Paolo Benvegnù: “Here is the least heavy album of my career”

“The Tenco? But they must have been wrong…The new album? Finally a non-heavy record…”. Paolo Benvegnù is as capable of delving into human feelings, with songs often poised on the abyss of existence, as he is of taking himself less seriously, desecrating himself, distorting the ego that fuels all artists. It’s a magical moment for the singer-songwriter: after eight nominations he won the Targa Tenco with the album “It’s useless to talk about love” as “Best Album ever” and on 11 October he will release a new version of the album that marked his solo debut in 2004 and which turns 20, namely “Piccoli fragilissimi film”. A jewel. The reloaded version sees the participation of a sea of ​​guests: Paolo Fresu & Ermal Meta, Tosca, Malika Ayane, Giovanni Truppi, Piero Pelù, Fast Animals And Slow Kids, La Representative di Lista, Motta, Appino, Dente, Lamante. It’s not over, there are also three new releases: “You prefer silences” with Giulio Casale, “Le gioie minime” with Irene Grandi, “Isola Ariosto” with Max Collini.

Benvegnù, listening to the album, you immediately notice how the artists have “entered” the songs also from an emotional point of view. Did you expect it?
If I said it was all done conscientiously I would say it was stupid. In reality it went like this: I simply limited myself to recording my part, leaving maximum freedom to others. And this, for me, allowed the birth of some magic: “Only for you feat” revisited with Appino seems like a tribute to Mastroianni in Castiglioncello. I must say that it seems to me that this is the first album by Paolo Benvegnù (his and his band, ed.) that is less heavy because it is varied, it has many facets. It’s the best because I intervened very little (laughs, ed.).

Among the new generations there is Lamante.
It was incredible, by the way I wasn’t even there in that situation, because I worked somewhere else. I heard what he recorded the next day, when I returned to Perugia and I must say that I was amazed. Well, if I can tell you the honest truth, this whole puzzle that lasted a couple of months amazes me, it’s truly an album of a multitude, I didn’t feel the weight that I felt in the past: those who participated in this album made me threw a rope and saved me from repeating myself.

Where and how did you work?
I have a closet where I write songs, inside a music school in Magione, in the province of Perugia. The guys who play with me opened a small studio next door, called Crimson Studio. I simply did some acoustic guitar and vocal auditions and told them: “these are the songs, you do it”. I really enjoyed singing the historical pieces again and doing new choruses on the additions of the other artists. The Representative of Lista, Lamante and Tosca really gave direction to the piece. We sent the song to Irene Grandi, hoping that she might like it, precisely because of her vision of the world (it is “Le gioie minime”, ed.) and after eight hours she sent us the piece back with her voices. Wonderful. Piero Pelù also did this. I repeat: they saved us.

Does putting your hands back on pieces written twenty years ago lead to not recognizing yourself?
It is certainly an “I” that you feel has changed in some way. But I’ll tell you more: not only am I different from who I was many years ago, but today I am the opposite of what I once was. I approached these pieces with a lightness that I didn’t have at the time. I had fun because I often just put the framework on what others had done. When I wrote that first album I was desperate, I slept as needed somewhere in Florence and I didn’t have the slightest idea of ​​what would happen the next day. At the time I didn’t know who I was, I don’t know now either, I haven’t changed in this regard. I came from the experience with the Schism, I abandoned one family to find another. “Small fragile films” was an attempt at survival. The desire, with this new version, is to return to the scene of the crime.

Mina sang the song “Io e te” again and decided to include it in her album “Caramella”, published in 2010. What did you feel?
When I heard the voice “good morning, I’m Mazzini” on the phone, I had to reply “I’m Garibaldi (Mina’s full name is Mina Anna Maria Mazzini, ed.)”. I was convinced it was a joke, but it wasn’t like that: it was his daughter Benedetta. He explained to me that his mother liked my songs. A paradoxical thing considering that mine, for example, didn’t like them (laughs, ed.). He told me that his mother wanted to re-sing a piece from “Piccoli fragilissimi film”. I was impressed and asked her what it was. Bendetta said: “You and me”. It all came back to me (smiles, ed.): it was the only one on the album that I hadn’t written, but a group of the time, specifically it was by a boy, Matteo Anceschi. I replied: “You chose the best piece”.

There are also three unreleased songs in the project.
They date back to that period. They are samples that resurfaced from the past but had something special about them because they were worked very little, and this “subtraction” was somewhat of a common thread in the making of the record. Less me, and more the others, more the music. Only “Isola Ariosto” with Max Collini, musically, is the result of an improvisation that took place in March.

Is this putting others before an attack on the ego of songwriters?
In my opinion at a certain point it is a necessity. I have been very cumbersome in my personal, in my daily life. Looking at the lives of others is something that I am very passionate about because it then allows me to observe my own artistic and human life under another lens.

“It is useless to talk about love” won the Targa Tenco. What does this mean for your journey?
I am very amazed. They were probably wrong (smiles, ed.). It seems to me that there was a desire to fill a gap with a multitude of which I am part together with other names such as Alessandro Fiori and Giulio Casale, that is, a whole world between the great singer-songwriter and the indie that becomes something ‘other. Furthermore, I know very well that if I hadn’t had a strong press office, I would never have entered any top five.

But it is undeniable that “It’s useless to talk about love” has left its mark. In your opinion why?
Because it is an album of very deep love. It was written with a particular innocence. Sometimes letting things go allows them to form on their own, to come together in a natural way. It was the same for the songs too.