Patrick Djivas / PFM / The man with the computer (Fare Musica, 1984)
translation:
Patrick Djivas came to the editorial board of Fare Musica to tell us stories old and new about the Premiata, the band, now almost of age, that continues to represent the only reliable attempt at the internationalization of Italian rock. Then things went a bit wrong, but Patrick will tell us about that in the interview. The only note that I think is right to put before the live dialogue concerns the setting in which PFM wants its work to be interpreted today. Much water has passed under the bridge, many mistakes have been made and a lot of experience has been accumulated. The musicians in question experience these past events in the light of new awareness, which translates into the introduction of an unprecedented language within the band’s philosophy. Patrick insisted on speaking of programming, organization, planning, division and specialization of tasks, of taking responsibility for his role and for his eventual near future.
Program: to build the relaunch of a group on solid foundations that technically, and from experience, has little to envy to anyone. Work on everything with order, the means, and clear ideas. Revitalize an enthusiasm that the last few years had undoubtedly consumed a little.
Djivas seems to me to have taken the helm of this relaunch operation on the basis of his own undoubted managerial ability. He is a man who manages to combine his enormous skills as a musician with a clear and lucid vision of mechanisms that govern today's music business, knowing its progress and being able to interpret its meaning. He has a rational as well as passionate personality, a mind capable of synthesizing organizational needs, production purposes, and ways of developing group work. Flanked by the effervescence of the public man - Di Cioccio and the artistic sensibility of Mussida, he can count on a work team with all the credentials.
PFM therefore makes an attempt, which is not a bluff, but that has, conversely, great cards to play. Nothing is certain, but starting from this basis it can be assumed that the future of this historical nucleus can again be filled with significance. And, as a natural consequence, of success. Certainly they are musicians that few can teach anything.
Talking about all this, and much more, we sat around a table, with the company of Fernando Fera and an Olivetti M10 from which Djivas never separates, like any good self-respecting manager.
You are good friends with Leo Fender…
Yes. He built for me his first fretless bass…he had never done any before. It was a Music Man.
PFM? PFM! arrives after a long period of silence for the Premiata…
We had to get out of the vicious tour/album/promotion circle: after thirteen years it is a procedure that tires you and makes you lazy. We decided to stop and start working like a group on their first album again, with calm and tranquility. Too many times we have arrived in the studio with not even half of the material written due to time constraints. Performance closed a chapter of PFM: that of changes, of instability of the formation. Now a new one has opened, with defined personnel: it had been years since PFM had made two consecutive records with the same lineup.
Are you all full members of the group now?
Yes. Walter Calloni and Lucio Fabbri are also members of the Premiata for all intents and purposes. This situation allows us to start looking at the international market again: It is a discourse that you can only seriously face if you have a formidable internal strength; it's very, very difficult. The comings and goings of our lineup have forced us to give up this discourse.
What are the chances today of a lineup like PFM on the international scene?
They haven't changed at all. The first international attempt of PFM was certainly not exhausted by failure. It actually went great! We didn't realize it. The deal was - let's put it this way - interrupted. The Americans in the music business in recent years have always asked us: why don't you come back? An anecdote: Billy Idol’s guitarist, that we met in Riva del Garda, kept walking around us. In the end he came to the dressing room, apologizing, and declared that he has always been a PFM fan... He had seen us a lot of times in concert and he knew all the parts of me and Mussida by heart; he told us that in NY the Premiata is something that has remained over time... a myth!
Then let’s continue to talk about the international scene: how did the American story end for PFM, and why?
Naturally the thing was paralyzed due to various factors: the deadly blow came to us from that famous Roman concert we held in support of the Palestinian struggle. On that occasion Pagani gave an interview to Rolling Stone precisely on these political issues. A big article came out entitled: PFM support OLP. That same afternoon, Bill Graham, the organizer with whom we were most in contact and who, as you know, is Jewish, showed up, and several others soon after. The message was only one: PFM will never set foot in America again. In reality we still did something there, but in the meantime our internal problems were growing. People who entered and people who left the group, some who did not like the international experience too much, Mussida and Premoli with family problems. If you want to face America you must first go there to stay, concentrating with all your energy. It was a very provincial, if human, reaction. Certainly they are mistakes that we will not repeat. At the time we didn't realize the chance we had in our hands: in 14 states we were first in FM radio and the record company literally went crazy. From the outside, no one understood how at that point we could not finally explode.
At that time it all seemed due to us; also the fantastic welcome we received in places like London and Los Angeles. In Italy we were number one and every recognition seemed obvious to us. We had a superior attitude and didn't understand that the PFM effect was hitting America.
At a compositional level, you, Di Cioccio and Mussida do the lion's share on PFM? PFM!
Yes, Di Cioccio composed a lot for this album. Since singing, Franz has started playing the guitar; he knows 4 chords, but has a remarkable melodic sense. For example, take the piece Capitani coraggiosi: I had created the whole instrumental situation many years ago. It was a piece that I had written to test a system of automatic arpeggio on a keyboard that had come to me, a Jupiter 8. After a long time Di Cioccio got the melody out of it…not a beginner thing, with a nice development. Only in the beginning, the piece was oriented at a slow pace. Many pieces, as in this case, arise from subtle surgeries, cuts, sutures, joints, perhaps between ideas of different people.
