PROGedia – interview

Before PROGedia

"Before to play any instrument, I remember when at 4 I heard on Tv “Wild Boys” from Duran Duran and…gosh forget the band but that huge gated drums captured my ears so bad, one of my first reaction in music I remember. A couple of years earlier I was shocked from the live performance of “Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel instead with the face painting make-up, often in my nightmares. But at 7, during a sailing boat vacation with my family, I heard through all the summertime a tape from my dad’s collection: it was a live concert by Keith Emerson & The Nice. This really blown me away as never heard before, the screaming organ and the big Moog noises in particular which I had no idea by ears how they were made of, it was black magic to me and from this point I expressed a serious interested to start having organ and piano lessons asap.
And few years later I was a 15 y.o. student of Shirley Scott, the legendary American organist, attending more jazz & blues gigs than any other hobby or high school activity. My adolescence focused playing the Hammond Organ for all the late 90’s learning from the several pro’s around Italy and near Europe I played with, including the most unexpected situations where I was invited to play on stage with acclaimed artists such: Mike Stern, Benny Golson, Gary Bartz, Buster Williams, Little Milton, Mel Gaynor, Rev Lee Brown, Zucchero, Carl Anderson (from Jesus Christ Superstar original cast). Such a great time for a teenager grown up in the countryside.
From the 2000’s something slowly changed. The jazz scene wasn’t paying the bills and too much purism around was make me feeling uncomfortable, so I started playing more R&B, funky and disco live in posh clubs with my own bands, in particular at FURA in Desenzano Del Garda. It was lucrative, full of stunning chicks and I also started to be curious and familiar with the Dj world.
When the digital music technology at its pioneering golden age started to be possible, my dad Beppe who always have been a tech guy, pushed me to DIY together a project recording studio which became a silver cage for 3 years more or less, no social life, a very slow internet and a lot of imagination and devotion to music, starting to be a producer wannabe from scratch, and without tutorials sorry millennials.
Something serious started coming out in late 2005 when I was constantly producing music all time, releasing both on my own digital trademarks and licensing to labels such: Ministry of Sound, Island Uk, Universal Uk, Skint, Stealth to name few. Of course, working with tons of monikers including Mahjong, Mr. Gone, Nardis, Eyes of Love, Sun & Soul Shades and more. It was different comparing with today: no social medias were related yet, more project names were more music around, easy.
I was also parallel working for hire behind some famous djs doing samples replays and sound-a-like loops, almost a secret job which taught me a lot about production technique. But at the end of 2000’s my music was featured on Tv Series such The Ringer, Nikita, Csi Miami, Burn Notice, The Castle, several Tv Shows by Abc, Cbs and MTV plus several Advertising Campaigns by international brands such Coca Cola, Ford, Fiat and Atari.
I was just missing to Dj so I did moving around 2010 initially following the electro & dubstep scene to switch then to techno and starting being less introverted and shy discovering what’s still was a taboo for me, the nightlife and its underground."