The Italian Job V - An interview with The Gluts

The Gluts playing at Effenaar, Fuzz Club'19

This is the fifth chapter of a series of interviews dedicated to italians bands currently creating and performing on very high levels of quality. I was introduced to The Gluts most probably through Fuzz Club releases or any other youtube channel I follow and I liked it almost immediately, but like most of the bands for whom I develop some kind of admiration, besides liking what they're producing, what has fascinated me is the way they present themselves to a live audience. 

They played in Portugal in 2017 at Reverence Santarém. 

2019 is the year of Dengue Hypnotic Fever, an album almost as strong and raw as they're live performances. At Eindhoven Fuzz Club the word was that they signed one of the best shows there, and for the looks of videos on youtube, I'm almost inclined to agree.

Showing a great deal of noise since the release of Warsaw in 2014 were you can find songs like Bad Man, Enemies or darker ones like Don't Tease Me Please or Vietnam, we can also identify this certain darkness that I mostly relate to a new interpretation of eighties post-punk that has spread all over europe and from wich The Gluts were one the first bands emerging. Listen to Estasi, released in 2017, or watch the Fuzz Club Sessions with the Gluts from 2018. And if you're still having second thoughts on these four italians listen to Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip as loud as you can handle it! For all said before here's the interview with the Milanese band The Gluts, to give us a broader picture of what is happening in Italy, and more specifically with them!    

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

The Gluts - The Gluts were born in 2013 when Marco and Nicolò - who are a peaceful version of Gallagher brothers, respectively the guitarist and the frontman met Claudia. She was asked if she had known any bassist available around, she replied “That’s me” and the band was built up. Three years later, after two drummers, Dario joined the band after being “stalked” by Nicolò since the beginning.

The Gluts - Come To Fire

STN – Why did you call yourselves The Gluts?

The Gluts - The name comes from the artistic series made by Robert Rauschenberg, who worked with and displayed several abandoned and industrial final goods that weren’t sold because the offer was much higher than demand. The reason behind the choice was bound to the will to express a kind of excess, a noisy excess.

STN – Were there any differences between the making of Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip and your previous works?
The Gluts - Maybe the main difference is that we had the opportunity to work with a producer for the very first time. We chose Bob De Wit and he chose us, it was a mutual pick, or bet, and it did go very well: he helped us with some new fresh ideas during the recording sessions. He’s the best we could have ever asked.

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

The Gluts - Claudia was brave enough to write directly a message to Casper by Facebook Messenger. He listened to us, he liked us and sent us the contract the day after. A kind of a magic.

STN – Last year Fuzz Club released a Fuzz Club Session of The Gluts, how did you choose the songs to feature on it, what was the criteria?

The Gluts - That was quiete simple: we had a new album out and we were touring around Europe, so we picked up a bunch of the songs we were performing, preferring the ones that could better return multiple shades of our sounds.

The Gluts - Fuzz Club Sessions - That's Me

STN – Can you talk a bit about some of your songs and how they came up; I would like to suggest E. The Real Punk Rocker, Come To Fire and Don’t Believe in Fairy Tales...
The Gluts - Well, regarding the lyrics and the title of E. The Real Punk Rocker are a kind of a joke and tribute to a very famous italian songwriter, whose real name is Edoardo. He has nothing to share with the punk music scene, but we don’t usually listen to him, unless when we find ourselves stocked in the van for hours. Concerning Come To Fire, we wanted to experiment with drum machine and the song came out almost immediately.

STN - In your own terms how would you describe your music?
The Gluts - It’s not as easy as it seems. Probably it would be appropriate saying that it is a dark, obscure and angry energy that resides in our deeper and inner selves, which is given an external, noisy and punk musical shape.

The Gluts - E. The Real Punk Rocker

STN - How would you describe your individual parts on the creation process of your songs?

The Gluts - The individual parts are almost every time the preliminary work: it never happened that we found ourselves play an entire song entirely written from the beginning to the end by only one of us. It’s a collective work that could require a month for a song or just one night session.

STN - Who looks after your artwork?

The Gluts -  We can barely draw a line, so the artwork is always looked after by a special guy, really creative and versatile. His name is Paolo Proserpio, who worked with Alessandro Comotti for the DFHT’s artwork.

STN - Your first release was a really DYI thing, do you still do things like that or you step into another level?
The Gluts - We did believe in our record, we received proposals from several record labels which were simply crazy, so we decided to produce and print it by ourselves. It was a reckless decision but the right one in the end. By the time of second press, things had changed we got a reasonable deal with German label Nasoni Records.

The Gluts - Enemies

STN - Where did you all learn to play? Did you have lessons or anything like that?

