Interview - PIERO PELU': Peace is the only victory

“DESERTI” is the new album by PIERO PELU', the second chapter of the TRILOGIA DEL DISAGIO, a work begun in 2020 with the release of the album “Pugili fragile”.

12 unreleased tracks that bring Pelù back to confront the crisis in which today's society finds itself.

A Pelù with full batteries who once again starts his musical and lyrical journey.

Leaving home, going into the dunes, through a series of metaphorical deserts and then bringing out all the positivity and once again hoping to find a garden of peace.

We met him in this new adventure of his, starting from a reference to his first EP with Litfiba in 1982.

THE VIDEO INTERVIEW

PIERO'S DESERTS

The album opens with an instrumental track, “Porte” (“a song born to tell the need to open a door, to find a wave that aligns you with the world, whether it be a journey or meditation”) and closes with another instrumental track, the title track “DESERTI”, a choice made by the artist to give a sense of circularity to the project.

In his new work PIERO PELU' declines the concept of deserts in many ways:

DESERTS CAUSED by WARS as in “SCACCIAMALI”, “a song dedicated to all those children in the world who live in truly extreme conditions due to hatred and wars. We must react with the culture of peace because in war no one ever wins. We must go back to being people among people”.

DESERTS CAUSED by CLIMATE CRISIS as in the title track where “The voice you can hear is that of Onci Oni, an Indonesian guide who lives in the jungle of Siberut Island, the largest of the Mentawai archipelago that I had the opportunity to meet during the trip that Raz Degan and I made to Sumatra for a documentary. The deforestation caused by the production of palm oil in those areas is increasingly a tangible problem, a problem that is leading to the erasure of the Mentawai, the indigenous population, among the oldest in Indonesia, who lives in that part of the world”.

AFFECTIVE DESERTS like those told in “PICASSO” where “I tell of myself as a child, a teenager who confides in his family that he wants to make music, rock'n'roll, and in front of him there is a wall, a world war within the domestic walls. I was told «where do you think you're going with that face there, that looks like you don't want to do anything?» I transformed this lack of confidence into a constant commitment to music. That door in my face was stimulating for me.
I always knew I was the anomaly in my family but I'm happy to be. I tried, to write this song, to look inside myself in a different way than in the past trying to understand what the deserts of caresses have brought to my life”.

I DESERTI SENTIMENTALI come in MALEDETTO CUORE” (https://youtu.be/u-E4MFpKptg), the first rock ballad presented to the public from the new album that “addresses the theme of the difficulty of communication between people, in romantic relationships but even more broadly in human relationships in general, it is a journey through the dunes of the deserts in search of the others we need to help us understand ourselves and the chaos inside and outside of us”.

FEELINGS and AFFECTIONS are also at the heart of “ELEFANTE”, a song that “talks about the uniqueness of relationships, their delicate nature, like Bohemian crystal. Building and maintaining relationships is something complex and at the same time wonderful”.

DESERTS CAUSED by the HATE that surrounds us as in “CANTO” because “we are at the mercy of people without a positive thought. The duty of the artist, of those who have a voice, is to sing, to talk about everything we don't like in the world around us. Everyone is free to do what they feel but I can't pretend not to see what's happening around me. In this song I talk about a policy that fails to have the necessary weight to really help citizens. We don't look at the common good, we don't realize that the environment, water, society, suburbs, are common goods that we all have to think about together, first of all politics”.

THE DESERTS CREATED BY SOCIAL MEDIA as in “TUTTO E SUBITO”, a song written together with FAST ANIMALS AND SLOW KIDS “where the masses are completely driven by marketing through social media, where filters, challenges are the manifesto of today's human imbecility to which are added the hatred and violence that is carried out on social media. We must react positively to this moment. I explored social media and I realized that most of the online hatred is the result of fake profiles, profiles made specifically to generate hatred. Digital education is completely lacking, there is a lack of clear and useful rules to manage the common spaces that digital platforms have created”.

THE DESERTS ARE ALSO THOSE SUNG ABOUT in “NOVICHOK”, the song that is musically the most closely linked to Litfiba’s roots (this is why Pelù decided to present it to his fans in a place that is very important to him, namely the cellar in via De’ Bardi in Florence where Litfiba were born and took their first steps and where he hadn’t sung since the end of 1988) where Piero talks about the poison subtly used by Putin to kill his opponents and “metaphorically it is the poison that is administered to us citizens every day through contaminated food, increasingly invasive and false propaganda”.

