- You know what? - I said to Enrica one evening while we were dining - I'd really like to write the story of Il Castello di Atlante.
Enrica, my wife.
Try, she said. Eh try, I'm not a writer, you know, and I wouldn't even know how to begin. Beh, you could begin like this, she said. Like this how? Like this, saying that you would like to write the story of Il Castello di Atlante. And then? And then you continue. Um, I'd stop after three lines. But try! Er!? OK, answer this question: how did Il Castello di Atlante start? But perhaps - I answered - it would be better if I introduced myself. No - said Enrica - the notes about the author are on the inside cover, not in the book. Idiot! I mean introduce to say who I am and my connection whit Il Castello di Atlante, not what I did before. But is it the story of your life or the band's? She objected. Beh, there's not really much difference; 'cause il Castello has had a fundamental role in my life. I see, but how did this Castello start? I remained silent for a moment remembering. Then I began. It all started in September 1974, when Dino Fiore asked me to form a new band. I was 18 at the time and I had been playing the drums for three years; no, I had the drums for three years 'cause my dad gave them to me when I started going to secondary school, but really I had already been playing for several years. In fact since I was a child I had a natural talent for percussion. When I was 3 I played the fridge; in fact once when my brother was tired of listening to me "play" he closed me in it! When I was 9 I made some drums whit empty washing-powder boxes, and when I was 11 I bought some toy drums with my friends in supermarket. At 14 I started to get serious. I founded a group with Mario Ancona and the Rizzo brothers, The Black Souls. But I wasn't the drummer, I played "tumbas" Tumbas what are they? Those tall drums, whit black and yellow stripes that you play with your hands, usually they are used by groups who play Latin-American music. Aren't there two tumbas? Yeah, but I couldn't afford to rent two tumbas, so I used one. But if you played that thing what type of music did you play? Enrica asked. We played Santana, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, serious stuff, and with this group I gave the first concert of my life. Ah, and where did you play? At the psychiatric hospital in Vercelli. What???!!! Yeah! The guitarist was the Director's son, so we started on the stage of the psychiatric hospital playing for the patients. It couldn't have been a better choice! Shut up! If I remember well it was September 1970; yes, yes, it was 1970, in fact in October I begun secondary school and the first written home work of Italian was: what did you do this summer? Everybody wrote: I went to the seaside with mom and dad or: I went to the mountains with the nuns. Instead I wrote: I gave a concert with my rock group! The teacher said I had good imagination, but it was all true! Then at last, at 15 years old, a real drum set! I remember that my father paid for it by instalments and the guy who sold it to us (obviously it wasn't new), taught me something every time he came to the house to collect the money. But after getting the last instalment, I didn't see him again. Perhaps he wasn't cut out for teaching! Said Enrica. Anyway, it seemed wonderful to me to have a drum set. I played it for hours and hours, and when I didn't play it, I cleaned it. I polished the chrome with wax and I covered it to keep the dust off. For a while I played on my own, then I formed a group with the boy who sat next to me at school, Gigi Politi, who played the piano, and his cousin Roberto Carlone on bass. The name of the group was The Crab. On the bass drums I had drawn a crab with its pincers stretched out; it seemed to be saying: come here and I'll really give you something to think about!
