When he turned seventy and thousands of fans and amateurs rushed to fill their Facebook boards – at the time Instagram was not yet so popular and, above all, it did not yet have the Stories that have made the fortune of so many pseudo-influencers – with excerpts from his most famous songs, Franco Battiato said he was happy to have an audience that adored him, but also sorry because he felt, in some way, that he had to “correspond” to that affection. He has always had a harsh, sometimes severe expression, but the kindness and love towards the listeners who have always followed him and the music to which he has dedicated his life have always been there for all to see, both yesterday and today, which leaves us at the age of 76 with a vast repertoire that has gone through all phases, from civil commitment to romanticism, from stylistic experimentation to mystical asceticism.
Along with his career, however, we also retrace the spirit with which he navigated his memories; the not always calm relationship with criticism; the frankness that allowed him to survive and never set limits; the accusation of misogyny for never having married and never having entered into a lasting relationship with a woman, and, above all, the meditation that helped him to reconnect with the “celestial machines” that marked his path and sanctioned his success.
“DON’T CALL ME MASTER”
«I don’t want to be called teacher, it annoys me. Master of what? I was lucky, protected by a pact established elsewhere, I had great satisfaction from those above me “said Battiato in an interview with Everyday occurrence of 2015, explaining that he approached meditation precisely to find a connection with the “celestial machines” that traced his artistic path.
EVERYDAY LIFE IN MILO
In his house in Milo, on the eastern slopes of Etna, purchased by Sicilian nobles in the late 1980s, the same place where he spent the lockdown and where he died on May 16, Battiato has always observed a very routine rigorous: wake up early (sometimes at half past three, as he explained in an interview with Courier service), radio tuned to Radio 3 and meditation, which he practiced on the veranda trying to reconnect with nature, the sea and the sky, the ancient pines and oranges. “I’m vegan, but not tight. I eat Mediterranean style: I’m crazy about gazpacho, pasta with garlic, oil and chilli and Sicilian pasta with chopped tomatoes and aubergines ».
DEVOTION TO THE MOTHER
Orphan of his father, whom he lost at a young age, Franco Battiato has always been very close to his mother Grazia: it was with her that he moved to Milan, starting his career, performing in the cabaret club 64 and attracting the attention of a certain Giorgio Gaber who would have done anything to launch his career. When he bought the Moncada castle in Milo, Battiato had the chapel that was part of the complex rededicated and every morning a priest said mass for Mamma Grazia, his point of reference, his “permanent center of gravity”.
LOVE FOR WOMEN AND MARRIAGE
That he practiced chastity was more of a legend connected with meditative practice than anything else. “I have a need for freedom, I could never fight over a displaced toothpaste” he said in an interview with Courier service in 2015. “I never thought about marriage. The very idea makes me want to shoot myself “ he then said in an interview with Everyday occurrence explaining that I didn’t have any soulmates, but “friends worthy of the name, yes”. Among the long and important stories he occasionally mentioned, he often spoke of the first, at the end of the 1960s: “She was married and ran a huge nightclub. She called me when her husband left, it went on for a while. “
THE IDEA OF DEATH
Always convinced of a subtle connection between the things of the world, Franco Battiato has always believed in reincarnation. “If a person has a modicum of sensitivity, how can he say we come from monkeys? You idiot !, I say: monkeys are themselves human beings put there for a reason. When you behave in a terrible way, when you kill someone, then you are reborn as an insect, snake or another animal … That’s why I walk down the street, taking care not to step on even the ants “. On God: “We cannot humanize God, but work like crazy to get closer to him” (from Courier service).
THE CRITICISM AND THE CLASH WITH DARIO FO
For some, the real Franco Battiato is that of the early years, the electronic, experimental one, still far from the circuits that would have made it its most popular success. “I have asked a lot of those who follow me. For me the only thing that matters in life is the existential part, the one that tests you: I’m not interested in confirmations, being reassuring for the public, giving them what they want. If you do this, you betray your role which is to do what interests you, not what interests them “he told in an interview with Republic, adding that the most important part of his work was not the electronics, but the mystique. “I’ve always cared about criticism. Sincerity, on the other hand, depends on grace, on the formula, on grace. Then if you are sincere to the point of being stinging, you must expect that the other can also respond with the same coin. In 1980, at the end of a delusional performance with 5,000 people, Dario Fo waited for me at the exit of the concert. “I don’t like your lyrics.” And I replied: “What the fuck do I care?”. We were on the same level at that point ».
THE MILITARY LEVER
Speaking of the adventure with the military conscription, Battiato joked and said that he should have made a film about it. «In Cassino, where the story began, I immediately made a bad impression. I felt like I was on the moon, I didn’t understand anything and I walked around with the sleeves that reached the middle of the hand and a look obviously too scruffy for the military parameters. A brute stops me, a Neapolitan general, a true son of a bitch who takes me bad words: “How the fuck do you go around? Are not you ashamed”. He had 25 stars on his jacket: “Are you talking to me?”, Sketch and he, red in the face: “Do you see anyone else around?”. He was having a heart attack. From that moment he aimed at me. He decided to make me pay. When, very thin, I went to hospital for a suspected exhaustion, he approached threateningly: “I have to send you to the Celio in Rome, but since you will surely come back here, I will have you cleaned the toilets with my tongue” (from Done). Curiosity: he would never go back to Cassino.
MONEY
“I donated it and when I didn’t have it, I always made do. Even in an acrobatic way. Frequenting the artists, it happened to fall from the trapezoid. Once, I was in Rome, Giancarlo Nanni and Manuela Kustermann invite me to dinner in a trattoria. We talk, drink, joke and at some point the two begin to fight wildly. Slaps fly, forbidden blows, they just hit each other. The innkeeper chased us away: “But what kind of people does he go with,” he said scornfully. It looked like a movie “(from Done).
THE CODE OF TG2 DOSSIER
Few people know, but the Tg2 Dossier theme song is a piece by Battiato: Proprietad prohibila of the album Click. “I supported Stomu Yamashita in 1975, who used to do the Buddha Theater. In ’75 I was called to represent Italy at the Roundhouse in London for theEuropean Rock Festival in which Magma, Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel participated, in short, the best of the experimental scene of that period. But I had decided that what I was doing was too commercial and that precisely for that important occasion I would change course: I would do half the concert with the things I knew the audience liked and half instead on my ‘attack’ experiments. At the rehearsals I did as usual Prohibited Property and at the end the director approaches me and says: ‘You are the number one!’. He was really amazed and happy. About four thousand people arrived in the evening, two thousand of whom were drunk. I did everything by myself, I had no one to accompany me. I had long hair, very long hair, a military shirt, an unshaven beard and as instruments a record player that I used in a ‘destructive’ way long before hip hop DJs with ‘scratch’, a radio on shortwave and a television like ‘noise’. When I started playing at the beginning nobody said anything because they thought I was the technician of the Italian artist, who was calibrating the instruments. But after ten minutes they started shouting ‘Go home!’, While others said ‘More!’. Hell had broken out! After a while I left and as I went down the stairs I saw the manager who, offended, turned his face away muttering something like ‘You betrayed me!’ and he didn’t even say hello to me. Patience “(from Republic).
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