 language. They were pushed to find a new identity by these new ferments added to their great discographical redemption wish. The new identity had to sound different than the very tested scheme they have called "Chitabasbatorga" .This strange idiom come from the initial of the instruments of the original set of the band : Chitarra (guitar) basso(Bass)batteria (Drums), organo (Keyboard). Things started to change. They become The Krell from the discographical point of view, but for their audience they were still I Quelli . One evening, while they were playing at "Paradise" club, close to Brescia, a friend told them about a violin and flute player whose expression was very close to rock style. They met Mauro Pagani during summer 1969. At that time Mauro was performing with "The Dalton", but he decided to quit them immediately and join i Quelli. It was really love at first "sound". The Krell went on performing in dance halls, but they felt a growing wish to change. They needed to find a new direction and to leave their repertoire, also because they wanted to better integrate Mauro. They needed new models, new ideas and they finally could find some in other bands' music, such as Chicago, King Crimson, Jethro Tull… These bands were used to leave or to expand the conventional song structure with the aim to offer more space to arrangements, virtuosity and improvisation. The Krell started to study and to rehearse a new repertoire, working very hard, eight hours a day, as if. Everyone who was late had to pay heavy fines and the money was used to buy new instruments and the first band's car. The metamorphosis begun.
AROUND THE WORLD
I Quelli went on in their session men activity. In 1970 something unusual happened. Within the recording of Battisti and De André records, Franz Di Cioccio was "lend" to Equipe 84. This happened because Equipe 84 was being re-launched and for this reason they were competing with Lucio Dalla at San Remo Festival. They needed a drummer for eight months and the Krell/Quelli needed to change their record company. Equipe 84 end I Quelli were owned by the same record company "Ricordi" and that was a good occasion to exchange courtesies. By lending Di Cioccio the Krell/Quelli got free from the old contract. They left Ricordi to follow other dissidents (Such as: L. Battisti, A. Colombini, Mogol), who were against the line of the Milanaise Company and who wanted to found a new record company: Numero Uno (Number One).
The opportunity to debut in the progressive current came during 1970 Sanremo Festival. I Quelli/Krell were engaged by the "Whisky Club", situated near Ariston Theatre, to perform some alternative music in a town invaded by light songs. "Please, no commercial music, only pop music transgressive energy" was the Customer's wish. During that transfer Di Cioccio's part as "lent" musician became very peculiar. From 8 PM to 11PM he performed, well dressed-up, live on TV from the Casino dance hall. Later he joined his friends at the Club, changing clothes and musical current, becoming an instinctive, sweaty rhythm machine. I Quelli's repertoire was perfect, arranged cunningly to catch the audience attention and consisted mainly in covers of particularly different songs taken from the most trendy foreign bands. Every evening the Club was invaded by people; everybody wanted to listen to the performance of the band that used to do unbelievable things. I Quelli were persuaded that was the right way to success.
"I Quelli" went on in their session men activity until the beginning of the 70's. In 1970 Franz Di Cioccio was lent to "Equipe 84". This happened because "Equipe 84" was being re-launched by the participation with L. Dalla to Sanremo Festival. "Equipe 84" needed a drummer for eight months and "I Quelli" needed to change their record company. Both bands were owned by Ricordi and that was the good occasion to exchange courtesies. By lending Di Cioccio, "I Quelli" got free from the old contract. Soon they left Ricordi to follow some dissidents who were against the artistic line of the Milanese company. Three of them , L. Battisti, A. Colombini and Mogol founded a new record company called "Numero Uno " (Number One). I "Quelli" where about to join Numero Uno.During 1970 Sanremo Festival "I Quelli" had the opportunity to debut in progressive music. They were engaged by the "Whisky Club", (a club near Ariston Theatre, where Sanremo Festival usually takes place) to perform some alternative music in a town which was invaded by easy songs. "Please, no commercial music" was the owner's wish, "Only progressive music breaking energy". During that transfer, Di Cioccio's part as lent musician became very peculiar. From 8pm to 11pm he performed well dressed up, live on TV from the Casino Dance Hall. Later, he joined his friends at the club; he changed clothes and musical current, becoming an instinctive, sweaty rhythm machine. The band's repertory was perfect, arranged cunningly to catch the audience's attention, and consisted mainly in covers. They chose particularly different songs of the most popular foreign bands in the vanguard at that time. Every evening the club was invaded by people who wanted to see the performance of the band which "used to do unbelievable things". Thanks to this success "I Quelli" understood they were going to the right direction. Immediately afterwards Sanremo experience "I Quelli" signed the new contract with "Number One" . They also decided to change their name, because they wanted to cut completely with the past, even if they would have lost all the engagements as "I Quelli". The new name had to be different from everything already heard, as, for example, the well known animal's name, which were very popular during the sixties. The task was not easy. After many days spent imaging hypothesis, the choice had to be done among Isotta Fraschini and Forneria Marconi.
