A very good interview!
Please read, Ronald
*****************English Version*****************
INTERVIEW WITH KEN LASZLO
On LineaMusica returns the Back to the 80's and it returns greatly with a real protagonist of the Italian dance of exportation: Gianni Corraini, alias Ken Laszlo, more than one million CDs sold in the whole world.
Q.: Hi Ken, I'd like to start the interview talking about your debut as musician and singer. Since you were a child you have been showing a particular interest for the music...
A.: Of course! As all the voiced children in this Christian world I sang in church in a little town near my city, the little big Mantova. People said that I had the voice of a little angel. Then when I was a teen, I had my first experiences with the band.
Good results came when I was 15. We played for two liras and already in "ballroom". Every Saturday and Monday afternoon and evening, 4 dancing concerts a week and during the whole year. What a want...! An essential experience for my background. A bit of theory, a lot of practise!
I knew how to play the flute, the sax, in addition to the keyboards, obviously. Because when you are talented you are allowed to be autodidact. You don't feel this pressing need to pre-order your background with a school or with the graduation. I also learnt how to play the electric bass with one of the best bassists still today, Fiorenzo Delegà.
A big musician friend of mine, and also co-producer and co-author of my latest Cd, "Future Is Now", which will be out soon. A life together! But the chords under my fingers are one of my limits, I can't stand that they enflame... I didn't continue. Then I spent some time, I don't want to surprise you, studying sing tecnique with another big friend of mine and teacher, Alan Farrington. Alan at the moment is co-producer and author of my latest Cd "Future Is Now".
As I wasn't satisfied, I started frequenting a guy who was younger than me, but he was a real genious of the composition and in the music adaptation, who told me the secrets and the mechanisms of the construction of melodic lines, Carlo Cantini. Carlo is one of the best musicians that I've ever frequented.
Now he's also producer with me and the others that I told you, of my latest work "Future Is Now". Told this, musically I grew up frequenting the stage. The contact with the people is the real gym. On stage you can develop the ability of communicating with the body in addition to the music. But this is another story... Finally I want to say thay very often a graduation means nothing if you didn't have the right experiences.
A bit of theory, a lot of practise!
Q.: How was the pseudonym Ken Laszlo born?
A.: The name sounded well, right. For the production it seemed apposite, and this was sufficient.
Actually, there was a reference but it was a bit argute: Victor Laszlo - the Czechoslovakian of Ilsa (Ingris Bergman), main character of the film "Casablanca" with the big Humphrey Bogart. Laszlo - the boss of the Czechoslovakian resistence, a "clandestine" followed by the nazis who tries to escape in the States with his wife etc.
The fact of the clandestinity was intrigant, who more then us, singers of the Italian Dance...
Q.: Your first success was "Hey hey guy". There are people who tell, on the web, some anectodes about the phonecall that we hear at the beginning of the song... do you want to tell us something about it?
A.: I don't know... everything can be interpreted and it can be lent to the argutest or the flimsiest instrumentalizations. The phone call was only a great idea.
Q.: Why didn't you go on TV and in the discotheques in order to promote "Hey hey guy" at the beginning? The shots of that time show us a guy that a lot of people have identified with Ezio Zanassi, alias De Gama, dead in tragic circustances in 1987.
A.: Ezio was a nice guy, sad his destiny... A mistake in the production? No, it was a recurrent fact. The singer, "clandestine", was paid for his voice and they believed that the "artist" shouldn't necessarily had to be who had sung. I think the thing is known and that it was an absurdity, is also known! Then for me it didn't go that way for that song, Hey Hey Guy: they absolutely wanted the real Ken Laszlo to continue and I accepted. Sure, if I was cripple...
Q.: After "Hey hey guy" the success continued with "Tonight", "Don't cry" and "12345678". What was the secret of that success? The wonderful melodies written by Sandro Oliva that you performed as better as you could with your particular voice?
A.: I think that it's that way. The right mix and the inevitable luck. Without luck... because the talent is implicit, banal. Sandro Oliva was the summit of an iceberg of a team that I repute exceptional. And for that purpose, I want to testify.
