SubsOnicABiography
"Without Turin Italy would be very different, without Italy Turin would be more or less the same", these are Umberto Eco's words: one of Italy's foremost intellectuals and writers, on the personality of the city that had the task of unifying Italy and became its first cultural, political, military (until 1865) and, later on, industrial Capital.
As often happens, there are two sides to this city-factory. The first is efficient, grey, ordinary, alienating while the second is pulsating, politically tense, full of underground life and music.
The Turin that existed at the birth of Subsonica, halfway through the Nineties wasn't very different to the Manchester of that period: a place where a rock attitude and the vitality of the new electronic languages collided. If we can say that the meeting places once were concerts, now they became raves, or nights at techno, break-beat or drum 'n' bass clubs.
There is the atmosphere of a city reawakening from a century of heavy industrialisation and opening out to a cultural "springtime" without precedent. The industrial dream is crumbling to the blows of a deep crisis. The city reacts and searches out a new identity: Turin starts to come alive at night as well.
It is in the night that Subsonica meet, in the area with the highest density of sound waves, the Murazzi, on the river's banks. It is the summer of 1996. The five musicians meet and fraternize in the clubs and the squats where there is music and chatter until the first lights of the morn.
- Samuel, the singer, has a soul background, a voice that cannot pass unnoticed. He grew up with the typical life of a boy from the suburbs; wiled away in cellars with the rock-band of the moment and his Sundays in discos, dancing. He is also the front-man for "amici di roland", a band that mixes punk, pyschedelia and cartoon music.
- Boosta, the keyboard man, is Samuel's long-time friend and accomplice to all of his musical course. He starts out with metal, then he falls in love with computers, videogames, '70's detective programmes and samplers. He sells, swaps, buys, instruments and equipment compulsively, with practically no business sense; which gradually leads to the impoverishment of his instrumentation. He becomes extremely capable, at the same time, with all forms of electronic technology.
- Max, the guitarist, is ten years older and is one of the most affirmed technician-producers in the city. He makes his first steps in the radical new wave of the Eighties, moves on to playing dub and reggae and becomes an essential element of the most famous Italian reggae group (Africa unite). He then builds a recording room inside an artisanal cinematographic studio above piazza Vittorio, right above the river.
The studio is Casasonica, and it immediately becomes the laboratory for the band's first experiments. Max becomes the technical producer and everybody's older brother. By choice or by force.
- Ninja is a technically talented and disciplined drummer. He is also an IT engineer, with a First Class degree from Turin's Polytechnic, one of Italy's severest universities. He has won awards such as "best Italian non-professional drummer" from when he was a youth. However, when he starts experimenting with Subsonica, he forgets everything that he has learned and revolutionizes his method so that his drumming sounds more like an electronic machine. Rumours say that he is not fully human.
- Vicio arrives a few years later. His past is made up of rock 'n' roll, which he however forsakes when he starts losing his hair, at 23. He immediately joins a jazz school, opens out his horizons and betters his technique. When, in 1999, Subsonica call on him to substitute the original Pierfunk, he is happy to leave theory and technique behind and start to make deep and hypnotic bass-lines thump out. The very name Sub-sonica derives from "bass culture".
1996
The first experiments rapidly lead to a five-track demo. The idea is to apply a kind of minimal-electronic groove and an innovative sound to real instruments. Samuel's voice, which switches from melodic to "biting", gifts incisive and airy lines to pulsating and eery sonorous material. There is a recognisable Italian vein to it, yet the sound is new, bold and international. The lyrics, written by Max and Samuel mix poetry, a sense of reality and social reflection. The poet and writer Luca Ragagnin collaborates for some of the lyrics. The demo becomes a discographic contract with the Indie-label Mescal.
Turin's night life has found its heralds.
1997
May 97: "SUBSONICA", their first album, is released. A tour made up of more than 250 concerts in small clubs and squats throughout the whole of Italy. The band, born in a recording studio, straight away exhibits an obvious live attitude. Rumour starts up, and their audiences grow.
Subsonica take up other activities besides concerts, such us musical experiments for art exhibitions, collaborating with the renowned painter Daniele Galliano, the famous portraitist of Turin's night-life.
The historic singer Antonella Ruggiero decides to produce a new album, reinterpreting some old material of her group Matia Bazar. She calls the whole generation of new Italian bands to do it. She also calls Subsonica, who are almost unknown. Their version of "Per un' ora di amore" will be the first single of an album that will rise through all the hit-lists and will get a large amount of air-time on the radios. The name "Subsonica" will be heard in all of the major radio networks.
The band doesn't let itself be distracted by this and boldly carries on playing in remote clubs for little money. Being live is the most important thing at this point.
1998
In '98 they are invited to the first Italian Mtv day, to substitute a cancelled artist. Subsonica take to the stage with much more affirmed bands. They are marked out by a London production (who follows the event live) as the day's best group. On request of the newborn Mtv Italia the Mescal label decides to produce the first videoclips. "Istantanee" and "Cose che non ho" come out. Subsonica prove themselves capable and reckless in choosing directors.
