Theater of Horrors, the return: “For us rock is religion”

“Vita mia, a noi due”, as it is declaimed in their first album, “Dell’ Impero delle tenebre”, released in 2007. A new challenge is on the horizon. The news of the Teatro degli Orrori reunion, with the accompanying “Mai dire mai” tour, consisting of nine dates starting from February 20, has warmed the hearts of many fans, ten years after their farewell to the stage. The band of Pierpaolo Capovilla, Gionata Mirai, Giulio Ragno Favero and Francesco Valente, embodied one of the last gasps of an Italian rock that was anything but accommodating, but rather challenging towards the public. Anyone who has been to one of their concerts at least once, at certain moments in their career packed with people, knows: their songs have always been “dangerous”, feverish, never tamed, written to make the brain and body move, not to reassure. In essence: the opposite of a lot of the music circulating today. Capovilla and Favero, interviewed separately with the same questions, tell us what we should expect from this tour, they talk about the rebirth of the group, their conception and vision of music, which has always been “in an obstinate and contrary direction”.

What convinced you to return?
Capovilla: We have had offers, one offer in particular: that of Magellan. I certainly cannot hide the fact that there is an economic side that pushed us to make this decision. Beyond this, it is a welcome choice because the time has come to react to music that says nothing in our country, we have always been moved by a feeling that travels in a direction stubbornly contrary to insignificant music. We demand meaning, content and poetry. So this tour is welcome and we hope it brings mild advice to the band, which had exploded years ago: misunderstandings, small, large mutual wrongs, imbalance from an existential point of view, everything worked against us. We hope that this tour can bring peace to everyone. The artistic side, obviously, had a substantial weight, otherwise we would never have done this reunion.
Favero: For years we have heard each other say “why don’t you get back together”? At a certain point we met, we picked up the tools and we realized that nothing was finished. The band is like a couple relationship, even if you separate something remains. You’re not the one in charge. We are not masters of the music we make, we are antennas. Maybe it’s not us who chose the reunion, it’s the reunion that chose us. Evidently we had to wait a long time for all this to happen…. Then, you know, regarding breakups there is a narrative that tends to exaggerate… in a band there are the same dynamics that can be found in a workplace, there are those who are more or less nice to each other, but today I I’m positive.

Will we listen to new songs on the tour or will you play your four albums for now?
Capovilla: For now let’s stick with what we did. We haven’t written any new songs. Who knows, maybe after the tour you might want to work on an album. Currently the tour setlists will be overviews of the four albums released. They will be challenging setlists, even for me. It will be a rediscovery. Our songs have always had an underlying critical spirit, they are not songs to hum. “Even the appendix novel” is welcome, as Antonio Gramsci wrote, except that we don’t know what to do with this appendix. We hope that our songs can still impact people’s souls.
Favero: We will favor the first two albums, but in general it will be a journey through the entire discography. As said: I am positive about the future. I’d like to think about a new album. Also because otherwise what was the point of all this? Do nine concerts and then say “hello, thank you”?.

How are the tests going? How is the climate among you?
Capovilla: I’m not rehearsing with the band at the moment. The band, however, has been rehearsing for quite some time. I will start rehearsing as soon as I free myself from an important commitment in Naples, namely the recording of the new Cattivi Maestri album. I haven’t seen the other members for a long time, for a few years. I spoke with Gionata (Mirai, ed.) on the phone and we discussed the setlist. I know what awaits me, it will be a good challenge.
Favero: First of all, it was necessary to pick up the tools again. It was cool to do it because at a certain point the music just went by itself as if nothing had stopped. I won’t deny that I went crazy trying to recover the parts because I really didn’t remember some of them (laughs, ed.). Franz (Valente, ed.) on the other hand incredibly remembers everything, absolutely everything. I hope people will enjoy the live shows, without wasting time making videos for social media, which are taking up too many pieces of our lives.

Theater performances have always been energetic and physical.
Capovilla: And they still will have to be. The stage is theatre. The rock concert is a form of theater, we call ourselves that on purpose. I feel more like an actor than a singer. I have always tried this approach, I find it more effective.
Favero: We are working to make the performances even more powerful than in the past. These years have given us the opportunity to grow and understand where we can be particularly violent in certain situations. Many live shows at the Theater in the past have been chaos, even emotional chaos. My will is to transform this chaos into something intelligible, that is, something that feels good and hurts.

