Songs To Nowhere#109#Trendkill Radio#6.09.2021

An interview with Calibro 35 - The Italian Job II



Calibro 35 started as a one-off project that rediscovered obscure Italian 60's soundtracks. At one point they realized it could go further and things got serious. Mike Malloy, movie director, contacted them to create the soundtrack for a documentary [Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s].

More than a decade later, 6 studio albums, 1 live album, various soundtracks and endless movie and documentary excerpts, the sound of the Calibro 35 remains fresh. In this series of interviews that intend to make known a little more the current Italian music, could not miss the milanese Calibro 35 and their fresh attitude towards music and all the cinematic ideas are reason enough to do not miss them because it's one amazing show. It could be as simple as what I just wrote, and yet it's not. Here are the words of Tommaso Colliva about Calibro 35!


Songs to Nowhere – When and how did you met and began playing together?

Tommaso Colliva - Calibro started as a one-off studio project. Back in 2006, I was on tour in the US with an Italian rock band and we ended up playing SXSW but trying to sell Rock n Roll to Americans seemed wrong to me. I started thinking "what can be proud of doing music and being Italian?" and the only answers I could come up with were Opera or Film Music (read Morricone).I've always been a soundtrack lover and during that time I was thinking about potential ideas for something to do with my good friend Massimo (Guitar/Keys) whom I collaborated before doing albums for other artists. Back in Italy, I dropped him a call and we started assembly what later became "Calibro", selecting the best musicians for the idea we now had: recreating the sound, feel and music of Italian Golden Age soundtracks. We thought it was a cool thing to do but we never imagined we would stretch this far. 

Psycheground - Calibro 35

STN – Why did you call yourselves Calibro 35?

Tommaso Colliva - As with most of the band I know that was the first name that came to mind and we couldn't find anything better! Eurocrime movies have been a big influence at the beginning of our journey and "Milan Calibro 9" is probably the most known film of that genre. So we took "Calibro" from there and attached a very cinematic "35" (as 35mm, the width of movie film) at the end of it.

STN – Why did you choose this unusual path, the revisitation of Italian cinema soundtracks?

Tommaso Colliva - We started revisiting them on the first two albums but then slowly abandoned playing music composed by others to concentrate on our own (last four albums are made entirely from our material)
This said though playing somebody else's music is great! it forces you to understand and study something else and can teach you a lot. We just released a live recording of a concert we did playing some obscure Library Music and the whole process of putting together that show was a great experience dwelling into someone else's musical mind.

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the '70s trailler

STN – Have you seen all the movies of the soundtracks you like?

Tommaso Colliva - Not at all. Some B Movies are great but many of them are quite terrible. Most of the time music is better than the movie itself
  
STN - Who's your favorite OST composer?

Tommaso Colliva - Impossible not to say Morricone.

STN - Calibro 35 is an idea of Tommaso Colliva, but the idea only exists with all the members performing. Keeping this in mind how would you describe your individual part on the creative process of Calibro 35?

Tommaso Colliva - We all come from very different background and have very different skills but we blend together quite well. We are definitely A BAND now but quite an unusual one to be fair. For example, we all have other projects/bands/gigs that fuel our creativity but when we are back to do Calibro we really are CALIBRO.

Giulia Mon Amour - Calibro 35

STN - You mix many styles, and that mix has taken to very distinct places and to play with very distinct artists and venues. However, in your own terms how would you describe your music?

Tommaso Colliva - Mixing genres is one of the things we took from Italian soundtracks. Back in the 60s, you had a classically trained composer trying to copy Isacc Hayes' Blaxploitation sound, writing music to be performed by young jazz or prog rock musicians backed up by full orchestra's and that created a very unique sound. We like to do the same. We keep our ears open and we share our musical ideas with the others.
Therefore we exist in a no-mans-land area of music where different inspirations blend: funk, rock, jazz...

STN – Were there any differences between the making of  Decade and your previous works?

Tommaso Colliva - Decade was different from other albums because we recorded it with a MUCH larger ensemble: 15 people. and when you do that you can't improvise, you need to plan in advance to make things work. This leads us to work on pre production/writing and that was difficult since we all lived in different cities (London, Milan, Rome, Bologna...) but it was also new, fresh and inspiring. Once we had the songs fully formed and written we wrote scores. The whole recording process was trying to balance the instinct of Calibro quartet (where musicians improvise and influence each other every second) and the orchestration ideas (where everything is written on paper beforehand). You can bet it was intense but we are SO happy with how it came together!