You are the production manager of PFM? PFM!: Tell me about the work from this angle.
Initially, we had in mind the idea of making a very sparse record, four or five instruments and go. After the construction of the bases, several things were changed at the Castle from the design point of view of the room. In light of this novelty, and after a series of replays, we decided to start all over again. We only kept part of the drums. The new sound condition thrilled us: it is a very real sound. Usually, for example, when you listen to 120 dB levels you can't speak, you have to scream in your ears; in this case, on the other hand, you don't have to make the slightest effort; the frequencies are so separated that...it seems to be in the open air!
So you used a lot of overdubs…
Yes, because we could trust the placement in the frequency bands. Goldberg and I were able to foresee a whole series of fixes, first of writing and then of sound, which it was possible to respect perfectly during the realization phase. We hear everything we wanted, there is not the slightest overlap. It was not only a very profitable job, but also a very interesting one.
Did you work by ear or using spectrum analyzers?
Absolutely by ear. The analyzers seem like a big rip off to me. They can help you live, but in the (recording) room they only complicate your life. They only serve one thing: to keep in mind that in the realization of the bases the hole in which the voice will have to be inserted is always respected; for Franz this loophole was established around 1000. In reality there is another little secret why it can be useful to adopt the analyzer in the room. By being able to view the position of the voice, you can check that the absolute peaks of the recording are not just the voice itself. It would be a big mistake: it would mean that it is the voice that takes the level of the record forward.
Why the half speed mastering?
To remedy as much as possible to the cutting problems we have had, as well as to guarantee us a perfectly satisfactory level of quality. Tigre's stereo bass literally made the grooves dance. Thanks in this sense goes to Piero Mannucci who is passionate about the cutting of this album in a formidable way. We absolutely didn't want to miss Tigre's bass, but it cost us two days of work. By comparison, he thinks that Tigre was born in the studio, and that since Franz glimpsed the melody in the final recording, it's only been a day and a half: music, bass, lyrics.
Mussida’s arpeggio on the piece is of a virtuoso level…
It is a Chet Atkins Gibson passed through a Rockman. It is a guitar that works amazingly in the studio: in certain cases it can be confused with a keyboard for the breadth of sonority it possesses. Tigre is certainly my favorite piece, because it manages to balance the commercial side and the technical, virtuosic side. After all, this album has two different levels of reading. You can appreciate it as a listening product, or you can study the web of sounds with which it is built.
Tell me about the making of your bass parts on the album.
The decision to take care of the production of the record forced me to sacrifice the time I usually dedicate to my instrumental parts. After all, I felt tight in the role of the band's bass player. It therefore came naturally to me to conceive my bass parts much more as a producer than as a bass player. I created a very large, very deep sound that served as a support base for the other instruments. The bass is the platform on which the whole sound system of a record rests. Of course if you enter this order of ideas, you have to forget all the virtuosities and solos. I used a Music Man and an active Gibson.
For the keyboards?
I played a good part of it. We used the Yamaha DX7 a lot but the most compelling experience was the encounter with the Synclavier. It is a device through which I truly understood FM programming. Let's say that the Synclavier instructed me to work with the DX7, which proved to be an extraordinary device, with timbral abilities equal to those of the Synclavier.
To conclude: what is the role of PFM today, in the musical scene of 1985.
I think that PFM now synthesizes a concept of exchange between what experienced musicians like us can give to today's music. We do not want to miss what is happening around us, we want to acknowledge, and then add the weight of decades of professionalism.
Is Di Cioccio definitively the voice and the frontman of PFM?
Yes, we needed a character like that. He has to be. Both from the point of view of connection with the public and as a point of reference for the musicians on stage. A singer who, like Franz, is at the service of the group. Franz started out as a histrion, clearly he is not a natural singer, but thanks to the work he is doing, the results are beginning to be felt. It was a joint decision that consciously forced us into a period of adjustment. Looking for a singer abroad would have meant inserting a new character in a central role in a group that has a great history. It is clear that the position of the newcomer in a group does not carry the same weight as that of an elder; if the singer is in this position, it can be a big problem. We didn't want to take this risk.
Concerts?
We will start with a tour in the major cities, playing in small clubs. It is a good habit of American stars to tackle small clubs from time to time. Four lights and two hours of music, perhaps with two outings. Like Zappa or the Stones periodically returning to the Roxy, we want to rediscover the pleasure of playing at the Piper. Then will come the regular tour in the theaters and sports arenas. The whole thing will last four months. We want to do a lot of concerts, because in order to face the international discourse again, a big break-in has to be done.
Restarting the PFM machine is complicated and expensive. We have a facility that costs 4 million a day and a technician of 6 million a month. It's a new management idea; Mamone represents the organizational side. Alongside me, Francone and Franz have created a production group, which we called Performance, within which each one of us has very definitive tasks. Franz thinks of public relations, Francone of the artistic direction and I take care of production, and of actual realization.
"...the collaboration with Mauro Pagani intensified up to the realization of Creuza de Ma, I think one of Fabrizio De André's masterpieces. In the photo, taken on a ferry that took us to isola d'Elba: Mike Fraser, Claudio Pascoli, Mauro Pagani, Walter Calloni and Massimo Spinosa, the rhythmic base of the disc and the producer." -Walter Calloni
