Tananai: “The person I don’t want to be”

Alberto Cotta Ramusino said Tananai he doesn’t like to sit still: in life, in music and even in this interview. Indeed, in the recording studio where we meet, Tananai swings on the swivel chair like a teenager, torments his disheveled hair and rubs his fingers in front of the questions that force him to think deeply about the answers. The occasion of our meeting is the exit of Rave, Eclipse, his first album of unpublished works released less than a year after the last place at the Sanremo Festival which, however, opened the doors of the star-system wide open for him, since from that moment the name of Tananai is now on everyone’s lips – he is also a guest of our Vanity Fair Stories on November 27th -. In Rave, Eclipse there are two souls that coexist and occasionally fight between the tracks: the “more prick” one, as Alberto defines it, and the more introspective one. The Rave and the Eclipse, in fact, the torment and the ecstasy, two sides of a coin to be discovered that Tananai helps us to understand by making us immediately hear in the speakers the song he feels he needs at this precise moment: it’s called Little Gabriel, and its rhythm is so energetic that it pushes your foot to go in time even if you don’t want to.

Why did you choose to start from this song?
«Because I need it more: it gives me energy. I wrote it at a time when my friends and I only spoke on punchlines.”

This is definitely the part Rave.
«I divide writing into two moments, both very therapeutic: the one in which I dig into very personal things of mine that otherwise I would struggle to understand, and the one that allows me to enjoy myself as I enjoy nothing else, freeing me from any type of conspiracy theory ».

In fact this piece really gives the charge: what time does he wake up in the morning?
“Usually at a decent time, 9.30.”

She strikes me as a nocturnal person.
“Bad.”

What time do you usually go to sleep?
“At the time I pass out. On average at 3 and 4 in the morning ».

What does he do up to that hour?
“I think. During the day I do things or play. Now that I’ve finished the album, I think».

Where do your thoughts go?
«What the future holds, what more could I do, how to combine sounds that interest me. I get up and do it, then come back and think and pass out. I am a chronic dissatisfied. In the meantime, I’ll let you hear another track».

Part three quarters, a piece from Eclissi in which Tananai sings about an interrupted love and feeling like a monster after a betrayal.

Why this other choice?
“It’s the same thing as Casual sex. In the past I have cheated and come home together with feelings of guilt. I realized that I was someone I didn’t want to be.”

“I feel like a monster,” he sings Three-quarters. When was the last time you felt like this?
“I feel very guilty when I disappear from some people’s sight and lives. I don’t do it meanly, and that’s why I feel like shit. If I did it with malice I would justify it, instead, I don’t know why, but at a certain point I detach myself. Not in the sense of ghostinghowever, but in that of no longer being able to express myself with that person».

Are you referring to a particular episode?
“To a friend: I realized that I couldn’t be as present in his life as he needed me to be, and this led me to detach. I’ll be there for you when I can give you what you want.”

When, on the other hand, someone disappears with her, how do you feel?
“It doesn’t affect me much anymore. Partly because I’m like that too and I understand it. But it doesn’t mean that I’m able to forgive: I’m not Jesus Christ, I also hold a grudge. But I understand him as one understands an enemy. I’m a fatalist, things go as they should and there’s no point feeling sorry for yourself».

Earlier you said you were chronically dissatisfied: what degree of dissatisfaction do you think you are today?
“I’ve done a lot of things I’m happy with and a lot I’m not satisfied with. Today I am satisfied with my record. Maybe it would have been better to get it out sooner, but now wasn’t the time: I didn’t have any pieces that I felt should have been there. On the other hand, I’m dissatisfied with other things.”

For instance?
«I’d like to make another album right away, go back on tour even if it’s not possible now. I would always like to be around playing every day, in fact, during the tour period, when I was able to make some songs, I felt extreme happiness. I always think I could do better.”

How do you see boredom?
“Terrible, destructive. My friends and the people around me are more action-oriented than me, which is something that motivates me and stimulates me.

Were you bored as a child?
“Things bored me. If you tell me a sport, I did it».

And were they good at it?
«No, so much so that then I left them. Of the thousand things I’ve started doing, the only one I haven’t stopped is music: time went by and I wasn’t bored. That’s when I realized that I had to do that in my life, even if it wasn’t always fun».

Is showing the most intimate sides of your character in this album something you did more for others or for yourself?
“Definitely for myself. People have understood that I don’t do it to be someone I’m not: I don’t want to look like anyone. It’s something that makes me feel good, and I’m glad that the public has appreciated me for how I communicate: people like someone who doesn’t know where the fuck they are at that moment».

In adolescence, the most fragile season par excellence, did you ever wear a mask to be accepted or liked more?
“Of course. Anyone who wants to do this job has a bit of histrionic personality disorder. The most valuable lesson, in this sense, is accepting that everyone doesn’t like you: the sooner you understand it, the sooner you’re serene. From my private life, however, I tell you that I would have loved to be Sasuke of Naruto».

Because?
“It’s the furthest thing from me ever: that mysterious air that’s irresistible.”

In my opinion, she also emanates a bit of mystery.
“He says? I’m glad, the 14-year-old Albe would be very happy. But I wanted to tell you something else about being inspired by someone».

You’re welcome.
«I never studied production and went on for experiments. When you have references it’s normal to try to make a sound like that producer does there. Then it happens that, between attempts to get that sound, I make mistakes arriving at different sounds that are potentially cool and are mine. As an incentive, I don’t think the fact of having role models and idols is negative, but you also have to be very careful about what happens in the meantime».

Which brings us back to freedom: does it have a price for you?
«(Very long break) I do not think so. I think if you pay that price, you’re taking something away from yourself. I don’t think that is freedom, even if I believe that the good price to pay for it is always a smile”.

A very philosophical answer. Have you ever thought about that course of study?
“I would like to enroll in university again, sooner or later. I would be interested in Letters. Indeed, Eastern Literature».

Because?
“Because I don’t know shit, and it would be a good opportunity to learn more.”

In short, he would not try again with Architecture.
“For charity. I quit because I sucked.”

Tananai: «Life without Fomo»

Tananai, the first of the last

Tananai and Francesca Michielin, restart without anxiety

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