Calibro 35 "Sabotaggio" vs Beastie Boys "Sabotage"

STN – Calibro 35 now have a string section, it’s a bold move, but it most definitely accentuates all the cinematic aura Calibro 35 have, giving your sound a very well deserved greatness. Can you talk a bit about this addition?

Tommaso Colliva - We only had strings with us for recording and few dates after DECADE was released. The idea is not to have them all the time but broadening our palette was an interesting move that opens up so many artistic options.

STN – How did you choose the songs to feature in your live álbum?

Tommaso Colliva - CLBR35 was a great document. We wanted to have a clear picture of that tour since it felt focused and fully formed to us. Songs were picked based only on a subjective level: what felt better to us, what we thought it was good to remember.

STN  - All of you already had previous experiences before Calibro 35… Where did you all learn to play?

Tommaso Colliva - We mixed quite a lot of different experiences: classically trained (Enrico), self-thought (Luca), started with one instrument then switching to another (Max), played pretty much all known genres (Fabio), started playing and then abandoned the instrument (myself)…

Calibro 35 - Bandits On Mars


STN - How did you buy your first gear and how important that was for you?

Tommaso Colliva - We've all been vintage instruments lovers since ages ago but a big part of Calibro journey has been learning how to play and use them "as they did back in the days". Instruments and gear can be hugely inspirational.

STN - Can you tell us how was your first rehearsal?

Tommaso Colliva - Calibro started as a studio project so there were no rehearsals. You can actually listen to the first time we all met. It's "Trafelato" out of our first album.

STN - How was it your first tour in Italy?

Tommaso Colliva - What we are playing is a bit out of the usual standards and we didn't know what do exactly. First two concerts we actually performed being sat because we thought our music was something like jazz!

STN - How the local music scene for you? Are there venues that were anyway crucial for you?

Tommaso Colliva - BIKO club in Milan is the first spot we ever played and we love to go back there when possible (they changed their location to a much larger venue to what it used to be).
We also have had incredible support from the Italian alternative/indie scene even though our music doesn't belong there.

Calibro 35 - SuperStudio

STN - How’s the interaction between bands?

Tommaso Colliva - As said when we started we gravitated towards the Italian indie/alternative scene and that has been crucial to spreading the word and having our music heard to a much larger audience than what instrumental jazz-funk usually gets.

STN - What Italian bands most influenced you?

Tommaso Colliva - Ennio Morricone, even though he is not a band.

STN – What other musicians or artists influenced or influence you?

Tommaso Colliva - The whole Italian soundtrack/library scene: Marc4, Umiliani, Alessandroni, Ortolani, Romolo grano, Gianni Oddi... too many to mention.

STN - Could you do us a short resume for dummies of Italian music? 

Tommaso Colliva - Mmmmm not sure I can sum it up. We are a very weird beast in this country.

STN - How are the radio and press in Italy? I mean regarding the underground scene…

Tommaso Colliva - Underground has its outlet either as dedicated programs/ magazines/radio shows or leaking through cracks on more mainstream things.

STN - How did you got acquainted with your current label?

Tommaso Colliva - I was a fan of Record Kicks, they were fans of us. They organized a DJ set by Neal SUgarman from Daptone and we met there... love at first sight.

STN- Do you have other occupations other than music or are you in any way connected to other artistical projects?

Tommaso Colliva - Nope, we just do music.

STN – “Decade” was out in 2018, pretty fresh yet. What are your expectations for it in the long term?

Tommaso Colliva - Keep on Doing our own thing really.

Calibro 35 - S.P.A.C.E.
STN - If you could time travel, were would you like to go see a show or play?

Tommaso Colliva - Not sure but I'd personally love to time travel to NYC in 1978 and see what the hell was going on there: between punk hip hop and disco there was so much going on!

STN - When can we expect another show from Calibro 35 in Portugal?

Tommaso Colliva - I fear you'll have to wait till new album will be out but we'll surely come.

STN – Name the last song or band that completely blew your minds!

Tommaso Colliva - Andersonn Paak and Flying Lotus collab.

STN – The Last word is yours! 

Tommaso Colliva – Thanks!


