By Keith Walsh
In an album that combines melancholia with hope, Onceweresixty draw upon the well of Italy’s profound artistic history and personal experiences to create songs from an active observer’s point of view. On Loco Sunset Blvd./Ghetto Blaster Sound Machine, their second disc, the band’s three members demonstrate musical skill and wisdom, along with the the important role the arts play in instilling optimism and endurance. I spoke vocalist Marco Lorenzoni about his work, his inspirations, and the nearly miraculous circumstances around the recording of the new album in an ancient Armenian Church. (My review of Loco Sunset Blvd./Ghetto Blaster Sound Machine is at Punk Rock Beat dot com.)
Popular Culture Beat: Making modern music in the old world, what are some of the constraints of tradition you feel on any messages you transmit?
OnceWereSixty: Well, tough question to begin with, eheh, I can say that I grew up listening to a lot of traditional Italian pop songs, as very deep [embedded] in Italian culture and I clearly remind my mother singing them over and over. Than when I was around 12 I suddenly found myself comfortable in Trash-metal and hardcore music along with my skater age.. and from the skate scene suddenly pops up hip-hop… At the same time my older bro was so much into New-wave and Dark stuff… there was so many music to listen that I was about to get mad. Anyway for a certain time music was just a soundtrack, for pushing faster my deck, for surrounding our days.
I liked it, but I was not mad at making music. Then something happened. I remember that my brother was spending hours watching Videomusic (a sort of Italian MTV) and I was quite mad at it because I wanted to watch cartoons or skate videos instead… than one evening I started watching this channel and felt asleep in front of it leaving the television going for all the night. When I woke up I felt different… and after a couple of week I sold my scooter to buy a keyboard… eheh, maybe it’s just a joke of my memory, but I’m pretty sure it happened like that, or anyway I like to remember it like that. Ok I’m getting off topic, so coming back to the question, I grew up surrounded by constraint of tradition, and growing up I hated, fought, and finally simply get aware of it, using or ignoring or deliberately forcing those ‘rules.’ So to resume, I can say, know the rules, and then break them.
Popular Culture Beat: On the other hand, with the tradition of visual art, poetry and literature in Italy, how has your formal education influenced your talent for telling stories through songs?
OnceWereSixty: Italy is a wonderful place full of art and it’s impossible not to breathe creativity in the air. There’s plenty of people running incredible projects, and a lot of people write, paint, play instruments. Unfortunately, a lot of this effort goes in the wrong direction of chasing fame and money. Coming to my formal education, well apart from the literature program at high school, I didn’t have much more. I studied economics, and a whole set of views of life that little had to do with art.. so I developed as a counter-balance a deep curiosity to all the creative disciplines. I don’t know if I can refer to any sort of talent in telling stories, but I can say it helped more reading books on my own than what I studied at school.
Popular Culture Beat: As Marco and Luca have played together since 2001, how important is that friendship in inspiring songs and sounds? How does Enrico fit into that equation?
OnceWereSixty: Back in 2001 when I founded mr60 with Luca (and a few more) we incredibly found a kind of perfect balance in the composition using a minimal approach and a ‘song oriented’ attitude. There was (same as today) no plan for virtuosismo or superegos, every note and noise had to be functional to the song. That was the goal. Setting our rules, and breaking it as well, we started with monochords compositions lasting several minutes and need with kinda of super twee pop less than 3 minute songs.. eheh.. When we started back in 2018 we took it from where we left, and then we let the new songs comes out naturally… as we noticed we needed few more sounds we asked Enrico if he wanted to “push some buttons” with us. He immediately fit in our mood (also thanx to a wide background of music references we share) and also added saxophone as a new element we could use. This second album is the first in which Enrico took active part in composition and I’m happy to say it seems to work very well!
Popular Culture Beat: Tell me more about how you all came to record the double EP in an Armenian Church, what that was like and how did you come to name the makeshift studio ‘Vampire?’
OnceWereSixty: Well, sometimes we are lucky. How can you explain that you find a beautiful 1400’s villa, being abandoned for more than 20yrs, where some people are working together to reuse it through the practice of art?.. and all at less than 2 km from home? It was around the end of 2021, still COVID period, there were no concerts and laws in Italy didn’t allow people with no vaccine to enter closed public place. But I (as Uglydog Record manager) wanted to set some concerts for everyone. So some friends took me to the villa. I was impressed from the first time. We had a deal. Basically they would give me a room for my rehearsal and lab, and I would have to organize concerts to bring people knowing the place. It worked. We made 20 something bands playing in 3 month October December, outside, with fireplaces around to get (little) warm.. as the place was named Villa Albrizzi Marini, and everything there was named VAM-something, I immediately came out with my VAM-Pires (festival first, and room later). It could be a coincidence but at the time the Vam-restaurant was held by a guy nicknamed Van Helsing, a very huge Led Zeppelin fanboy.. “The Vampires hides in the dark, you hardly notice them but their red eyes lightening in the dark, and hissing at the sound when they hear someone coming… “
Popular Culture Beat: Tell me about the first half of the album title, “Loco Sunset Blvd.” . Have you been to Hollywood? Also there’s a reference to a faded starlet in the track “Pills.” How do these connect?
OnceWereSixty: Coincidences? Maybe. I’ve never been to Hollywood nor in the US, most of my stories comes out of imaginary places, places I’ve imagined reading books, watching films and so on. The title Loco Sunset Boulevard came at the end as my 14 year old little good dog Loco passed away. I realized that we made the album in his very last days… and we all wanted to honor him. In the other side ‘Pills’ recalled a kinda 90 sound so I imagined a typical drama of starlets faded out that seems to me so nineties-defining.
Popular Culture Beat: On songs such as “Into Town,” “Back In The Days,” and “Weird Times” there’s some messages about loss of innocence and maybe becoming jaded. How does making music help you restore or keep your innocence and positivity?
OnceWereSixty: Simply by making you aware of our conditions. We were at a good point in the writing when I noticed this kind of common message in those songs..It’s like, you feel like shit, We know. We already have been there and there’s nothing wrong with it. Simply focus on what it’s important to you and keep it. It’s a message for us in primis, you may know how hard it is to follow on making music and all the times it needs to rehearsal, write, and so on. You can’t call it a hobby, a hobby it’s something you do in free time, Making music for me — it’s a reason of life. So with those songs I’m telling ourselves that it’s important to go through difficulties and don’t give up, and fortunately we did, because just after finishing the recordings I went through a bad breakdown, thinking to quit it all.. yes, I wrote to mostly fight my ghosts, and far away to be a Zen person, I live, I cry , I fall, I rise, and it’s ok.
Popular Culture Beat: Please share any tour plans and what you might be working on next!
OnceWereSixty: We are planning some gig around Itay to support the album release. Hopefully we‘ll add some more show in Europe as well.. Early this year we recorded our VAMpire session in our room, a whole live set that we plan to release on May. And new songs are already in the work, so that’s quite enough for not getting bored eheh…
Thx a lot for your interest, I …hope to have been understandable.
ciao
Marco, Luca ed Enrico
Popular Culture Beat: Thank you for your time and thoughtful replies!
‘Loco Sunset Blvd/Ghetto Blast Noise Machine’ On Bandcamp
‘Loco Sunset Blvd’ On Spotify
‘Ghetto Blast Noise Machine’ On Spotify
Ugly Dogs Records
‘Loco Sunset Blvd/Ghetto Blast Noise Machine’ Review At Punk Rock Beat
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