DESERTS Are Those of OUR CITIES and OUTSKIRTS, spaces that are transforming, making some places only for tourists, where a link between our past and the future is not built, where artisan workshops have given way to mass tourism and our knowledge struggles to find young people to whom it can be passed down, as in “BABY BANG”, a song created together with CALIBRO 35 that “talks about my 70s, the years in which I wandered around Florence, went to see films and listened to music that Calibro resonates perfectly today. I could only call them for this homage to great authors like Ennio Morricone”.

THE DESERTS ARE THOSE OF PAIN as he sings in “BARAONDE”, the “pain I felt after the strong acoustic shock in the recording studio last year that forced me to postpone all my activities causing me to fall into a depression from which thanks to therapy and music I managed to get out”.

THE COVER

Speaking about the album cover, Pelù says: “the problem with tinnitus took me away from work but brought me closer to nature and that’s where this cover was born, a shot I took in Florence while walking after a storm. It’s a sky, yes, but reflected in a puddle.

“What's under the stars” I sing in “Picasso” and today there is me, Piero, the shadow of a man who is being reborn and that I decided to put in place of that of the man who was reflected in the original photo taken that day”.

Pelù wanted a sticker with the words NO-IA on the cover, a way for the artist to address the issue of the use of artificial intelligence and emphasize to his fans that “DESERTI” was written, composed and performed without the use of artificial intelligence.

THE TRACKLIST

“Doors”
“Picasso”
“Damn heart”
“Novichok”
“Everything and now”
“My Name Is Nevermore” (Unplugged 25th Anniversary)
“Elephant”
“Baby bang”
“I sing”
“Baraonde”
“Chase Evil Away”
“Deserts”

THE FORMATS

The album is available in physical format in CD version, transparent blue vinyl and black vinyl 180 gr. On Amazon will also be available exclusively the CD version and the transparent LP version autographed. On the store of the official website of Piero you can buy the cassette in limited and numbered version (www.pieropelu.net).

IN-STORE

MILAN (tonight, Santeria Toscana 31, 11:00 p.m.), BOLOGNA (June 8, Semm Music Store & More, Via Guglielmo Oberdan, 24F, 7:00 p.m.), FLORENCE (June 10, Feltrinelli, Piazza della Repubblica 26R, 6:00 p.m.), NAPLES (June 12, Feltrinelli, Piazza dei Martiri, 6:00 p.m.) and ROME (June 13, Discoteca Laziale, Via Mamiani 62/a, 5:30 p.m.)

THE TOUR

June 29, 2024 SPILIMBERGO (PN) Spilinand Music Festival, La Favorita Area
July 08, 2024 GENOA Estatespettacolo 2024, Arena del Mare (Porto Antico Area)
July 12, 2024 BERGAMO Nxt Station, Alpini Square
July 26, 2024 CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO (PG) Lacustica Festival, Medieval Fortress
July 27, 2024 PORTO RECANATI (MC) Beniamino Gigli Arena
August 3, 2024 BAIA DOMIZIA (CE) Arena dei Pini – Summer Festival
09 August 2024 ASIAGO (VI) Piazza Carli
August 16, 2024 NOTO (SR) Cathedral Staircase
August 18, 2024 BAGHERIA (PA) Go Green Festival, Small Urban Park
*date moved from August 17th to August 18th*
August 20, 2024 ROCCELLA JONICA (RC) Roccella Summer Festival, Al Castello Theater
August 22, 2024 SAN PANCRAZIO SALENTINO (BR) San Pancrazio Festival, Events Forum
August 24, 2024 VEROLI (FR) Tarantelliri Festival, External Area Pala Coccia
September 13, 2024 CERNOBBIO (CO) Lake Sound Park, Ex Galoppatoio
November 4, 2024 FLORENCE VIPER THEATRE
November 5, 2024 FLORENCE VIPER THEATRE
November 11, 2024 MILAN GENERAL WAREHOUSES
November 12, 2024 MILAN GENERAL WAREHOUSES
November 17, 2024 TURIN HIROSHIMA MY LOVE
November 18, 2024 TURIN HIROSHIMA MY LOVE
November 24, 2024 PADOVA HALL
November 28, 2024 BOLOGNA ESTRAGON CLUB
01 December 2024 ROME LARGO VENUE
02 December 2024 ROME LARGO VENUE
December 07, 2024 NAPLES HOUSE OF MUSIC
December 14, 2024 MODUGNO (BA) DEMODE'