The videoclips will be aired a lot.
December 1998: a live mini-album is released: "COI PIEDI SUL PALCO", proof of the experiences gained in two years worth of touring.
1999
When, in the September of 1999, "MICROCHIP EMOZIONALE", their second album, hits the shops, the anticipation is already high. The band appears on the covers of the main specialist magazines. The reviews are enthusiastic. The visionary videoclip "Colpo di pistola" comes out.
Michrochip Emozionale breaks down the barriers between the world of rock and electronic language. Rock hand-in-hand with drum 'n' bass, break-beat, but also, for the first time, house.
The real instruments melt into the electronic ones and into a expert use of samplers. The song-writing is excellent from beginning to end. The album is recorded, as always, in Casasonica. Once again Max does the production, but all of the band's ideas come out.
One of the tracks "il mio d.j." is composed and made in collaboration with the most famous Italian house d.j.: Claudio Coccoluto. This choice divides the critics and the audience into the scandalised and the enthusiasts. In the meanwhile, the second single, "Liberi tutti", becomes one of the most heard tracks on sound systems during student rallies.
The bass-player, Pier-funk, leaves the band, no longer able to cope with the schedule. Vicio takes his place. The official press continues to ignore the phenomenon. Subsonica are seen as "an independent band, a nice underground reality, but nothing greater". In the meanwhile, a tour starts up which will be sold-out in the most part.
At this point the band makes one of the bravest and most controversial moves of their career: they accept the invitation to participate in the Sanremo Festival, the colossal Italian musical manifestation that celebrates the most classic and, often, rhetorical, "Italian song" form. Sanremo is the runway favoured by the reactionary with days full of scandal-mongering, period transmissions, the triumph of pomposity and the nationally popular.
2000
The news leaves everybody open-mouthed. The "indie" public asks itself what a band like Subsonica are doing on that stage in front of 12 million viewers in world-vision. The audience, journalists and television networks, ask themselves how it is possible that a group of famous nobodies ended up smack, bang in the middle of the most important Italian media event.
It is the February of 2000 when Subsonica get up onto the stage of the Ariston theatre to play "Tutti I miei sbagli"(obligatory original track) with an orchestra on live TV. "Tutti I miei sbagli" will be voted last on that very evening, by the festival's jury. From the next day it will be the most aired song.
Subsonica, who couldn't care less for Sanremo's television world, become famous overnight. A journalist defines their participation this way: "an example of an almost terroristicly lucid strategy". All the newspapers and magazine now publish reviews and interviews with the band from Turin.
The group abandons Sanremo, knowing that it has obtained what it set out for, and, without losing any credibility whatsoever, starts its tour again at the Leoncavallo social centre (the largest self-managed space in Italy), setting a new record for the audience, breaking the one previously held by Public Enemy.
In the September of 2000 Microchip Emozionale goes platinum. The album wins the Premio Italiano della Musica ( PIM - a kind of grammy award ). Subsonica win the same prize as best group.
They also win the Mtv European award, as best Italian group.
The band's website, designed by Ninja, the drummer, becomes one of most-visited musical websites.
Amongst the Microchip Emozionale videoclips, there is also "Discolabirinto", a first-ever attempt at creating a videoclip for the deaf.
2001
During Turin's municipal election, the group openly declares itself against the Right (then favoured by surveys) and organises a concert-festival in the city's principal square, calling all the city's musicians, the student world and the night-people to make a total of a 15000 people audience. The initiative makes the news and is spread on newspapers, in universities, throughout the world of the young. The surveys change from the next week on. In Italy, Berlusconi's right wins. In Turin, it doesn't.
2002
The third album's creation will be tormented by continuous misunderstandings with their label and its director, who insistently asks for tracks with greater radiophonic viability.
In January of 2002 "AMOREMATICO" is released with the new single "Nuvole Rapide", wherein the walls between the world of rock and that of club culture definitively fall. It is a track with a house base, divided in 7/4, without a chorus, and has a single, repeated vocal line. The friend and house d.j. Roger Rama (minimal funk) collaborates. Mescal don't like the track and considers it too difficult, so it threatens to not produce the video.
AMOREMATICO will end up first in the hit-lists and the "Nuvole Rapide" track will have a high amount of airtime both on radio and TV. Another two singles will follow, the first of which is, "Nuova ossessione", made in collaboration with the Krisma: the historic duo of the Italian New Wave of 1977.
The much-anticipated Subsonica tour starts up with equipment and sets, and goes to all the major clubs and sporting arenas.
To everybody's surprise, the band sells out the biggest indoor venue in Italy: the Assago's Fila-forum (Milan), with 12,500 spectators.
During that concert scenes for the dvd, "CIELO TANGENZIALE OVEST", are recorded.
In Rome, during the summer, the group will cause a group of 50,000 people to gather in an open space, creating various problems of public order.
Subsonica have by now become the most-loved Italian group. Their audience is wide, and goes from socially active kids, to lovers of live music, to the dance nation, to adolescents from the suburbs. People recognise themselves in the sometimes tormented lyrics, full of urban solitude, sometimes vital and reactive, sometimes political, but always distant from easy rhetoric.
