In Bugo’s life there is a before 8 February 2020 and an after 8 February 2020, as in the great historical periods. For the few who had forgotten it, on that date Bugo left the stage in Sanremo to defend himself from the attacks of Morgan, his festival snack companion who since that evening he has definitely ignored.
We also try in this chat born by chance, on the eve of his new participation in the Festival with the song Instead Yes. “I don’t like to talk about it, full stop. However, in my career that release is definitely a watershed. Then immediately the pandemic arrived and life changed for everyone. A strange coincidence that a personal traumatic event was followed closely by a collective trauma such as Covid », he says.
The exit from Sanremo has become the entry into the history of the Festival.
«If I look at my career, the expenses are more important than the income. I’ve always liked having the freedom to be inside and out. When I have nothing to say I get out of the box. Between 2010 and 2014, for example, I left Italy and went to stay in India ».
What prompted you to leave Italy?
«A heartfelt reason, my wife who is a diplomat had a job there and I followed her, despite having a record coming out. Those were the years in which I then dedicated myself to art ».
Which is why I’m here now chatting with you. I don’t understand anything about music and the last singer I must have seen on television on the Sanremo stage must have been Lucio Dalla in 1971
«Oh yes… someone told me that in my music there were some interesting visual quotes. So I decided to be a contemporary artist, but I decided that I would only do it for five years, since I am a songwriter and not an artist ».
But you took those five years as an artist seriously.
“Of course it was never a game even if I remember those years with a smile.”
When did you start playing?
«Music hasn’t always been a part of my life, my parents have nothing artistic about it. In Cerano (a town in the province of Novara, ed), where I grew up, the boys of my age thought of everything except being musicians, and I was like them, playing football and blacking out school. With music I started late, even if I don’t think you can use the term “late” when it comes to art. At 19, a group of my friends put a band together and invite me to this all glass garage where they play. This atmosphere where people drank beers and listened to music immediately fascinated me. I then left for the military in 1993 and there I learned to play the guitar ».
But the first album did not arrive until 2000 and was entitled …
“The first scratch.”
What does it mean?
“When you learn to drive and the gears of the car scratch when you put them on. To say that before becoming a Ferrari it takes time… if you ever become a Ferrari ».
Your music has changed over the years.
“She grew up with me. I have always sung what I did in my daily life. Growing up you inevitably change, or rather you transform yourself. I have gained more confidence, which is not always good, because when you are too sure you stop experimenting and taking risks ».
Stop being a rebel.
“Rebel is a word I don’t like very much, and doing it now at 47 seems a bit pathetic to me. The things I sing today are not the things I sang at 25, an age that I don’t regret. “
Which of your songs do you consider essential? Those that have marked the various periods in twenty years of career?
«One of the first in 2002, I had recently moved from Cerano to Milan, it is Homemade».
A hymn to the slipper …
«A tribute to staying at home. The other is I break my balls, these are two songs that brought me to the Universal record company ».
Two seer songs, perfectly suited to the pandemic.
“Perfect. Like when I wrote in 2008 There is a crisis, another turning point in my career, then the crisis really happened. In 2011 I write However I want you, a song with which for the first time I face the theme of love in an explicit way. Then I would say in 2016 I love it, which is the answer to I break my balls. I didn’t want people to remember me as a bummer. ‘
In Sanremo ports Instead Yes.
“Which will certainly be another important point in my career, if only for the fact that I’m in Sanremo.”
Are you a person who goes into crisis?
“I can pull my ears to the crisis, she slaps me a little, I slap her a little.”
You are an indie singer.
“If I called myself indie alone it would be sad. If others do it, ok. But then he also looks at people like Vasco Rossi or Rino Gaetano and even Lucio Battisti, they were in some way indie ».
You’re an outsider then.
«Yes, it seems to me more correct. An outsider who wants to stay inside the castle but carrying his own rules ».
I don’t want to go back to the same old story but it’s inevitable when it comes to outsiders. With your release you have suddenly become an insider, you have made the history of the Festival.
«Sure, my music or my character up to that point had been out of the general public, but with
that gesture that I lived very spontaneously fell suddenly among the people. Probably thanks also to the spontaneity of what I did ».
Have you ever regretted this spontaneity?
«No, mai».
You have practically answered the famous question in Nanni Moretti’s film: do I notice more if I come and stay in a corner or if I really don’t come?
“Yes, I preferred to be there by disappearing.”
You have also done a great favor to Rai by waking up those who were about to fall asleep at home.
«Indirectly yes. I was the first singer to leave the Ariston stage in this way in the whole history of the Festival ».
Is that why they invited you again?
“I do not believe. I was one of the first to be called by Amadeus, but he told me he wanted to hear the song first. I already had the song ready. But if it was crap he didn’t invite me, of that I’m sure. However, I am very happy with the piece, it is one of the best I have ever written. Even if they had invited me for compensation, the two things coincide and so that’s okay ».
This year there will be no public in Sanremo, but what kind of public do you like? The intimate one of the theaters or the crowds?
“I would play stadiums all my life.”
Tell me three of your faults. I already know one.
“I talk too much?”.
But no … you are Juventus: for me a Fiorentina fan it is an indelible defect.
«I am of the sign of Leo, I am irascible, angry, not angry because I always am angry, it helps me to do things. Sometimes they scolded me for being ungrateful. I had to learn to say thanks more ».
Three qualities.
«I am very patient. I have a lot of self-esteem. I do everything seriously, I like to play but I don’t do anything for fun ».
You’re bored.
“Boredom is important. Ideas also come to me when I’m lying here on the sofa ».
You once said that you always feel like a rookie.
«I like to face things as if it were the first time, without having to stress that I have twenty years of career behind me. In Italy either they accuse you of underestimating yourself or they accuse you of giving yourself too much air. “
A singer you would like to be? Bugo becomes …
«Vasco, my absolute myth even if I am very different. In reality I don’t want to be anyone else. ‘
Are you a music expert?
“Absolutely not! The less you know the better, because that way you throw yourself in more easily. A song by Celentano, a
another of my heroes, entitled The King of the Ignorants, is what I would like to be ».
So far, as good tomboys, we have not mentioned anyeven a woman. If you were a woman who would you like egevenings?
“Gianna Nannini is the one I feel closest to, or Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, but also Lady
Gaga intrigues me a lot. “
Do you care about your look?
“Well sure, someone who has self-esteem cares. However, I have always had a thing for clothes even as a child ».
What makes you feel ridiculous?
“A singer is always a bit ridiculous … I wish I wasn’t pathetic.”
What are your haters accusing you of?
«That I don’t know how to sing. But I’m not interested in knowing how to sing, I want to know how to express myself. I also use the guitar here to take notes, when I go on stage I have a guitarist who knows how to play, a professional, someone who helps me to say what I want to say as best as possible ».
You are on top of a tower, you have to choose between success, money and Juve: what do you save?
«Juve no. Between money and success it’s tough ».
You have to be left with only one thing.
«Well look, in the end I save the success, which in a hundred years will make sure that someone will say: beautiful ‘is Cristian’s song!».
Do you prefer to be called Cristian or Bugo?
“My mother still calls me Bugo.”
Your worst song?
“Really! The songs come out when they have to come out good or bad they are, but if you really insist in 2000 I made an instrumental piece that was really bad, it was called Evil virtual dog. A truly disgraceful stuff ».
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