Italian singer, songwriter and musician Lorenzo Gabanizza has been creating, performing and releasing music in various forms as part of a multitude of groups and projects since the early 1990s.
With his latest project Someone Waiting At Their Door recently released, I chat with Lorenzo about the music, the challenges, the technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
I come from Verona, Italy, the town where Romeo and Juliet lived their unfortunate love. I can say that I don’t specifically belong to a single genre. I could say I’m more often writing country or country rock music, but if you look at my production, you can easily see that I touch almost any kind of music: from country to celtic, from celtic to hard rock and even rap or classic orchestral pieces.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
After the slap, the baby cries and start breathing. This was music (and literature, as I am a writer and poet too) for me. You know, my parents loved music, and had a large collection of vinyl of all kinds. Mom listened to Led Zeppelin, Elvis, Beatles, Barry Ryan, Christie, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, when I still was in her womb. My ancestor, had a tipography which was mentioned and awarded by the King of Italy; my grand-grandfather was a friend of poets and artists of Verona, and of one of the most eminent figures of the veronese poetry, Berto Barbarani who dedicated to him a short poem; one cousin of my grand-father was relative to Maria Callas’s husband…I mean, we’ve always been in this middle, so I am myself, as naturally as breathing. I could not possibly stop this because this is who I am.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
The title track, “Someone waiting at their door”, is dedicated to the victims of the Twin Towers terrorist attacks. To all those who lost their lives and all the families who had their lives changed by that awful day and had to move on. And they did, man. I am proud of this people, proud of their choice to convey their pain into helping others; they founded associations to remember their dear ones but also to help others in any of the social sphere fields. So, my song is a virtual embrace to all those who lost their lives on that awful day but also to their families which instead of death and anger, they chose love because, as Chester Bennington said after the tragedy at the Manchester Arena: “The one thing that can’t be defeated is love, right? You can conquer hate by ignoring it, you can destroy it by loving the person next to you.”
If I may find a difference between this release and my previous ones, I could say just that I wanted to go back to music roots with this one. I wanted a folk sound as you may have heard it long time ago during a summer evening on the porch of a Tennessee house. The second track of this release, recalls a sad winter far from my loved one. It’s a bluegrass song with all the needed fire and traditional colors. Last one, is a tribute I made for one of my favorite artists: Donovan. As I said, I wanted to go back to the roots and here, my faith, I am. Just guitar, harmonica and voice, no effects, all recorded in one step, unplugged. I have great musicians with me, and I want to tell that I am honored to have worked with Grammy fiddler Ian Cameron and with Don Tyler, the Grammy nominated and multiplatinum engineer who worked for Bob Dylan.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
Challenges? Life is a challenge. Being an indie musician is part of the game. But I guess the most challenging thing being that, is being ignored or skinned alive by unscrupulous people. Maybe I am the only one to think that, but I think internet doesn’t help at all music or musicians, it only adds further illusions to young, naïve and dreamer musician minds. Like what happened to Pinocchio with the Cat and the Fox on Collodi’s fairytale: “You must know that, just outside the City of Simple Simons, there is a blessed field called the Field of Wonders. In this field you dig a hole and in the hole you bury a gold piece. After covering up the hole with earth you water it well, sprinkle a bit of salt on it, and go to bed. During the night, the gold piece sprouts, grows, blossoms, and next morning you find a beautiful tree, that is loaded with gold pieces.” Oh yeah…These are the same old games that lot of organizations uses on the net to screwing young artists. Nine out of ten of those “helpers” are just there to make money out of other people dreams, like the Truman Capote’s novel character Master Misery. And this is awful and unfair and I may say Evil. Because, if Mr Revercomb at least payed his clients, those organizations give back nothing at all to young people, just disillusion.
Another bad side of technology, if we talk about the internet, is that music, which already was a crowded field, now have become like the Subway in New York at peak times. Everybody from his bedroom has the chance to send his music or his screams or his donkey bray to labels. Fair enough, but this has got as a counterpart that major labels cannot possibly listen at all the piles of incoming demos, therefore, aside from the fact that surely much of the best will be forever missed, they’re forced to highlight on their websites: “No unsolicited material”.
Since I don’t use any kind of artificial embellishment, (nothing I mean that may alter the truth as autotune e.g.) Technology doesn’t help me at all. Of course it helps music to sound better, cleaner than in the old days, but I see more and more musicians trying to get back where the balance was Musician-technology, and not Technology-musician as it is today. And I mean artists like Neil Diamond with his multi gold “12 songs” produced by Rick Rubin or Bob Dylan’s latest effort “Rough and rowdy ways”.
What was the last song you listened to?
Last song I heard is “Mother Freedom” by Bread, a great band of the seventies. They had a wonderful sound, great tunes, awesome lyrics and they all were amazing musicians.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl. Absolutely. You touch the artist with vinyl. And the analogic sound is much suitable for my taste. It surely does.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
The record shop in town…
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Well, with a name like mine you can easily find me over there with no fear to confuse me for another. However, my music is worldwide on all major platforms. Here the links to my social channels and where you can listen or buy my music:
Anything else before we sign off?
I’d wish to thank everybody who in these years helped me along. And all the musicians, colleagues and friends who supported me. Among all those names that are too many to mention here but all equally dear to my heart, all my gratitude goes to my editor and friend John Toso and to my label Italian Way Music. Thanks to Ian Cameron, Don Tyler, Snake Davis, Max Gabanizza, Robby Pellati, Luca Marcìas, Xenia, Nicana Micael, Delband Shafizadeh, Patrizia Curti, Lydia Walis, Tobe Roberts.
