Finaz: “After concerts people tell us ‘if I relax I’ll collapse’
In 2026 the live album of Bandabardò “If I relax… I collapse” (read the review here) turns 25. The Florentine group, orphan of the frontman Erriquez, passed away in February 2021will celebrate the anniversary by releasing that album on double vinyl for the first time and holding a nine-date tour that will begin on March 9th at Afterlife in Perugia and end on April 24th at the Centro Sociale Pedro in Padua. We reached out by phone to tell them about this and more Alessandro ‘Finaz’ Finazzo.
We are celebrating 25 years of “If I relax… I collapse”, we have to go back in time. Up until 2001 when you made that live album: what moment was that in your career?
Let’s go and celebrate this very important album for us, it was Bandabardò’s turning point. It was 2001, when the contract with the major label ended, we became independent, when the word independent had a very different meaning from what it is given today. Independent meant self-producing, we with our management said let’s do it ourselves, in unsuspecting times because at the time everyone signed for the majors. We made this album, this live recording in three locations: in Rome at the Brancaleone, at the Mamamia in Senigallia and then at the beloved Leoncavallo in Milan. This live show came out with the unreleased “Manifesto” which then became, pardon the pun, the Bandabardò manifesto, and to the great scandal of the recording world we forcefully entered the top ten places in the charts in a time when records were selling. It was a commercial success and above all it was the thermometer to make us understand that something particular was happening around Bandabardò, it was becoming an interesting phenomenon. This band of ramshackle, unlikely people, as Carlo Lucarelli defined us, was following its own path, so it’s a very important record and being a live album it contains all our great workhorses, so we are very happy to undertake this celebration, this jubilee.
Why did you leave a major label to go independent?
For a double reason. Firstly because it was clear that the logic of the major labels did not understand the world of Bandabardò, we have always been quite irreducible. When we left there was the no global movement, we were all happy and content, we wanted to change the world by taking small steps, even making sacrifices. The other reason was that, in any case, the majors weren’t fighting to get us and so we went it alone. Then, afterwards, they looked for us but by then it was too late because we had made our own journey, they hadn’t exactly understood the Bandabardò phenomenon, a phenomenon that was not in fashion, which has always made music that was out of fashion and perhaps for this very reason we still haven’t gone out of fashion after 32 years because we have never been in fashion… I was very pleased, for example, when there were the big demonstrations in September for Palestine, in which we participated, it was truly moving and interesting to see that even the new generations in the procession they sang “Beppeanna” and “Manifesto” at the top of their lungs, so we actually did something good.
Speaking of “Beppeanna”, many still think that the title of the song is “If I relax I collapse”. I actually remember it, as a child, as a nursery rhyme, a game. How did the idea of writing that song and using a nursery rhyme as inspiration come about?
It’s all based on two things; you nailed one, it’s a nursery rhyme, many Bandabardò songs originate from nursery rhymes, the imaginative world of Erriquez who loved to remember these nursery rhymes that his father sang as a child or simply the game Beppe Anna, in Florence they called it l’indianata, it was this game of coordination between arms, legs and words and if you were wrong… he paid attention, concentrated on rhythm and vitality, and if you were wrong you drank… clearly someone was wrong on purpose, we passed the time in this way. In the song there is the famous phrase “if I relax I collapse” which then became the phrase that immediately makes Bandabardò recognizable and people think that’s what it’s called.
Behind the words “if I relax I collapse” there is a story. You’ve already told it many times before, do I ask you to tell it one more time?
I’m always happy to tell it. At the end of one of our first super mega energetic concerts, this friend of ours entered the dressing rooms, all scruffy, drenched in sweat and distraught, we asked him, Leo, did you like the concert? ‘Can’t you see guys, if I relax I’ll collapse’. Clearly Erriquez who was a sponge, a recorder, immediately wrote it down in his notebook, from there, combining with Beppe and Anna this song was born which is our anthem. It’s a crazy hymn, when we play it abroad where they often don’t understand Italian you can tell very well that it has an energetic charge of happiness and everyone immediately starts clapping their hands in time and trying to understand how to sing this with attention and concentration and then abroad being stumped they don’t understand what you’re saying but it’s very funny.
