When in Rome

>> Suspend your rational side
for Italy’s Vinicio Capossela

WORLDS OF HIS OWN: Vinicio Capossela

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Italy’s Vinicio Capossela is a noted artist in his home country, having sold more than 70,000 records there. Despite his singing exclusively in his mother tongue, comparisons to Tom Waits have been following him around like bathroom tissue stuck to his shoe. To be fair, the comparison is somewhat apt, as Capossela does share the legendary songwriter’s avid interest in tangos, marches, opera, sambas and other traditional forms of music, and more than a passing fancy for taking traditional forms and instrumentation and replanting them in new musical situations.

Perhaps adding more weight to the comparison, Caposella has also employed the guitar work of longtime Waits collaborator Marc Ribot in both the studio and in concert. If it’s true that Waits has broken the fertile ground for Capossela, the Italian musician also proves true to his own spirit. The Mirror had an e-mail exchange with Capossela as he was readying himself for his three North American shows this month.

Mirror: How do you feel about the constant comparisons to Tom Waits?

Vinicio Capossela: Tom Waits is kind of a mythological archetype—he’s just like the hydra or cyclops. When I was very young, he was my god. I think we both share a love for the music, for making life epic and for listening to what improbable people tell us.

M: You spent seven years writing your first novel, Non Si Muore Tutte Le Mattine. Are there similarities between composing music and writing fiction?

VC: Intimacy of the written word has no mediations, the soul overflows completely on the page, and beyond that you can explain things widely. A song offers one vision, one emotion, but the writing taps directly into life.

M: Do you think North America is ready to discover music that is not sung in English?

VC: I don’t think language is a problem, because the soul of the music always comes up. It came up to me lots of times, in the most different languages, and I didn’t know one of them.

M: Your live shows have always had a sense of theatrics about them. Why is this important to you?

VC: I do believe that the music I write, when in concert, must be in some way “represented,” because it’s full of evocations and also because I do believe in theatre and in entertainment. What I write often evokes worlds. If it’s just music, it should be better to give a body to this music, with all the suggestion it brings. My goal is to see my audience suspend their rational side and find themselves a part of the show.

M: Are there certain freedoms about playing to a largely unsuspecting audience in North America, as opposed to Italy, where you are well known?

VC: I feel I have the same freedoms. I know what kind of feeling exists behind each and every one of my songs, it’s not my aim to give people some kind of musical postcard. The music I play is totally lived by only one world—mine.

With Marc Ribot at l’Espace Dell’Arte
(40 jean-talon E., (514) 490-9613) on
Saturday, May 19, 8 p.m., $23