Litfiba: “Springsteen takes sides, so do we, but we are few”
Litfiba back in attack mode. Forty years after “17 kings”, the Florentine band reopens one of the most political and incendiary chapters of its history, ready to bring it back to life with a spirit that aims to look more at the present than in the past. The formation that will bring this repertoire back to the stage is the historical one: Piero Pelù, Ghigo Renzulli, Antonio Aiazzi and Gianni Maroccolo, supported by Luca Martelli on drums, replacing the deceased Ringo De Palma.
The return to the stage, before the official tour, will also include the May Day Concert, an event that the group faces with its usual provocative attitude: “We will play inside TeleMeloni – grins Piero Pelù – it will be fun. We will be in the heart of the billboard, live and we will certainly do our part in reclaiming our valuesi”. However, this is not just a celebratory operation. Also marking this new phase is the publication of a song that has remained in the drawer until now: “The publication, this Friday, of a song like “17 re” which we didn’t want to publish at the timebut which we have now found the conviction and strength to release, shows that this is not a nostalgia operation – Piero Pelù says immediately – we reworked it, part of the lyrics from the original, the melodies remained, but the groove and the bpm changed. Already 13 years ago we tried to get our hands on it, but we weren’t convinced. But now yes, it’s an unprecedented thing that lashes out against power and that four decades later he closes the circle of that project so important to us.”
“17 kings”, published in 1986 and second chapter of the “Trilogy of the victims of power” together with “Desaparecido” and “Litfiba 3”, it thus returns to the center of the band’s artistic discourse. A work born in a specific context and which today, according to Pelù, resonates with similar strength: “I was a political science student at the time. Our first EP, “Guerra”, was from 1982. We have always been linked to social and political themes, and above all we have always been standard bearers of peace. ’17 kings’ is a record that reminds us of the victims of all wars. In the historical period we are living in, in which there are abuses of power, in which the technocracy murders Netanyahu, Trump, Putin, the ayatollahs and others are gaining more and more ground, for us it is essential to resonate these songs. We, as artists, want to take sides. Unfortunately, very few do it, one of them is Bruce Springsteenbut in general we see few voices against what is happening around us”. Antonio Aiazzi also reinforces the idea of a still current album: “The lyrics seem like they were written yesterday. I feel like I’m rereading the cycle of these forty years. I’m excited to face them again”.
A return that also has a strong human, as well as musical, value. “This group hasn’t been on stage together for thirteen years, it will be wonderful to meet again. I remember when in the 80s we toured the world together, but now we will tour Italy again. The idea is also to have a sound that somehow recalls those yearsthe years in which we made the record, but that it is updated. And therefore we will work a lot on the live dimension”, explains Ghigo Renzulli. The relationship with “17 re”, moreover, has never been linear. Upon its release it was received coldly, only to be re-evaluated over time: “I went to reread the reviews of those years and the album was massacred, except by the journalist Federico Guglielmi of Mucchio Selvaggio – smiles Pelù – some defined it as “baroque”, but then it was rediscovered, especially in the 90s, because it is a more experimental work, a project in which we tried to take particular musical paths. One thing is certain: on a thematic level it was and is absolutely on focus”.
A path that Gianni Maroccolo links above all to the live dimension and artistic freedom: “I remember that in 1983 we played a lot abroad, because we understood that Italy hadn’t fully understood the path we were taking, but then we got there – Gianni Maroccolo rewinds the tape – a double album like ’17 kings’ was poorly digested because it was long, dense. For me it’s still beautiful today and I’m proud that it’s being brought back on tour, because the thing that’s most important to me is playing live and playing with the people I respect. Frankly, I’ve never cared about the judgment of critics or how much music sells or doesn’t sell. I do this job for other reasons.”
In the present, the discussion inevitably broadens to the role of music and its ability to have an impact. “I’m often asked if a song like ‘Il nome maipiù’ can still be born — replies Piero Pelù — I continue to play it with a rock arrangement in my concerts, and I continue to believe in it. I cannot comment on the choices of the others who sang it with me (Ligabue and Jovanotti, ed.). Already at the time of “17 kings” we showed that we had never been afraid to take sidesthat we are on the side of the oppressed, who today are Palestinians, Ukrainians, Russians from Donbass, Iranians and even those Israelis who condemn Netanyahu and who are not listened to, because we are certainly not anti-Semites, but we are against certain Zionist policies”.