The team was coordinated by an extraordinary musician for intelligence, intuitive ability and creativity, Claudia Cattafesta, unforgettable and cryed guitarist, friend. Because it must be friends to do magic things, as is still happening to me now with my latest work "Future Is Now": now as the first times, magic!
Co-productors and co-authors were Sandro Oliva, bassist, and musician good in everything, and Gino Caria, singer, musician. Even him has gone away too early, is it the way to say it, no? A kiss for you, everywhere you are!
For reasons that concern personal facts that I'm not allowed to reveal, Claudio didn't appear. I don't want to take merit from the co-authors because they also were there, and how there were! But this is the thing that maybe hasn't been completely said. Thank you Claudio!
Q.: Did you shot the videos of these songs? What memories do you have?
A.: Fatigue and stress, funny. Yes, funny in the end! We shooted it in Paris in wonderful places, with an excellent order service. Troupe of first category. For me, who I considered and consider Paris fantastic, was a great emotion...
Q.: In 1989 you remade the dance version of "Madame" by Renato Zero: I'm curious to know if Renato liked it!
A.: Renato liked it a lot! He phoned me in order to congratulate. He wasn't able to contact me and he discommoded a half of the discographical world in order to get my phone number. He was very gentle, disposable and he offered me to collaborate with him. We couldn't do it for a lot of appointments of both of us. The think is still suspended, but who knows...
Obviously it was only a fantasy, I joked! I've never known anything, I've been completely ignored! Did you like it?
Q.: In the 80's you were known in the whole Europe and also in Asia and Venezuela. May had happened that you performed in "esotic" countries! What type of experience was it and what are the differences compared to your shows in Italy?
A.: I add Mexico and Brazil. Very hot public who was able to recognize and appreciate, a satisfaction. In Venezuela I was often in the first pages of the most important newspapers and weekly magazines.
I took part as a guest in the Saturday tv shows on the first national channel, people invited me in the jury in order to elect Miss Venezuela and, as my success was especially of French derivation, I frequented the French embassador in Venezuela.
Q.: What memory do you have of Stefano Cundari, producer together with Zanni of your first successes?
A.: A good man! It's a pity that he has gone away so early. I spent a lot of beauiful moments in Venezuela with him!
Q.: In Italy did you take part in Festivalbar? In which year?
A.: No, never.
Q.: You sung a lot of other songs with other preudonyms. In particular we talk about "Disco Island", sung as Chris Lang and about "Welcome to Rimini, sung as Rick Fellini, the videoclip of which was very funny...
A.: I had to repeat. With a few other singers that I don't nomine for correctness, we, named "clanestines", have lent our voices to a lot of situations in which were realised "songs without a face"... I think that this definition is correct. This it was!
At more than 20 years of distance I think it could be said quietly.
Important was the CD, and less important was the artist that sung it. A good voice was sufficient, a tour in the auditory and go... and if there were requests for eventual evenings, it was easier to pay and teach an handsome boy if he was able to stay on stage. This is how the things went...
Q.: One of your song that I particularly liked was a B-side: I allude to "Black pearl", which was on the B side of "Red man"...
A.: I agree with you, the melody on the strophe had a beautiful metre. The idea, If I remember well, was of Claudia Cattafesta.
Q.: Even you weren't able to become successful in the difficult English market, as a lot of your collegues of that time. What is the interpretation that you give to yourself? Only problems of distribution?
A.: Anglo-saxon snobbism and supponence? The fact that it's clear that we are Italian in the pronounciation of English!
Because if they had invented the Italian Disco...
But when a success is global even they are obliged to take it, to be conscious of it. They accept the business. For the example of Italian success in the English land that I can remember a fact is sure, behind the ascent in the charts there was the help of a Major, surely not of a little production. This means that if you have the support of a strong structure, the potentialities of a success increase in an exponential way.
D.: Why you, Italian dance singers, were more known abroad (Central Europe, East countries, Scandinavian countries, South America, Asia) than in Italy? Nobody is profhet in homeland?