Finally they chose the second name, adding "Premiata", which means "Awarded". At "Numero Uno" they were told their name was too long, but the band's philosophy was clear: if the name was difficult to remember, it would also be difficult to forget. Their philosophy won. This original choice was the right one, because it gave birth to a new trend in Italian bands names. A new name, a strong wish of success, some grit and an acrobatic repertory were the ingredients to made up a new adventure. PFM needed only the good occasion to be discovered by the audience. At that time Franco Mamone and Francesco Sanavio were the two most important promoters in Italy and they were both aware that times were changing because dance hall's era was going to its end. They started to promote the most important foreign bands' concerts. Franco Mamone become PFM's manager and for this reason PFM started to perform live show as special guests. They started with Procol Harum, then with YES, but the good occasion came when they performed as special guests before the concert of the most important band of that time: Deep Purple. The idea was a little bit daring, but courage have always supported PFM's choices!
The echo of that beautiful evening went far away. Times were really changing and live festivals were taking place everywhere. Not long after, PFM had another good occasion to get known and to grow up (from the artistic point of view). During summer 1971 in Viareggio took place the first "Vanguard and New Trends Festival", the most important Italian live festival of the year, where all the new Italian bands were invited to perform. The Festival rules asked every participant to perform an unpublished song. Franco Mussida, who was used to compose since the early beginning of his musical adventure, composed "La Carrozza di Hans" (Hans' coach). He composed it mentally while he was driving from Turin to Milan. The song was arranged and prepared for the Festival. At Viareggio Festival everybody were surprised by PFM's memorable performance which started by an electrical and involving "overture", then Mussida took his classic guitar and made people fly in Hans' story (Hans is a merchant who sells dreams) by his sweet arpeggios…The audience was astonished. PFM achieved success and won the Festival in equal worth with Mia Martini and Osanna.
After the first single (Impressioni di Settembre and La Carrozza di Hans) PFM recorded its first LP "Storia di un Minuto" (The story of one minute). They recorded live in studio, because they wanted to transfer on their LP the peculiar energy and immediacy of their music.
This LP had such a good success and PFM's members decided to go back to the studios and record the second LP. They were oriented towards Europe. The second LP "Per un amico" (For a Friend) sounded differently, maybe more international than the first one. What happened later confirmed that it was really "more international". On December 20th 1972, Greg Lake saw their showcase in Rome, at PalaEur. He invited them to visit the Manticore (Emerson, Lake & Palmer Record Company) in London where they also met Pete Sinfield, King Crimson's poet.
We all started writing new songs, trying to go towards the Italian rock way, which was identifiable by lyrics. Our new project was not easy to realize, because we had to become authors. Anyway we succeeded thanks to our experience with Fabrizio De Andrè and the advices of our new producer, Mr. Colombini. "Suonare Suonare", that is to say "Eight stories made of music and words to express ourselves, communicate, suffer, enjoy and play music" (as is it written on the LP's back cover) is a new, fresh and vital LP which contains poetic autobiographical stories from the band's members. In that occasion, Lucio Fabbri, who had already joined us during our tour with Fabrizio De Andrè joined us again.
Lucio, who was able to play many instruments and who had a solid musical experience seemed to be the right person to join PFM. Walter Calloni joined the band too. Walter, was a refined drummer who had to help Franz Di Cioccio during live performances in order to let him face his new front man role. Unfortunately, soon after "Suonare Suonare" success, Flavio Premoli decided to quit us: he was fed up of travelling and above all he wanted to start working on a personal project. He went on working in music business as advertising music producer and he did not perform live concerts with no other band. We decided to go on with "Suonare Suonare" experience. The following LP was "Come ti va in riva alla città" and contained a different musical language, maybe less poetic than the previous LP. Lyrics told about sub-urban stories: they were about young people who cannot get used to social reality which wants everybody to be homogenous; lyrics told also about young people who want to be protagonist in their life, in a good or bad way. The LP atmosphere was very well represented by its cover. As always critics were different, even if we had a great success during the Italian tour. Di Cioccio's front man role was giving the band a lot of energy.
Di Cioccio's front man role was giving the band a lot of energy. At that time we decided to record our third official live LP, called " Performance". We wanted to fix in time the audience's enthusiast support. In 1987 after that experience, we decided to stop live performing. Everyone started to work on personal artistic and professional project. Anyway PFM officially never broke up.
1997: PFM comes back with ULISSE. "Ulisse" tells about our individual experiences and our adventures during 10 years. Each individual experience has been given back to the band's DNA, the same DNA as always. PFM has received the Golden CD for Ulisse. The prize was given in Rome at the end of a live performance. Nowadays PFM has come back to live performances and no one of its members will never give up again. Music is ageless and it is out of time.
PFM restart in the 2000 The New album " SERENDIPITY " release on September 8th PFM come into the new millennium with the album "Serendipity"(that will be released on September 8th on S4 label of Sony Music Group) full of surprises, guests and incredible songs. Why this title? Serendipity is the ability to get inspected results, it's the philosophy to discover something looking for something else. "It's the normal way to work for us. It's a state of continues research that let us get a new creative results starting from any point of view of our experience" explained Franz Di Cioccio, Patrick Djivas, Franco Mussida and Flavio Premoli. PFM started to work on Serendipity project after the end of last tour supporting the reunion album Ulisse (1997) and the realization of double live album www.pfmpfm.it (il Best) (1998) dedicated to Internet World. "Serendipity" will celebrate this continues state of creativity till the first single, the song "KNA (Kaleidoscope Neutronik Accelerator)" a real concentrate of innovative dynamism and elaborated experience. |