Interview by Isabel Maria


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Have no doubt, this is dance music! - An interview with Throw Down Bones




"Have no doubt, this is dance music" could easily be the name of a song or a whole album of this amazing two Italian gentlemen; Dave and Francesco. Throw Down Bones have been around officially since 2014, and their debut album was released in 2015. But they're story goes a bit behind because they already knew each other from a previous band. The first song I listened was Bones in December 2015, I think the album had been released a couple of months before and I was searching for stuff for Christmas on Fuzz Club store and there it was. It was quite probable I would like the sound of it like most of the stuff I've known from Fuzz Club, but this was something else. It's was hypnotic and extreme, it was made to make you dance under a hard and hot rhythm that we can find in all Throw Down Bones songs. Most of them could easily evocate a quick return to the mid 80's when all the dance music turned upside down, but at the same time, they feel to be exactly at the time they are. Like Throw Down Bones said themselves; "Have no doubt, this is dance music"

This interview happened because Throw Down Bones were scheduled to play in Lisbon on the last weekend of June at Feedback Fever, a festival that was born from the collaboration between Fuzz Club (Throw Down Bones label) and Sabotage Club, my favorite venue in Lisbon. It was not published before because tragically Dave passed away a couple of days before the show. Thank you for the music Dave and Francesco.

Songs To Nowhere - Could you introduce Throw Down Bones to our readers and perhaps talk about how you guys met and how the band started?

Throw Down Bones - Hello,  we are Dave and Frankie, we are from the Italian alps, we have been friends since we have been very young and have been involved in bands together for many years, TDB is what came about our previous band disintegrated. 

STN - Is there a story behind the name of the band? Could you share it with our readers?

TDB - We wanted a name with a tribal feel that reflected elements both trance and violence. We stumbled across Throw Down Bones and it seemed to fit our intentions. We had completed our debut album before we found the name, so perhaps that informed choice. 

STN - How would define your sound and it’s “evolution” from one álbum to the other?

TDB - Our sound is born of improvisation and jamming. We find sounds, grooves, and atmospheres that interest us and expand on them. A lot of people have commented on the difference between our albums, asked why we changed sounds, but we see the albums as a logical progression, they are both the sound of our inspirations and processes at the time. They are both constructed from the same raw materials. For the second album, we knew we wanted to make something more immediate and direct so maybe that’s why the beats and electronic are pushed more towards the front.



STN -Your live act is worthy of the main stage in any other festival, closing the hostilities in a dancing mood, but at the same time it also feels so right to get to see you guys on a small venue. Personally were do you prefer to play? 

TDB - Both work fine for use, we have had amazing shows on massive stages and also in small clubs. We just want people to dance when we play and when they “get it “ they do! 

STN - How important is the visual component to yourselves? Talking about projections in shows, your art-work, and your vídeos… 

TDB - It’s become very important with the second record, we have been working very closely with a designer/video maker called Discordo he made the video for Golovkin and the projections for our tour, they fit our sound perfectly. 



STN - Two is a very powerful álbum. You have some amazing songs there! Could you talk us a bit about a couple of them like Slow Violence and  First Follower?

TDB - The First Follower is the first person to get on board with I new idea, not the person that came up with the idea but the first person to join them and legitimize the idea, seemed like a perfect title for an album opener. the track was built around an acid riff from a Roland 303 that we came up with when experimenting. 

Slow Violence grew from bass guitar part Dave came up with once we got the bass sound working with the top end washed out in reverb and the low end solid with the house beat the track cane together with layers of guitars and synths, we have only played that track live once.

We are Drugs - Two - live in Angers 

STN - Glovokin and We Are Drugs were the first two songs to be released. Both of them are pretty suitable for being played in a wide variety of places, was that your intention by choosing these two?

TDB - We wanted to put out a video as with the first taste of the new record Discordo wanted to work with Golovkin so we ran with that. It’s kind of an in your face track so good to lead with. A real statement of intent, the sounds, and video sum up what “Two” is all about. It was our label’s choice to put our “ We Are Drugs “ and we were happy about that.

STN - How did you got acquainted with your label? 

TDB - Our previous band had released a record with Fuzz Club, we sent them our debut album and they loved it. 

Slow Violence - Two

STN - Do you have any other professional occupation or are you involved in any other musical project?

TDB - Frankie builds instruments and Fx under the name Noise Militia, many of them we use in the studio and live. 

STN - Two was out almost at the end of 2018, but can we expect any new songs soon?

TDB -  We are currently working on a new video (with Discordo again) and hope to have that out before too long and we also have half a plan to make a remix/reinterpretation of the latest album. Then we will think about making some new music may be at the end of the year.

Golovkin - Two

STN - Name the last song, band or live show that absolutely blew your mind!!! 

TDB - 7 by a band called Avalanche Party, very raw and powerful sounds.

STN - The Last word is yours!

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