The band was part of a “scene” also photographed in some way by the recording project “The country is real” published by Afterhours in 2009 in which the Teatro degli Orrori participated with the single “Refusenik”. Today only rubble remains of that scene?
Capovilla: “Refuseniks” are those Israeli soldiers who refuse to wage war on the Palestinians. Already at that time we were talking about this tragedy, the war against Gaza and the West Bank. The rubble of the scene is there, luckily it’s not that of Gaza, ours is intellectual: rock can’t find the space it would like. They are historical courses and recurrences. Today rap and trap are in fashion, which for me are largely rubbish. Record companies ride what brings them easy profit, there is no will to push something that brings culture. Having said that, we can’t even care about record companies. We are interested in our journey made of good music, content and a pinch of poetry. A poem that has to do with the truth. Pier Paolo Pasolini paid with his life for the truth he carried forward. I believe that in popular song we can do something similar, throwing in people’s faces what we are becoming, which is not encouraging. And so the message still today is: let’s all roll up our sleeves together.
Favero: The world has radically changed since we stopped the project ten years ago. There was the advent of indie which somewhat took over the space of that rock done in a certain way. Today’s rock bands in Italy are almost the same as then. The Maneskins are something else again, we know the path they have taken. The mainstream is affected by something else, by indie, by pop, by trap. Perhaps, towards the end, we received little attention because it was directed towards other phenomena. But that doesn’t mean rock has stopped burning. Today on an international level there are bands like Idles and Fontaines DC, Oasis are back and filling stadiums.

Is there also a mea culpa to be made if that Italian scene today has no heirs?
Capovilla: Certain. Maybe we have lacked consistency, maybe rock is an intergenerational music that evidently speaks to young people who today seem to be interested in something else. But it’s not just the mainstream that tramples on our consciences and those of our kids… we all have to start making disruptive rock. Fuck X Factor, pre-packaged music, Maneskin, all that rubbish that has nothing to do with rock, but which is only about fashion and money, this damn money.

A piece you can’t wait to play?
Capovilla: “It’s my fault,” which is right in line with what we’re saying. I hope to see many young people under our stage. To also see many immigrants. I would like our music to truly reach everyone’s hearts. Music can contribute to an awakening of consciences. If not, what’s the point?
Favero: The first three songs of the first album: “Vita mia”, “Dio mio”, “E lei came!” they work today as they did then. I won’t hide from you that even the latest album of the same name, although a little mistreated, gives us satisfaction, I’m thinking of pieces like “Lavorare tired” and “Benzodiazepina”. And it is the one that musically and textually we feel closest to today, unfortunately it came out at the wrong time when people were already distracted by something else. Then, returning to the setlist, there is the case of a song, the title of which I won’t tell you, much loved by the public, which however no longer convinces us, or rather we don’t know why we did it that way at the time ( smiles, ed.).

In recent years we have seen many reunions: from CCCP to Club Dogo up to, in a big way, Oasis. There is a “monetization of nostalgia”. Do you feel like being part of it?
Capovilla: I talked about the economic offer because you have to be frank in life, but we don’t come from Bon Jovi, heavy metal or whatever the fuck I know. We refer to groups like i Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Fugazi, Husker Du. I have learned more things from him in my life Husker Du that from Shakespeare. I learned compassion for poor people and those excluded from popular song. The folk song tugs at the heartstrings of the listener: is this poetry? Yes, maybe it’s poetry. This for me is the goal of music. If rock today becomes only narcissism, then it is only useful for those who make it and not also for those who listen to it. We also want to be useful to those who listen.
Favero: We have taken up a conversation again who needed rest. The emphasis on the economic question deserves broader reflection. Let’s take CCCP, an important band, who despite the history they have built, have earned less than those who today, in some cases, have been making music for three years. If CCCP decide to go back to live and put the tickets at a certain price, based on what they have achieved in their career, it is certainly not a problem. We need to dispel the myth that art and culture must be free because by giving credence to this narrative we have ended up endorsing Spotify, which offers all the music in the world, paying the artists paltry sums. And then we complain if those artists, who no longer sell records, manage to raise cash with live shows to create “a pension”? But what’s the problem with doing that? Then there is yet another matter: today many live shows of contemporary artists are enormous karaokes in which those who go on stage do little or nothing, yet the tickets for those karaokes cost a lot. And in front of this, are there those who turn up their noses at the reunions of important bands?

What is rock for you? What value do you give to what you do?
Capovilla: For me rock is religion. I am a priest, an officiant. A concert is a collective liturgy, a living organism in itself. The audience does the concert too. In a live show it seems like you can make love with life. This is what matters to me and, certainly, also to the others in the group.
Favero: The music that has prevailed in recent years is harmless, both textually and musically. Even those who show up in videos with guns don’t scare anyone. Once upon a time, however, some artists had the ability to put the public into crisis. Of course, one can remain comfortable, inside the bubble of music that is not too loud in terms of volume and perhaps with the mobile phone in hand: well, all this is the opposite of what we are. We want to bring some healthy tinnitus.