1999 is the year at the heart of the ninth episode of Venticinque, in which the iconic band Verdena shares anecdotes, memories and reflections from the past.
The LifeGate and Rockit podcast is back with the band that changed alternative rock in Italy. From their legendary late-Nineties beginnings to Volevo magia, we got them to tell us a unique, uncompromising story. Comfortably seated in their Pollaio. "What was it like here in 1999? There were definitely more trees — beyond that, not much has changed."
Luca Ferrari welcomes us in those words. Behind us stands a small brick building, from which distorted notes drift out. It's the Pollaio — the place where Verdena's music is born, from the first jams through to the final master, and where, like the six before it, "Volevo magia" came to life: the band's long-awaited new studio album. Waited on for seven years — long enough to become something halfway between a meme and a curse — the record is beautiful and haunting. It comprises twelve tracks, from "Chaise Longue", released as a single just a few days before the release, through to "Sino a notte"; in between, some walls of sound in the vein of Queens of the Stone Age, a few ballads bordering on psychedelia, and the band's trademark attitude of doing whatever the hell they like, first in the rehearsal room and then on record.
Luca Ferrari and his brother Alberto, together with Roberta Sammarelli, are the protagonists of the new episode of Venticinque, the Life Gate Radio and Rockit podcast — written by Dario Falcini, Giacomo De Poli and Marco Rip —, which returns for its second season with a new cycle of eight artists and as many unmissable episodes, every Wednesday on all streaming platforms. To tell the story of Verdena and their uniqueness in the Italian landscape (and beyond), we headed above Bergamo, at the mouth of the Val Seriana. To their home, crossing the threshold of an almost sacred place: the Pollaio. Which really was a chicken coop once — and still is, in a way, since out the back there's a farmyard with a flock of noisy hens. In the Nineties, as teenagers or thereabouts, Alberto and Luca set to work transforming it into the home of their dream of making music, of "reaching Bergamo" with their songs. The audio documentary takes us straight back to the beginning. "From 14 to 16 we played constantly in parish halls — a home for every band from the valleys. Then we moved on to pubs, which back then were fairly happy to have bands play. Always without a fee, obviously. We'd play some of our own stuff, plus Nirvana, the Melvins (they'll come up several more times in the course of the podcast, confirming the reverence Albi and co. have for the band, ed.), even Green Day," Luca goes on, seated like his bandmates on pellets stacked in a small flat that shares a garden with the Pollaio ("and where we all worked at least a few days, back when the accountancy studio was here").
In our story — from which a completely unseen side of the trio emerges — we arrive at the crucial moment: 1999, the year to which this episode of Venticinque is "dedicated", and in which everyone realised something new was coming from those valleys not far (geographically, at least) from Milan. Alberto and Roberta tell us about the genesis of their first, self-titled album, the recordings done in a couple of weeks in Florence with Giorgio Canali ("we had the tracks pretty much ready when we went into the studio"), and the criticism they received at first. "There was a lot of it, and some of it was harsh. But live, anyone who came to see us could tell we were really playing: maybe that was the difference between us and everyone else, if I really have to spell it out." In the band's account — punctuated by digs at one another, silences and the odd peculiarity (otherwise they wouldn't be Verdena) — the decisive moments are revisited: the early gigs to almost nobody, and then just weeks later Gods of Metal and the Heineken Jammin' Festival, supporting Marilyn Manson and Hole. "That night I also had a row with Courtney Love," says Roberta. "I was giving her a dirty look while she was playing, because I really wasn't enjoying the gig at all, and in the end she came looking for me." "And she's a huge woman," Alberto adds.
In the new episode of Venticinque you'll also find live recordings of some of the tracks from Volevo magia made that day (it was July, the first recorded interview about the new album), captured in the rehearsal room. And a thousand other memories, reflections and anecdotes, in which Verdena emerge in their purest form. Hopelessly outsiders, incapable of compromising even with themselves. "The only rule for us has always been, to put it in Bergamasco dialect, Daga dét," they sum up, before talking to us about the difficult years of Covid, which particularly in these valleys came as a shock and also had an impact on the making of the album. Then there's their relationship with fans and social media, and a thousand other things. For everything else, the advice is to listen to Venticinque on the major streaming platforms. With one guarantee: you will never hear anyone quite like Verdena.