«The world has changed a lot since 1977, the year of my first studio album. Public and private events accompanied my journey (…) The time has come to rewind the tape.” In the preface of the book 40 lives (without stopping me ever), just released by La Nave di Teseo, the Milanese singer-songwriter Enrico Ruggeri, 67 years old on 5 June, writes this way to explain that in 248 pages he has put everything behind the his forty records, and more. An artistic adventure that is intertwined with everyone’s life, given that each chapter ends by recalling current and historical events, such as Reagan’s election, the adoption of the euro or the Rigopiano massacre.
How do you get to this appointment with the tape?
«Aware that everything is different from the past. We used to play, today there are PCs. Staying in a studio for two months, day and night, to record a record with people like you, it’s no longer done. Creating without thinking only of the market is something that young people don’t know.”
It’s marking a difference in experiences but also in substance, right?
“Certain. I don’t want to be a hypercritical boomer singer, but those of today have never read a book, you can tell from what they say: they seem like WhatsApp messages. People like De Gregori, De André or Battiato had developed their own inner world before writing songs. Today the concept of idea has been replaced by the “gimmick”.
What did it take to get here?
«Consistency and an unlabelable nature».
If things didn’t go well, what would he do?
“I do not know. Maybe life rewards those who, like me, don’t have a Plan B. I probably would have been a musical engineer.”
He writes that he has made “many mistakes”: the worst?
«Having not grown up in a regular family – without male figures – I have always tried to rebuild one with my collaborators, which led me to maintain relationships that at a certain point, in order to grow, I would have had to break off. I never did it. And I paid for it.”
Did it pay to write dance songs for people like Den Harrow in the 80s?
“Certain. This is how I made ends meet. I wrote for many singers with foreign names which, when pronounced, meant something in Italian: Joe Ketto, Albert One, Joe Yellow, Jock Hattle… I stopped after the success of Nuovo swing, in 1984. Since then I started doing concerts and to earn regularly.”
Like an Inter footballer?
«Yes, but like Beccalossi, not like today’s millionaires».
He wrote many splendid hits for himself and others – “Il mare d’interno” for Loredana Bertè, “Cosa le donne non di di” for Fiorella Mannoia etc. – but they don’t often mention you among the great songwriters: why?
«I am for those who stop me on the street, less so for certain press. This, frankly, makes me sad.”
What does it discount?
«Not having had a real manager and never having been part of the left-wing mainstream».
How do you think today?
«I grew up in a Milanese high school, the Berchet, where a single left-wing thought dominated and the study programs were shaped accordingly. I have always rebelled against this. That said, I can have both right and left positions. I am a free man.”
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Do you feel represented by the Meloni government?
“It takes time to judge, but so far – despite the opposition and certain newspapers saying the opposite – it seems to me that there is more open-mindedness than other old, much more dogmatic governments.”
Do you struggle to call yourself anti-fascist?
«The only dictatorship I have known was that of the lockdown when you couldn’t leave the house without the Green Pass and they chased you with the helicopter if you ran to the beach. This question scares me a little…”
Really?
«Yes, it reminds me of the 70s, when in Milan a right-wing student, Sergio Ramelli, 19 years old, wrote an essay to denounce the violence of the Red Brigades and the lack of institutional condolences after the death in Padua of two MSI militants attacked in a city headquarters. That essay was put on the notice board at his school and a few days later Ramelli was killed outside his house by blows to the head with a wrench.”
What does that have to do with anything?
“It smells like pre-dictatorship to me.”
Never mind. You are against NATO, right?
«Since the Iron Curtain no longer exists, in my opinion NATO has no reason to exist. But I’m not a Putin supporter.”
The most illegal thing ever done?
«In the 80s I snorted cocaine for a short period».
As a boy he worked as a clerk in a jeans shop for four months, the worst of his life: why?
«I was afraid of wasting my time and dreams. A nightmare”.
Did he tell his children?
«Yes, but with them I always risk playing the old blunderbuss».
The most important thing he passed on to them?
«Freedom of thought. With the younger ones, however, I struggle: I see them as super homologated, especially the male who is 18 years old and goes around like Sferaebbasta.”
You wrote that more than once it could have ended badly for you: when was the closest you came?
«As a boy I went around like Lou Reed from Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal, they called me a fascist and so twice I found myself with a gun stuck in my mouth. Then my car overturned three times and I was on board that plane which made a bad landing at Punta Raisi in Palermo and ended up half in the sea. It was 13 September 1989. I remember it because in the European Cup my Inter lost one-nil to Malmö in Sweden that evening.”
The singers in his 2011 novel, “What Day Will Be,” were all humanly disappointing: What was an exorcism?
«I wanted to tell you that singers are often weak, scoundrels and misfits. Basically what I would have become if I hadn’t been successful.”
The protagonist behaved very badly with women: he was talking about himself, right?
«At the beginning of my career I was a shy young man without a woman. Then with the success everything changed, they were all there, and I took advantage of it. Every concert I worked hard before, during and after. For at least the first thousand concerts I don’t think I spared myself. At 20-30 years old he’s fine.”
At 67 does the red light of ridiculousness ever come on?
«I’m very careful about it. I see a lot of embarrassing singers my age around.”
Do you believe in God?
«Yes, but I don’t go to church. And when it happens, he won’t send me to the bad guys. If there is a moratorium on sexual sins, I will get away with it (laughs, ed.).”
Will we see you again in Sanremo with Conti’s return?
“Who knows? Carlo is good and I hope he doesn’t follow in Amadeus’ footsteps and isn’t guilty of youth.”
After years in the national singing team, three years ago the Brazilian footballer Maicon gave her the gift of a lifetime, right?
“Yes. At 64, the oldest ever, he gave me my debut in Serie D with Sona (Verona), his penultimate team before retiring. I touched the ball 4 times in 9 minutes which I will never forget.”
Is the best yet to come?
“I do not know. I’m afraid I have more ideas than time to implement them. I already know that I will go away saying: “It’s okay to die, but I was running out of that stuff…””.
What is what singers don’t say?
«Who are full of neuroses».
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