Lucio Corsi, before becoming Lucio Corsi

More than ten years ago, the first to talk to me about Lucio Corsi was Nicolò Zaganelli. I asked him for a portrait of the artist as a young man. (FZ)

He ran more or less the year … when I start? When should I start?

It was 2014, and in reality I remember it very well. In particular, from the Sanremo Festival onwards it has happened to me several times to rethink the day when I met Lucio Corsi, who at the time was 19 years old, short hair, very eccentric glasses and a face so clean that they look like a fifteen year old. He had introduced himself to me with a bio third person written that “Lucio Corsi had defeated the mathematics” and thanks to this he had started composing songs, inspired by Iggy Pop (who had managed to embrace a concert in Florence), David Bowie and the Italian songwriter.

He had 5 songs recorded in acoustic, substantially guitar and voice as well as some insert of cash and some keyboard.

I would call them excerful songs, full of dinosaurs, various animals and cigarettes. They had their strength even even seeing bitter, they intrigued.

A common friend who believed could like us had presented us.

We liked them.

I immediately published those 5 songs. I nominated it just in time at the Miami Festival 2014 and Lucio was in cast 10 minutes after sending the proposal email.

Lightning negotiation: first artist of the first day on the hill, € 50.

Very good.

Lucio Corsi’s debut took place in the middle of a park, like spectators plus the animals protagonists of the songs than people, but went great. Those few were very affected, in many cases conquered, in other intrigued, none indifferent.

That participation was useful to convince Matteo Zanobini to be part of the team. I had proposed it to him after his expression of interest. Matteo was (and is) very good in his work and at that moment he ridden the first crest of the wave of Dario Brunori (who then gained several times) and could be useful to the project from my point of view (sPoiler: it was), even if two managers for an emerging artist had never seen each other.

So we started thinking of recording new things, Lucio had a thousand songs including some pearls. There was a lot of campaign, nature, poetry that I would call pop. I thought it was in the ropes of Federico Dragogna, whom I proposed to Lucio as the producer of the new 5 songs. Federico returned to the camper from Vetulonia when I called him to offer him.

In 2015 “Boy/Vetulonia Dakar”, a record made of two EPs, the 5 acoustic songs and the new produced by Federico came out. A record that gave us many satisfactions, allowed Lucio to play a lot, still a little where it happened but also in cute places. The classic “Indie battle lap”, to understand us with those who did it the same way.

In the summer dates in small provincial festivals, when the square was also in the public, mothers were under stage. Lucio liked a lot to mothers and grandmothers because hearing him singing a great, exceptional tenderness. He was magnetic and always hit, for his strangeness, for his young age and for this bucolic poem he put in his songs.

But the real magic was that Lucio liked the grandmothers and at the same time to Alessandro Michele, creative director of Gucci, who saw him at the opening of the Baustelle’s Rome concert and the next day he called me to invite him to participate in the parade that would have been held in Florence a few months later. From my point of view this already indicated a huge pop potential then, even if its approach seemed very indie and had nothing to do with what the Italian discography proposed and with what the market established could be a success.

When the time came to think of the first real album there was a short period of crisis. The songs were many, but nobody was convinced, including Lucio. For a few months he gave himself home to Vetulonia, and we felt little.

When “the musical bestiary” arrived, in full and already completely arranged, a listening was enough to start the works that would lead him to the publication.

To record it “in beautiful copy” I proposed to work with Antonio “Cooper” Cupertino and as I imagined the two likes them too, so much so that they still work together today.

“The musical bestiary” I consider it one of the most precious jewel of Italian music. Songs like “La Lepre” or “L’upupa” are up to the great Italian songwriting, as far as I am concerned. In any case, the bestiary created the premises for what is happening today.

Matteo managed to convince Sugar to sign him and things made themselves serious, and as one would say in these cases, the rest is history.

Lucio and I stopped working together just before he came out “What will we do when you grow up?”, His first album on the Sugar label. We loved it very well (or at least I wanted it a lot) but Lucio had grown a lot compared to when I met him years earlier, when in some way in addition to being his manager I also made him a bit as a brother acquired. At that point Lucio had developed great safety in himself, he understood what he would have liked to do in a granite and inscalling way. He wanted to pull straight without thinking about the rules that are normally considered to build a career. We often discussed, so much so that we came to a certain point where we both understood that we no longer made ourselves good to each other.

We stopped consensually to work together, but the same affection as ever remained.

Today there is no doubt, Lucio Corsi managed to impose his way of making music to whole Italy, totally out of what we are all used to and has definitely been right from every point of view.

I know for sure that Lucio did not point only to success, but instead thought only of his music and the way to present it to honor it at best. An artist certainly full of ego (as is required of a true artist) but completely devoted to the form of his songs, to the content, to seek the greatness not for himself but for his music. I loved his music very much and his way of being, but I did not understand that this was enough because normally those who put themselves in this way always loses. Lucio no.

Today I literally remain the first true fan of Lucio Corsi, and although it cannot deny a small dose of redization that I consider human (I would like to see you), I was not repentant of how it went and I remain proud to have been the first to believe it.

Nicolò Zaganelli

Nicolò Zaganelli has been operating in the record sector since 2002, covering several roles. After a short experience as an arranger at the Luly Studio clan in via Massena, in 2005 he founded his first communication agency, Artevoxmusica, specialized in the press office and radio promotion. Through this activity, he collaborates in the creation of albums by national and international artists such as Gogol Bordello, Paolo Benvegnù, Levante, Marta on the tubes, Africa Unite, Modena City Ramblers and many others. At the same time, he assumes the role of manager for some artists of the Italian Indie Pop scene, including Moltheni, Amor Fou, Lucio Corsi, Giuliano Dottori, Federico Poggipollini, Ariadineve and revolt.

In 2012 Co-Fonda Explodying Bands, a digital marketing and advertising agency, born before the arrival of Instagram, which is established as a leader in the record market and live events. Thanks to collaborations with companies like Sony, Warner, Universal, Sugar and Carosello, Explodying Bands works on projects by internationally renowned artists such as Ligabue, Måneskin, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen and many others. In addition, since 2020 it manages the promotional campaigns for about two thirds of the cast of the Sanremo Festival every year. Over the years, it also collaborates with numerous national and local promoters and festivals, including F&P Group, Vertigo, Trident Music, Concert Music, Flower’s Festival, Sonic Park, Goa Boa, Rugby Sound, Todays Festival, etc.
Since 2022 he expands his field of action to cinema and theater. He collaborates permanently with Vision distribution, one of the main film distributors in Italy, and holds continuous partnerships with important theaters and artists. Among the most recent collaborations, the Colosseum Theater of Turin, the Carcano Theater of Milan and the artist Angelo Duro stand out.

Instagram.com/exploding_bands

Instagram.com/nico.zaga