The Talented Heterosexual with the Character of a Hysterical Dyke
Cesare is a psychopathic maniac, and when we are on tour I do everything I can to not have him in the car because he eats constantly and messes everywhere. And then he smokes, wants to listen to music at an absurd volume, wants to stop at every rest stop, wants to know intimate details of my sexual experiences, wants to tell me about his sexual tastes, wants to talk about songs, wants to talk about poetry, wants to be hugged, wants me not to be on the phone, wants me to tell him what I was doing at 11, wants me to reassure him, wants to smoke with Ballo, wants to talk about the next album and the new video, wants to discuss politics, wants to know who I voted for in the 60s, wants to know… What’s Cesare like? Cesare is a talented heterosexual, but with the character of a hysterical dyke.
A Rare and Unique Path in Italy
Walter Mameli, producer of Cesare Cremonini (from the website www.cesarecremonini.it). Cesare, is it really like that? “Yes. I’m a curious, enthusiastic and a bit annoying boy, and I don’t intend to change. Maybe I’ve become less annoying, but it’s better if you ask around (“around”, of course, means ask Mameli, ed.)”. Walter, you said it, you can deny it: has he improved? “Well…”. Cremonini and his producer are sitting in front of the mixer of Mille galassie, the new recording studio of the Bolognese singer-songwriter in Casalecchio di Reno, on the outskirts of Bologna. On September 26th Il primo bacio sulla luna, the third solo album of the 28-year-old former leader of Lùnapop, those of 50 Special, will be released. It’s three in the afternoon and a little earlier, at lunch, the singer has eaten and drunk very little (“I’m on a diet…”), but he has talked for two and a half hours without stopping. Be honest, as much as a singer promoting a new album can: why should people listen to, and possibly buy, this album? “I don’t say it’s my best work because it would be the usual banality and because I want others to say it in a few days, but it’s certainly the most varied and aware. This album closes a cycle, from adolescence to (almost) thirty years, of a person who already has a past to tell. My artistic and personal path in Italy is quite rare, maybe unique”.
Lost Depth and Too Fast Everything
In what way? “People like Vasco or Ligabue had success when they were over thirty. I’ve been in the game for ten years now. I have a story. And I look forward, I have faith in myself and in the future. Even if I’m tired and a bit dizzy”. Why? “I can’t stand the way young people are talked about. It seems that they are all inattentive, superficial and stoned. Always dazed by discos, drunk and consumerist. It’s false. Those I know and meet on the road are not like that. The problem, if any, is that the depth of things is being lost and everything is too fast. People talk but don’t say, they listen but don’t understand, they look but don’t see. And I want to be someone who says, understands and sees”.