A.: Yes, the xenophilia was and is an Italian demerit. Today as that time, for us is banal that the music of foreign artists is better than ours.
But it isn't always true, come on!
In Italy the big channels of distribution and the promotion prefer, wow, already done! I think that the multinationals of the music have the full control of the channels.
The indipendent production finds big difficulties to increase, with the beginning of a success among the hands, if it accepts compromises. Often happens that some nice things nice, with the same alternative of the best foreign things, remain a small small fact, of alcove. Few people see it!
Anyway I am a singer who found space and success with the Dance in gender in France and in Europe and it was pratically impossible not to do the same thing in Italy, it went this way. Abroud the little productions are more free to move, it's ascertained. I say thanks to be known abroad, there I found "the place". But I'd like to be appreciated and known not only as a singer of the Italian Disco.
I think that I can give more... illusion?
Q.: Still about your collegues, with whom did you get on well and, if you'd like to tell us, was there somebody that you really weren't able to bear in that period?
A.: I am friend of everybody.
Q.: What was the song that you sung that you remember with most proudness?
A.: Hey Guy - the song that I still prefer today - the song of the success.
Q.: What were the 80's for Ken Laszlo? Do you agree with people who talk about them in a positive way, as we do?
A.: Yes. I want to add that if we talk about music, the music when is good is all good. I have never adopted only a gender even if it seems the contrary. The music is for definition a synonym of freedom, and if you implicated that the most significative music gender in the 80's is the Italo Dance, I don't agree with you at all. However the 80's have been extraordinary in all the ambits.
Q.: Which were the singers and the bands that you liked most in the 80's?
A.: David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Jan Anderson (Jetro tull), Genesis and Pink Floyd. I'd say that I prefer the music of the 70's. 80's: Depeche Mode, Level 42, Michael Jackson. However, the singers and the bands of all the time: Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCarney, John Lennon, Beatles, Rolling Stones. I'd say that it's normal.
Q.: With "Everybody is dancing", in the latest 80's, you started to veer in the direction of the Eurobeat, gender in which you were protagonist in the 90's with different pseudonyms (Mike Freeman, De Niro etc...).
You were involve from the Farina-Crivellente "gurus", who decided to bet in a strong way on a gender that in Japan was particularly appreciated...
A.: Yes, as I said before it is an affair of good voice, which is appreciated! And then use it, but to do a "crazy and wild horse like me" that doesn't accept the imposition easily, the only thing to do was live that new path with even more abscission. I explain: I wasn't able to buy the rights for using my name, it was never mine.
"Gianni, the name can be yours but it costs this way if you want...".
There was an offer better than mine that at the moment I couldn't oppugn, and I lost the opportunity. So I had to play it cool and I accepted a situation that excluded me from the decisions about my artistic life.
Big words... I know it and I apologize. If I had to think about Farina and Crivellente, those were the worst years. I'm sorry but I have to say it, but I don't have any problem with them. Ten years lost and passed, as I was saying, with abscission.
In the end of that period, when apparently there was no longer flesh around the bones, I was able to buy the rights of my name. The last success, "Inside My Music", was the end of a chapter. And so here I am now, after three long years of thoughts, with a new wear, is it the way to say it, no? Now I can propose my point of sight about "my" music.
I want you to know that I'm not denigrate and repudiate that music and that successes, absolutely no. I'm simply saying that I would have liked that the things had gone in a different way for what concerns the artistic conduct of my name. The point is that I couldn't decide what must be done.
Now I have a production team and a series of projects that I share with big musicians and especially friends, how it's right. It is very probably that it's late, but the music when is good doesn't have a time and an age. It could be magic! Especially I came to a conclusion: the first person who had to be satisfied is myself. Now I can say it.
Q.: Maybe "Mary Ann" was the song that most represent the passage from the Italo Disco to the Eurobeat; do you agree?
A.: I agree, maybe...
Q.: Some years ago with "Inside my music" you became successful again also in Italy. The videoclip were channelled by the TVs and the song was often transmitted on the radio. Did you like to become popular again also here in Italy?