December 1972 - The Crab in concert
We played together from 1972 until the beginning of 1974, playing pieces by Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, then we began to do our own pieces. In this way I discovered the difference there is between playing other people's pieces and your own. Why? Is it different? Asked Enrica. Completely! When you play a song composed by someone, you play it, at the most you can interpret it; when you play a piece that you have written you're completely involved! In there is you, your emotions, it's completely different, particularly when you play in public. In fact we gave several concerts. Then in early 1974 we disbanded. So when Dino asked me if I still played and if I was free, I said yes to both questions. Dino, whom I had known since I was little as he lived opposite me, was one year older than me and had just stopped playing in a group with which he had given several concerts and made some cassettes. Both of us then, had some experience. We still needed to find someone else. We remembered having met a boy at the Bar Nazionale, Massimo by name, who played the violin and perhaps also the piano. After a little investigation we discovered that he was called Massimo Di Lauro and that he lived near Piazza Sardegna. It took a few days to find him but in the end we did and we recruited him. In the meantime, we asked Giampiero Marchiori, flautist and singer if he would like to play with us. GP accepted enthusiastically. We needed a guitarist. The name Giorgio Lobascio came up. We contacted him and he also accepted. So the very first components of the group were: Dino on bass, Massimo on violin, Giorgio on guitar, GP on flute and me on drums. Now we had the people, we needed to find a place to play. Easy, we thought, around Vercelli there are loads of half empty farm buildings, we'll definitely be able to find a room to rent. Instead, it was a real problem! Everyone thought that playing music was only an excuse and we really wanted a place to butcher girls! In the end, after many failed attempts, we found a place in Asigliano where we took all the equipment: 2 amplifiers, a violin, a flute and a drum set. In this way we played a few times improvising things. There was some confusion with everyone playing for himself; but the biggest problem was GP and Massimo because we just couldn't hear them. We needed ideas but above all we needed a voice system! To overcome the problem, we accepted the proposal from Dino's ex-group; they were being evicted from where they practised and asked us to share their equipment while we gave them our only resource, a place to practise. In this way we got a voice system and also an organ. Massimo could play it by giving up the violin. So we decided to get a permanent keyboard player so as not to lose the violin. We contacted a boy who was at High School, Luigi Bulsei, nicknamed Cicciobello. He was the first in a long line of keyboard players. At last, it was about mid-November 1974, we could get started. We thought we'd play our own music rather than wasting time playing, perhaps badly, famous pieces by others. Except that instead of beginning with simple things, just so that everyone could get used to each other, we started with a suite on the history of Man! During the composition we realised that Cicciobello wasn't suitable for our kind of music, nor for our group, so we replaced him with Luigino Ranghino, a classically trained pianist and his first time in a group. By the way, the name wasn't Castello di Atlante but Hydra. With this group of six we finished the Man suite and February 1975 arrived with us in a state of crisis, as we realised that Giorgio's rock'n'roll nature was not at all suited to our kind of playing which was in line with the progressive rock music of the time. We began to think about replacing him, without saying anything to him of course! Out of all the guitarists we knew, 3 names came up. A certain Gimmi from Villarboit, an Agatino from Santhià and a school mate of mine from the middle school, Aldo Bergamini. We called all 3 of them. First we heard Gimmi. He thought he sounded like Jimy Hendrix, that's why he called himself Gimmi. This made us sceptical at once and after having listened to him, we discounted him definitively! Agatino never showed up so he remained a mystery. But by pure chance, in that period I met Aldo and I asked him to come for a trial. First he came to hear what kind of music we played and then he returned a few evenings later with his guitar. I remember that that evening Dino wasn't there. Aldo brought a very strange guitar full of buttons and switches which according to him changed the sound. Mm, it still sounded the same to me. In fact, it didn't make a very good impression on me, I spoke to Dino and we decided to listen to him again. Aldo came with a beautiful Fender Stratocaster!
....Aldo and his own Fender Stratocaster
It was amazing how easily he entered into our songs. He was the guitarist we were looking for! So we replaced Giorgio, who did get a bit angry with Aldo. I had known him for a long time as we had been school mates, but we had never played together after school so I didn't really know what he was like. But getting to know him meant a lot to me. "Why?" asked Enrica. Listen. One afternoon we were sitting on a bench when somebody on a Honda 750 went by with a blonde behind. I said to Aldo "There's a smart guy, he's got everything!" "Oh yes?" he said. "Sure! He's got a shiny motorbike, he gets the girls, he's probably got money too! What more do you want?" "But do you know him?" he asked me. "No", I answered. "So?" "So what?" "How do you know he's smart?!" I didn't know how to answer, but from that moment I began to ask myself a lot of questions!
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