September 23, 2021 4:49 pm
Umbria is perhaps one of the regions less talked about by Italian music. Yet a few years ago in Perugia, in one of what Guido Piovene called the “cities on the heights”, one of the most interesting bands of Italian underground rock was formed: Fast Animals and Slow Kids. A group of friends who in 2008 started a band to write songs in English, choosing a name inspired by an episode of the Griffins. Thanks to their concerts, and the support of Andrea Appino of Zen Circus, the parable of Fast Animals and Slow Kids has slowly become something more than a game between friends. Going through the irony of Cavalli and the despair of Alaska, the band led by histrionic singer Aimone Romizi started from a wall of punk sound to arrive today at a more minimalist rock, which is not afraid to use typical pop structures and melodies.
Written and recorded during the pandemic, the new album It is already tomorrow it is their record of maturity. It is a new stage in the generational reflection on the relationship between children, who are now a little immature in their thirties, and parents. All with a constant search for the epic, between Arcade Fire and Bruce Springsteen, which remains an absolute reference point for the group.
“At one time we tried to deconstruct each of our pieces, to give it a grandiose arrangement, to make it as tiring as climbing. Today this is no longer the case. We are fascinated by simpler structures, we try to ensure that our music flows smoothly ”, says Aimone Romizi, who together with the band is in Rome for some promotional engagements. It’s just after ten and they just woke up. We are inside a room on the ground floor of a hotel in the Prati district, obviously spaced apart and with a mask, but it already seems a small miracle not to be in front of a Zoom screen. “It’s true, at times this record may seem like our most pop work, but it actually has a dark side, which comes out in songs like My brother”.
The song quoted by Romizi, who holds her very long hair pulled back from a ponytail, is one of the most successful of It is already tomorrow. It is a message of affection to a friend who suffers from mental health problems, a rock ride that opens thanks to a saxophone solo. “We don’t want to explain the text. It is a story of personal drama, and it does not seem right to tell it. The idea with which we built it is to give a hug to a loved one. We are very proud of that sax, it gave the piece a little jazz momentum, but also punk ”, comments guitarist Alessandro Guercini.
What would he tell us instead it is a melancholy rock piece, with a beautiful guitar arpeggio to accompany Romizi’s voice. The Turin rapper Willie Peyote is a guest in the piece. “It is a piece that invites us to look within, to heal the people close to us, instead of projecting our frustrations outwards, instead of observing and judging couples in silence at the restaurant. The text was built one step at a time. The first part was born before lockdown, as a kind of social analysis. After the closing, the most introspective lines were born. We didn’t come out better, but we certainly had time to reflect ”, explains Romizi. “The last part was born with the arrival of Willie: we wanted to do something together, we are friends and we respect each other. It is the first featuring of our career and it seemed right to us to inaugurate the collaborations with him. Working on it was very easy. Among other things, his voice enters a moment of the piece in which there is no rhythm, it is a delicate moment “.
It is already tomorrow it is a record about the idea of the future, but it is less optimistic than it seems. “We tend to focus too much on the future without living in the present. The distance between future and present has become miniscule. With this album the idea was to stop time on the present moment. For this in Stupid song one verse reads: ‘Enough with this obsession with smiling at the future’ ”.
Among other things, talking about the future in the midst of a pandemic is a courageous choice. “For us it was not taken for granted to make this record. We weren’t so sure we wanted to record it, as we didn’t know when we would go back to playing live, which is essential for us. In itself, being a musician is already a precarious job. Today you have an audience that follows you, tomorrow you don’t know. So basically we were prepared for anything, but the pandemic was too much even for us. The point is not just us, but the fact that in the last two years 27 percent of show business and cultural operators have decided to change jobs. The places where we used to play may never reopen. When we return to play we will find a cultural situation even worse than the one that existed before 2020. We are in favor of the idea of Cosmo, who wanted to organize a concert without distancing at the beginning of October but had to resign himself to the silence of the institutions. The green pass can be a tool to start again as before ”, declares the band.
Another track on the record, Rave, imagine a stream of consciousness during a night out at the club, quotes Freddie Mercury’s Living on my own and tackles the theme of artistic theft: “The disgust you write you steal from me / I do the same, but I steal from the king”, sings Romizi. “That’s a reminder song. The meaning is: aim for the moon, don’t aim for the stairs of the house. In Italy there is often a tendency to risk little, but each time the castle has to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. We are not ashamed to take inspiration from great artists: in this record, for example, we refer to the new wave of New Order, as well as the usual Bruce Springsteen, and also Tame Impala. Dreaming small is foolish ”.
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