that time when together with Dodi Battaglia they smoked marijuana before going on stage. “I can say I spent more time with them than with my wife and children”he said in a long interview with Il Corriere della Sera.

“Dodi and I smoked marijuana before going on stage, we were very high”

Throughout his long career, Facchinetti has always tried to stay away from excesses, such as alcohol and smoking. His Bergamo roots ‘protected’ him, even if on one occasion he lost a little control. It was the first and last time. She went on stage after smoked marijuana with Dodi Battaglia:

Once in New York they gave us a pack of marijuana cigarettes. Dodi and I decided to try, sure that she would make us sound like a god. But then we went on stage and while the others sang the first song, Battaglia and I immediately moved on to the finale. We were so done! Needless to say, that was the first and last time for me.”

Even from‘alcohol Facchinetti has always tried to keep himself rather distant, so much so that he remembers in his life just one hangover, also in this case with Pooh’s friends and colleagues:

Once we were in Maui, Hawaii and I had spent a sleepless night composing “My Woman”. I was so elated that the next night at the restaurant I had three Mai Tai cocktails on an empty stomach. Everything began to appear double to me, I saw two Canzians. Here too, first and last hangover of my life.

Pooh’s career

Pooh’s first steps into the world of music were not easy. It was the second half of the Sixties: “Musical bands had a lot of expenses, for example the purchase of instruments, maintenance. Riccardo (Fogli, ed.) and I shared a sandwich many times”. Then, as time passed, the situation became increasingly easier for the group and success arrived, so much so that today Facchinetti confesses: “We have imposed a fee, we invented a new way of making music.” The drummer, on the eve of turning 80, admits that he has spent more time with them than with his wife and children. And speaking of Patty Pravo:

I think she was one of the very few Italian truly “divas”. I remember well when she was with Riccardo and we happened to bump into her in some city: furs, Rolls with tinted windows, armored hotel rooms. Once under our hotel we saw a crowd of three hundred people and they were all there for her”.