Damiano: “My project and Måneskin live a separate life”
Damiano David He then did not employ much to go from being the frontman of the Måneskin to simply be himself. Examination passed to judge by the success of the first four singles – “SilverLines”, “Born with a Broken Heart”, “Next Summer” and “Voices” – extracted from “Funny Little Fears”, an album that marks the record debut of the Roman singer as a soloist, to be released on Friday 16 May digitally and in physicist for Sony Music Italy / Epic Records.
The project, in which the artist has done a great job from a vocal point of view, includes 14 songs – including 2 featuring with Suki Waterhouse in “The Bruise” and D4vd in “Tangerine”. Each song composes a sort of emotional diary, a manual against fear, as Damiano defined the album in which he puts inside himself in the round: from the one with the heart broken to what he meets another person, with the phase of the entrust and the awareness of being in love.
Damiano David presents himself as an international artist in all respects, with evident references to the imagination and music of Harry Styles. The singer told the fears that inspired the writing of the album to the forum Studios founded, under the basilica of the Sacred Immaculate Heart of Mary, in the beating heart of the Parioli district in Rome, by four composers including Ennio Morricone.
Starting from the title of the album, which is a bit the business card of your new project, what are the “small funny fears” that you felt the need to put black on white?
“The title came after I finished writing the album and it was the recognition of the source of the texts and what I felt before starting this path. I wanted to show myself differently and talk about things that I had not faced for fear of the judgment and to expose me. In recent years I have grown, I have matured, I feel safer than myself and the album was an almost therapeutic path to get to know me better. Something that I was ashamed so much to isolate myself. Don’t know how to read and correct me. Music serves to throw thoughts on a sheet, then, when I reread, it is as if I were a third person and I have a clearer view of everything. If I analyze my life in the last five years there are few negative moments, I did not understand where this dissatisfaction came from. The album was a way to understand the reason and the fears that I have been self -mentioned in the brain. It was therapeutic “.
Why the choice to sing exclusively in English?
“Each project has its own life and my way of expressing myself is different. In Italian a sort of judgment could arise, while English is more direct. But I do not exclude, in the future, an album in Italian”.
The theme of love is deepened in the album. What role does it have in your life and in your work?
“Relationships play a fundamental role in my life, they represent 90% of my happiness. A finite story, a year and a half ago, made me feel very alone, emptied, and I had to reconnect with myself before the arrival of another relationship. The relationship with solitude has not changed anyway, this work often leads me to face it, even if I always notice that I never really be only but to be surrounded by people.”
You wrote almost one piece a day in just over two months, why are you the choice to insert songs not yours?
“All production was born from collaborations. It is part of the art to recognize when a piece speaks to you, when you have the feeling that someone tells your story. For me music is a game and collaborating with others is an added value”.
Compared to the Måneskin there is a vein less rock and more pop oriented. You said that the first allows you to focus on the public reaction, while the second is a personal journey. Do these two souls continue to live in Damiano?
“They are both part of me, one does not erase the other. If there are new projects with the Måneskin will be characterized by a more mature sound thanks to the individual experiences of all. At the beginning I wondered if I had managed to express myself without a band, without structure, without the support they gave me. Being in four made us stronger. But the two projects live a separate life, not comparison them from a qualitative point of view. Being obscured, in the heart and because the data speaks.
Some songs recall the 1950s atmospheres: do you think that having lived between iconic places like Hollywood has had an influence, even just on aesthetic level, on your musical imagination?
“Indirectly it could have influenced me, even if I am not aware of what happens to me when it happens, I understand it later. When I wrote them I lived in Hollywood, a place that has an aesthetic that has always fascinated me, that recalls being Italian abroad and that I see myself well on me”.
Speaking of Hollywood, during the Camp in Joshua Tree, between the desert and Malibù, you shot a short film entitled “Funny Little Stories”, in which he tackles the theme of fear as a push to grow and get to know each other. Do you imagine a future in cinema?
“I don’t have a particular ambition for cinema, but if someone arrived with an idea of ad hoc sewn for me it would be interested in doing it.”
Favorite movie?
“‘The corpse bride’, from which I drew inspiration for the song ‘Zombie Lady’, which will be on the radio from Friday. It is one of my favorites, it has always excited me”.
This summer you will bring “Funny Little Fears” in the most important world festivals including Lollapalooza in Chicago, Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Soul Jazz Festival for the first performance in South Korea, while in September the world tour produced from Vivo concerts will start with over 30 dates between Europe, Australia, North America, South America and Asia. Three stages are also scheduled in Italy on 7 October at the Unipol Forum in Milan and on 11 and 12 October at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome. Many dates are already sold out. Who will accompany you on stage?
“I will be with seven musicians and two choristers, we put on a nice team. It is crazy to think of making a world tour of the first solo experience. A real goal, especially because music needs to see the reaction of the public, rather than aseptic digital results”.
