| Curiosities | HISTORY DISCOGRAPHY TOURS RADIO AND TV APPEARANCES |
FRANZ
- Patrick and I started to talk about our reunion. We have always been friends
and in the past few years we have been working together. We thought that was
the right moment, so one day I phoned Flavio: "You see, I think we should play
music together again. I think it would be great…" "You know, I have been thinking
about it…I'm fed up of working in advertising business…ok, why not?" I started
to think about the past, my mind was filled with flash-backs: I remembered when
we played cards in US, our "ice war" at Sunset market, the nights we spent in
the green van….. Flavio, on the contrary, was more practical: "Hey, are we going
to travel all around the world?" That is Flavio. He cannot stand travelling.
I thought: "We will see". We had to "seduce" Franco too, so we went all together
to the restaurant. Franco was always the same: he did not want to say yes at
once because generally he doesn't like impulsive decisions, but we knew he was
interested. The day after he phoned me: "Ok, I agree"
Then we went to RTI. The record company
was interested, so we sign an agreement. We were all enthusiasts. We took some
time to think over….but the pause didn't last ten years!. We worked for about
one year, we had to create, throw way, cut, paste then one day we decide to
start recording… We had to solve a big problem: how
could we all be available at the same time? Working holidays, that was the solution!
So we spent August in Rimini.
FLAVIO - PFM was alive!
I was creating music for us, I was playing music with my old friends. I was
spurred by curiosity, I wanted to discover what we were going to create after
15 years!
Ulisse is a deep, concept
LP. Maybe we worked on it for a long time, but we had to do that way after so
many years spent without playing music all together. After Ulisse's launch we
went on tour. We chose theatres. If we think about
the old tours, nowadays everything seems very different. Anyway we are supported
by the same enthusiasm and the same grit. We have fun and our audience has fan
too.
PATRICK - In the history of mankind there are improbable events:
The discovery of fire
The falling of the Roman Empire
The first man on Moon
Berlin's wall falling
PFM reunion
We are all staying passionately together in a recording studio called "Heaven". We are spending our working holiday in a villa in the country near S. Patrignano; everything is green, we are surrounded by hills and gardens, it could be really heaven here. I had to build up a gymnasium because I am (also) practical…drums is a "physical" instrument, I need to be in good form and I must train …..like Rocky. We have never given up music, but we all need to get used to each other again, and we all need to be in good form. We have to get ready to play music together without any problem. I always wake up very early because I have to walk my dog: Ziggy Bastard (he looks like David Bowie because he has one eye brown and one eye blue). Ziggy taught me to wake up early, even I was not used to do it. I am a musician, I always thought that night was day and day was night. I had to change my life and I discovered that is better this way, when the day is day and the night is night. Patrick, Flavio and Franco have changed their life too, so PFM's way of life starts very early in the morning, at about 7.30. Every morning I run for about six km up and down the hills, always with Ziggy. I come back to our villa with the newspaper (I do not carry it in my mouth like Ziggy would do!) and normally I meet Mussida who is coming out of the swimming pool: he likes swimming. Patrick and Flavio are more sedentary. Anyway, we normally start recording before the sun gets too hot. The biggest studio is close to the veranda where we usually have lunch or dinner. It's a very big room with a carpet and a fireplace. There are also my drums. Patrick stands always close to me.
Flavio and Franco normally stay in the studio upstairs. We can communicate by monitors and cable cameras, we always say jokes…. "Hi, can you see me?" It is a pleasure to play music all together, after so many years. We stay together, we talk, we argue (even very hard, because sometimes we use bad words) and I think everything is wonderful because…no one has changed, we remained the same. Bad habits and good qualities are always the same, maybe a little more rooted. Everything has remained the same, even from the musical point of view. Some songs were ready , but we decided to add some improvisation. Almost every ending is long because we liked to perform them . We did not want to work on a prefab marketing project or on a particular musical scheme based on yesterday's, today's or tomorrow's music. We have just performed what we liked, our music was based on the ancient scheme Chitabasbatorga: Guitar, Bass, Drums and Keyboards . We have been trying and trying, until everything was fine, until everything was easy to play, until we were sure that everything was ok.