In these over thirty years of concerts, how has the Bandabardò audience changed, if it has changed?
For the new generations the fun is the same, they jump, sing and dance. The new generations who come to our concerts, sometimes by mistake or induced by their uncles or older cousins, have happy and surprised faces as if to say ‘ah, but then there is also music with which you can have fun and let off steam’. Compared to slightly more contemporary music which has slightly more introspective and anguished themes, we come from an era in which we really thought we could change the world. The thing that strikes us most is the fact that perhaps young people are less affected by the political and social issues of our country and are much more affected by more global issues, as we can see that they live in a world immersed in globality. It was enough for us to say Berlusconi, today we would have said Meloni, and there would have been a popular uprising at our concerts as we see that issues concerning our rulers, the current government or something that is wrong are received more lukewarmly as if they had somewhat removed the destiny of our country in favor of other issues, they are more concerned about a global war rather than ecology, respect for the environment or they cannot remain absolutely indifferent in the face of a genocide. We had the war in Kosovo practically around the corner but there wasn’t all this information there wasn’t all these situations you had to inform yourself and get busy, now even if you don’t want it it’s rightly put in front of you and therefore if you have a conscience and a heart… for the rest we don’t see any differences there’s the same desire to have fun, to distract yourself and to be together, there aren’t all these differences. When there is good energy there is good energy whether you are our age, younger or even older.
The 25 years of “If I relax… I collapse” will be celebrated live, nine dates are scheduled for next spring, is it a definitive calendar or are other concerts planned perhaps in the summer?
Basically there is the re-release of this album on double vinyl for the first time which will be accompanied by what we do best, which is playing live. For now we have only thought about these dates because since Erriquez unfortunately abandoned us we have always said that we are navigating by sight. For now we focus on this thing and rightly celebrate in the clubs because this is how this album was born and that is the dimension that is close to our hearts.
With Erriquez gone, now you’re the one singing, was it a natural transition or had you also thought of other solutions?
When it happened I was one of those for whom the Band was over because with Enrico we founded it, we wrote the lyrics, the songs, we thought of all the strategies, we did everything together so without such an important partner I felt the world falling on me, on the cover of “If I relax I collapse” there is this Atlas who holds up the world as if he couldn’t stand it anymore and was collapsing, then thanks to my colleagues, but not only the band, fellow artists, to the fans, to the friends, to the relatives, who said it was right to move on, reminding me a little of Enrico’s last words, so I said ok let’s try. Because Enrico’s last words were ‘Ale, carry on with the band, with the music because our project must continue’. We tried a transition period with Cisco which we will never stop thanking because it gave us the opportunity to ferry us, that was not a replacement for Enrico because Enrico is irreplaceable, so we tried to collaborate with Cisco. In concert there were half his songs and half ours revisited and reinterpreted together with him. The fact of returning and bringing everything home was quite natural, not that I thought I was up to it or capable, but we looked each other in the eyes and didn’t feel like including people who hadn’t experienced our family in a family like the Band. It would have been difficult both for us but also for those who have always followed us, perhaps it is more natural to see a person who has always been on stage and hear a voice who sang backing vocals to Enrico and who has always been present. I have to be honest, to my surprise and also with great joy I actually toured last year’s album – “Fandango” (read the review here) – was welcomed by our audience in a calm, natural manner, the tour went very well and the album went very well. Clearly they were not painless transitions, both on a sentimental level, but also on a emotional level. I continued to be a guitarist and on top of that I also had to be a singer and above all play the role of frontman, and we had an incredible frontman, one of those best at holding the stage, best at haranguing people, best at entertaining, it wasn’t easy to divide yourself into a hundred thousand tasks. Clearly no one claims to be on his level, but at the end of the concert people look at us shocked and say ‘if I relax I’ll collapse’, so it means it works.