Subsonica actively oppose the Berlusconi government and the parties that support the war by playing for free in some antagonist festivals.
2003
At the end of the tour, in the February of 2003, the double live cd "CONTROLLO DEL LIVELLO DI ROMBO" is released, containing three new tracks, including the single "L'errore".
During the preparation of "Amorematico", the side-project MOTEL CONNECTION is born, which sees Samuel (the singer), Pierfunk (the original bass player) and Pisti (a turinese house d.j.) involved.
Motel Connection will produce two soundtracks for films by the director Marco Ponti. Boosta, the keyboard player, becomes d.j. Boosta and starts playing, evermore enthusiastically, in the major Italian clubs.
Because of the tensions - worsened by the insistence with which the manager-discographer-editor-director of Mescal tries to impose sponsors and questionable "commercial" initiatives on the group - with the label the group decides to not renew their contract.
Among all of the labels ready to snap them up, Subsonica choose EMI, agreeing on a contract that allows them complete creative freedom, the management of their budget, communication and support for their own independent label called Casasonica.
Subsonica decide to self-manage their own live space and become completely autonomous with a friend-manager, a director of production and a solid group of technicians that have matured with the band through the years. Casasonica live is born.
2005
More than two years after the release of Amorematico, the band meets up again to prepare their fourth studio album. They choose to no longer use computers to write the tracks, but to try a path that was more involving.
"After so long we didn't want to end up sitting in front of a monitor again, so we rented out a warehouse on the riverfront, put the instruments in it and started experimenting loud" they declare.
The result is different. "TERRESTRE" is released in the April of 2005, it is more of a rock album, with an electronic impact that still betrays the electronic discipline and mentality. At some points it provocatively borders on '70's progressive rock. The most curious episode is Gasoline, that, other than being their first song in English, is completely visionary, containing three minutes of only acoustic drums mixed with rhythmic-electronic dysfunctions.
Terrestre is released, immediately reaching n.2 in the Italian charts and two weeks later goes n.1, replacing Bruce Springsteen.
A spring tour in the sporting arenas (Palasport) is completely sold out.
The tour makes the news because it is imposing, spectacular, complete with five big screens and different projections. 40 technicians work on it, but the entry ticket price is only 13 euros. The self-production of the live album will give its just rewards.
The single "Abitudine" is released, with a video that ends up at number 1 on Mtv.
The band choose the hard and tense track "Corpo a corpo" as their second single. The video will be censored and only be aired at night-time.
Bernadette Wegenstein: essayist, documentary maker and professor at the University of Buffalo (U.S.A), will ask Subsonica's permission to use the video for a documentary on the rampant phenomenon of plastic surgery in American adolescents.
Terrestre goes platinum just a few weeks after it was released.
The third single "Incantevole" becomes the most played Subsonica track on the radio. The tour continues until the end of 2005, for a total of 60 concerts and 230.000 people, the most part of which were completely sold-out.
2006
The beginning of 2006 sees Subsonica's presence in Groningen music festival in Holland: just one concert in a small place,
but the people reserves the band an enthusiastic participation and the gig becomes a good visiting card for Subsonica's
future in Europe.
For the months to come, the group decides to take a small rest period from live performances, except for two big concerts: one in April, in Torino -celebrating Torino as "Book's primary city in the world"- together with many other turinese outfits, in front of more than 10000 people. Subsonica exhibits with famous writer Alessandro Baricco, in a furious but fascinating "ambient/punk/drum'n'bass+spoken word" performance.
For the last 2006 live apparition, Subsonica choose a very different context: in July they headline the massive Cornetto Algida Free Music Festival (with Black Eyed Peas and others), the biggest free music show in Italy. More than 200000 people stuff Roma's Piazza S.Giovanni. What a better occasion to celebrate the Subsonica's 10th birthday??
During summertime, each member of the band works on solo projects: C-Max organizes the third Traffic Free Music Festival's edition in Torino (Manu Chao, The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand among the others). Samuel records Motel Connection's second album. Boosta publishes his second book. Ninja becomes an appreciated Drum'n'Bass dj and gives the birth to Ellen Ripley,a new punk drum'n'bass project with Pierfunk, Ale Bavo and young MTV's vj Victor. Vicio works in his house on various instrumental tracks.
In autumn is time for Subsonica to recollect again and record some "electro-acoustic" re-arrangements for a few old songs and three covers. The result is published in November together with a live album ,under the name of "Terrestre live e varie altre disfunzioni". The same day sees the release of "Be Human_cronache terrestri 2005", a DVD containing a documentary on Subsonica's life on the road in 2005 and Terrestre Tour's last gig in Torino.
Meanwhile, "Incantevole"'s videoclip wins the Premio Videoclip dell'Anno 2006 (Videoclip of the year 2006) and instrumental track "Cullati dalla tempesta" is used as musical comment to some images of famous filmaker Rossellini during the Cinema International Festival in Roma (RomaFilmFest).