A.: Yes, it has been the clockwork for the following that you will be able to see and to hear from now on.
(www.myspace.com/kenlaszloofficial - www.kenlaszlosounds.com , still under construction) The thing was still part of the eriod that I was describing to you, a contractual obligation that impeded me to have the right artistic interest, I didn't feel involved. I was, like for the debut, a "clandestine". Sad! I only had a return of popularity even here in Italy as you say. After "Inside My Music" I was able to buy my name...
Q.: Do you still perform at the parties that the nostalgic of the Italo Disco often organise, especially abroad?
A.: At least once a year ultimately, before I went more often. I think I will go more in the future, even if... "Future is now!"
Q.: How has the pop-dance music been changing in these years and what is its future?
A.: There is space for people who communicate humble truths, good and real music, here and now! Am I too hermetical? I want to add: the luckiness governs everything! (banal)... And so: "Who am I to tell you what you have to do?..." Flower and Butterfly, "Future Is Now" - Ken Laszlo, 2008.
"For a moment we can do right what you want, for some time I give up for your wishes, baby..." The Line, "Future Is Now" - Ken Laszlo, 2008. "Fly, relax yourself, every moment that we've lost will come back in a moment". Living Today, "Future Is Now" - Ken Laszlo, 2008.
Apart from my lucubrations about the sense of life (!), I think that a gender can't repeat itself forever, in fact before you've asked if I take part in the parties where the Italian Disco is celebrated. For the series how we were lighthearted, and we'd like to be still so, but in a positive sense, because life must be lived de-dramatizing it. In my opinion the music must renovate itself, and with it the artists who have interpretated it.
So we have do admit that the evolution of the Italian Disco, at a point, has been the Eurobeat and the HI-HNRG and the "parapara", how you want to say it, I think that we will return to the original elegance of the Italian Disco. Centred and inspired melodies. A product that is made to dance but that can be also listened only... an approach in a dance key to that music defined radio Pop/Dance, to be listened. Songs, from which derive the wording to dance so beloved for the Djs.
Q.: Ken Laszlo in the private life...
A.: I paint, compose and read a lot. I meditate. 30 km of byke everyday alternated with 10 km running and in addition 5 km walking. I sing! I frequent always the same friends, real friends and real musicians. Simply, I live! "Here And Now".
Q.: What projects do you have for the future?
A.: My new CD "Future Is Now" - the future but... also the "Now"... for the production, a bomb. And I am the production, finally! I still can say/give a lot. We are projecting new singles in keys both Pop/Rock and HI-HNRG and ID. The old fans will be satisfied and I hope I will have some new fans.
Q.: Thank you Ken for your disposability and good luck for the future!
A.: Thank you all for the opportunity. "Future Is Now".
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KEN LASZLO'S DISCOGRAPHY
SINGLES
Hey Hey Guy (1984)
Welcome to Rimini (Ric Fellini) (1984)
Spanish run (Jaco) (1984)
Disco Island (Chris Lang) (1984)
Tonight (1985)
Don't cry (1986)
12345678 (1987)
Glasses man (1987)
Red man/Black pearl (1987)
Everybody is dancing (1989)
Madame (1989)
Give it up (De Niro) (1990)
Run to me (Malcom J. Hill) (1990)
Happy song (1991)
Sha La La (1991)
Mary Ann (1992)
Baby call me (1992)
What is real (Mike Freeman) (1992)
Everytime (1994)
When I fall in love (1997)
Inside my music (2003)
ALBUMS
Ken Laszlo (1987)
Dr. Ken & Mr. Laszlo (1998)
Ken: Thank you for the oppotunity. "Future Is Now" - (2008)
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BE ATTENTION PLEASE!
Interview by Silvio Anelli for LineaMusica
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English translation: Silvia Sunlight for Lineamusica.it
www.myspace.com/silviasunlight
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Thanks to who has collaborated!
Thank you Ken!!
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Team LineaMusica
Febbraio 2008 / February 08
His voice is very nerdy and high-pitched, so overall I believe it fits best with the unique, more harmonic standards of Saifam.