Samuel: “I’m restless because as a company we have failed”

Electronic and visionary, “Maree”, the third and new solo album of Samuel (here our interview), marks a new chapter for the artist, for the first time alongside the independent label Asian Fake. The album is a sound wave that alternates clubbing and melancholy introspections, where the tip crate merges with dilated sound landscapes and a powerful and poetic lyrical writing. It is the synthesis of his vision of music. Interviewing him on this project was an opportunity to rewind the tape of his career and also speak of the future of the Subsonica, in a science fiction game between past, present and future where all the planets are aligned in the sign of a freedom defended and conquered in thirty years of course.

What is the path that leads to “Maree”?
The solo records for me have always been bulbs that turned on when I understood what I wanted to do. Every time I got off the Subsonica spacecraft, excluding the Motel Connection that have always been a dance experiment, I followed ideas. I remember that the first album, “The Code of beauty” of 2017, was a way to give voice to my voice, an album dug in pop, written together with Jovanotti. I went to the Sanremo Festival to give credit to that work, and then on tour, however, I introduce myself to the drummer of line 77. In short, there was something strange (laughs, ed).

Then it was the turn of the second album: “White Brigade” in 2021.
It is an intimate album, written alone in the studio during the pandemic, with many collaborations made at a distance, but even in that case something that made me think about it. I realized that I didn’t like seeing an audience stopped to listen too much, I wanted to see people dancing. Hence the need to return from where I had arrived. I pulled the suitcases full of records and vinyls dusty of electronic music and I started to be a DJ. And I wrote this third chapter.

Is this third album a return to the future?
Yes, inside there are the sounds and electronic worlds with which I grew up. Everything actually was brought and conducted in the present. It is a tribute to what I have been and are.

But it does not seem that the two previous solo projects no longer represent you …
No, in fact. I believe that “tides”, however, is the best synthesis of all my souls. We live in a sectoral historical period. There are those who make rock, those who make dance etc. There are also those who mix, be clear, but the crossover with which I grew up, who had the peak twenty years ago, was a little lost. Only the new generations seem to want to mix more genres. “Maree” for me is a great mix of everything they are. Understanding what I wanted to find me under the stage was the key: I didn’t want an audience.

Even in “tidal” you have given great importance to the texts. Is your vision of electronics a music that makes the body move and also the brain?
I started writing the first songs at 6-7 years. My older brothers listened to songwriters like De André, De Gregori, Guccini. The weight of the word has always been a fundamental element for me. Inspired by these sacred monsters I composed all my music to the post adolescence. Then I met the rave, electronics broke out. That chest that shot music, who seemed and seems to go inside the brain, bewitched me. Techno has become the dress of my first songs on which I inserted my thoughts.

Did you refuse the “protagonism” of a certain approach?
Yes, it’s an interesting theme. I have always loved the figure of the DJ because they don’t have eyes on me, people dance, think about music, not to those who are on stage. But at the same time I never wanted to sacrifice the depth of the text. I put all these aspects together. With the Subsonica this mix has reached the peak also thanks to the band and Max Casacci and the poet Luca Ragagnin, two fantastic authors.

“Maree”, verbatim, did you require hard work?
No, it’s as if the texts had already been within me. I wrote them while I was on tour with the Subsonica, before the live, in the various hotels.

In the album speaks of illusions, of community, of capitalism. It is a restless album.
It could not be otherwise. As a society we failed: we have given our happiness to capitalism. A company divided between rich and poor, with happiness, in fact, which seems to bind or be defined only on the basis of monetary possession. The truth is that you don’t only realize with money, those same money with which weapons are purchased and wars are made. And it seems that none of us can do anything in front of these terrible dynamics. The world is restless, my music is a reflection.

Have you ever questioned making music?
No, because I have always been lucky enough to make music with a certain dose of freedom. With the Subsonica we built a refuge in the sign of this freedom. We gave up so much in terms of success to follow our idea of music, we said no to those who asked us to repeat ourselves with what they had already worked, we said no to some record dynamics did not represent us. And despite all this we live dignity today. Even when I am alone I have this approach, my records are a hot winter house, a bright fireplace while the storm is outside.

Your Festival at the Aeolian Aeolian from 18 to 20 July?
Here too there is a return to the future. The Festival was born to live music in the middle of the sea, with girls and boys who while diving into the water listen to music that comes from a boat where the artists perform. He was born in the pandemic period and grew up year after year, hosting big names like Elisa. Developing in the line up has also increased in numbers, becoming another thing. We came to the point that the coast guard prevented dives in the sea given the turnout of people. But this in fact translated the genesis of the event. And so this year I decided to return to the origins, hosting the younger, fresh and interesting names of Asian Fake. It will be a festival in which to live and discover new artists, away from large numbers.

The Subsonica will celebrate thirty years of career in 2026. Will you make a new album?
Yes, on text level we practically closed it. It is a record in which, I believe, you can feel happiness in doing what we do. Our way of celebrating thirty years of career will be on stage, with our audience.