The Gluts - Do we really know how to play properly?

STN - Did you had previous experiences before The Gluts?
The Gluts - All of us. Claudia had two musical experiences before entering The Gluts: a all-female band called “The Cocos” and a power trio called “TSO”, meanwhile Dario played in a band with a fake French name, “gouton rouge”. In his 20’s Marco had played as guitarist and main vocalist for several years in “Gasnervino”, a pure punk rock band. About Nico’s experiences, well, it’s much better not to say anything more.

STN - How did you buy your first gear?

The Gluts -  Working hard and grabbing from our dads’s gear. We are lucky enough to have all our fathers still playing in their own bands too!

 The Gluts - Fuzz Club Session - Ponytail

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

The Gluts - Our first rehearsal with Dario on drums was really hot and exciting. It sounds like we matched on Tinder and went out for a date, it was awesome, but in the middle of the hottest week of that summer.

STN - How was it your first tour in Italy?
The Gluts - We simply don’t tour in Italy, We’re interested in playing sometimes around, but it never happened that we played three days in a row in Italy. We do not fit very well in the Italian scene. 

STN - How the local music scene for you? Are there venues that were anyway crucial for you? 
The Gluts - Narrowing the field to Milan, there are few good places for live music, it depends on your musical tastes, but unfortunately there’s still no crucial Italian venue for us.

STN - What about internet and new technologies impact on music? What’s your opinion our ideas about what has changed in these last 15/20 years in music, was it for the best?
The Gluts - This is a question that would need an essay to be given a proper answer, but our opinion is that internet and social media did and does really help bands to emerge, naturally not always, and create new social and musical bonds around the globe. The “music-scapes” is not local anymore, not only at least, but everything could be lasting less because there’s always something new that is eager to come out.

STN - How’s the interaction between bands?

The Gluts - Mutual respect, admiration and affection, mostly by social medial and in the backstages. 

STN - What Italian bands most influenced you?

The Gluts - CCCP is by far the italian band that influenced us as individuals and musicians.

STN - What other musicians or artists influenced or influence you?
The Gluts - Maybe too many to recall all of them and write their names down, but we can confess you that during the last months interpersonal relations in the band were somehow heavily influenced by the fictional characters and dynamics of GOT.

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

The Gluts - We can name you four radio stations that push for emergent bands: Lifegate Radio, Never Was Radio, Radio Popolare, Radio Raheem and Radio Kaos Italy. Some friends of us work in all of them except in the first one, and they always give their best to let the listeners discover some new good music. We can also name you Radiophonic programs that we listen to sometimes, like Tropical Pizza on Radio Deejay and Babylon on Radio Rai2, which are two of the most important radio stations in Italy.

At the end, none of them can broadcast our songs, kind of too heavy stuff in Italy.

The Gluts - Fuzz Club Sessions - Squirrel

STN - Are you connected to other musical projects or do you have other occupations other than music?

The Gluts - Actually no, we do not have other musical projects.

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

The Gluts -  (From the 60’s and so on, Luigi Tenco, Fabrizio De André, Lucio Battisti, Ivan Graziani, Franco Battiato, only speaking about the song singer-writer current. The latest one is definitely the most experimental italian popular composer and singer. Apart from it, there’s too much to say. Hope you don’t mind if we skip it.)

STN – “Dengue Fever Hypnotic Trip” was out in April. What are your expectations for it in the long term?

The Gluts - We want it to be considered for what it is, the greatest record of 2019 ;)

The Gluts - Bad Man

STN – If you could time travel, were would you like to go see a show or play?

The Gluts - If we had only one individual occasion Dario and Claudia would agree and probably they would catch up at Nirvana’s performances at Reading Festival or at the Paramount Theater. Marco would go for Jimi Hendrix, just to hear in person the fuzz effects he used to play, while Nicolò instead, would likely go for Sex Pistols in the 70’s. On the other hand, if we had to make a colegial decision we would opt for Joy Division, without any shadow of a doubt.
STN – When can we expect a show from The Gluts in Portugal?

The Gluts - Actually, we played in Portugal, two years ago. It was our experience in another part of Europe but Italy. We’d like to come back, but nothing on the horizon right now, sorry.

The Gluts at Fuzz Club Eindhoven'19

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

The Gluts - Well, lately we are all listening to “tunic”. Really like their attitude.

STN – The last word is yours!

The Gluts - Thanks for the interview Isabel Maria! For those who spend their time to read too. Listen to us, follow us on FB and IG and see you around, maybe in Eindhoven. (FCB19)

Thank You

Interview By Isabel Maria

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