The beginning (1992)
Distillery was an idea that was rambling
in my mind since a long time when in 1992
I started to act it.
I had written some new songs while I was
travelling around Europe at that time: long
runs by train, pictures of many different
ways of life seen by the train window, plenty
of people of different countries known as
well as they are in their daily life, maybe
met in the subway station or sat on a barstool
late at night....This is what you really
need to write out something good!
I felt it was right to put those experiences
on a tape (we were still far from these "digital
years"....) but I meant to do it in
another way, far from what I had done since
that day.
Casually, I met a NY guitarist and songwriter,
Beo Morales, and I invited him to my studio
to record some guitar overdubs on my tracks.
It was September 24th, his birthday's eve,
and after we stopped working, we kept on
talking (and drinking beer...) till the first
light of dawn: maybe a cooperation was what
I needed the most to develop better my ideas.
After that I decided: "Distillery"
would have been the name and it would have
included everyone who eventually had played
with me.
All the stuff, called "Back in a while
and other songs", was finished the following
March, also because I fell ill on December
and had to stop working for a couple of months.
Then I started travelling again to promote
it in all western Europe countries radio
station (I had been able to run 10.000 kms
in a month to come back home to see my wife!).
When I came back, Beo had disappeared, suddenly,
as well as I met him and I have heard nothing
about him since that time.
I just hope that Beo will read these pages
once and he will contact me. Good Luck, Beo,
wherever you are now!
The middle ages (1993 - 1997)
I was in a trouble.
I had no ideas about how to replace Beo when
Luca, a friend of mine, came to my house
to ask me if I would have played with him
the following evening: it was August 15th,
1993, the beginning of Distillery's middle-ages.
Luca was (and he's still!) a powerful rhythm
guitarist, good harp player and a nice background
vocalist but I knew we were on 20% of our
possibilities so we started working hard.
In a little time things seemed to turn on
the right way: plenty of clubs asked for
us to play our music. In September, Princess
Angela von Hohenzollern required us for her
private party in one of the best clubs of
the Italian Riviera: after that gig, she
was so impressed to invite us for another
private party in Monte Carlo. The party was
on October 11th and, when we reached the
place with our old "faded grey"
Ford and took a look around, we immediately
noticed that the less expensive car in the
neighborhood was worth about 50.000$: a couple
of hours later, we were in front of dozens
of V.I.Ps, also famous singer Shirley Bassey
was among them. Great! All that was unbelievable....But
I play guitar since I was a kid and I know
that it's in clubs, where people is no more
than a couple of meters far from you, that
you can check the real impact of your music...
That's why we continued our work, playing
around and releasing the single "Care
of you / If you look up in the sky",
presented during a radio interview in February
1994.
In April 1994 I started thinking about a
new CD. It was the right time.
I had still several songs to be recorded
so I told Luca that I was going to do it
but he replied that he was not sure to go
on: playing with Distillery was a great engage
and he wanted to have more time for himself.
There I was in a trouble again...
I quit the idea of a new CD because summer
was beginning and I had just a little time
to find a new rhythm guitarist: the choice
was Luciano.
I knew Luciano since a long time, he was
a great friend of mine, the one who introduced
me to my wife and he knew perfectly every
song that I used to play, so it was not difficult
to fix a new line-up with him.
We went on playing together till the spring
of 1996 and nothing notable happened during
that time but I recorded some songs. He was
engaged also with other bands and I had plenty
of work in my rec studio but I remember those
days with a great pleasure, the only rule
was "no mess, no stress" and these
words often remind me the laughters you could
hear during our car trips. I knew it was
a great engage for Luciano and I still thank
him for having brought me out of that matter,
so I promised him I started looking for a
substitute as soon as possible.
It was a lazy mid-July night, I was sitting
in a pub of the town where I used to live,
drinking beer and reading the sport news,
while, through the window panes, I thought
I saw a "faded grey" Ford car...
That was reminding me a guy I knew very well...
No, it was not possible, I knew he went working
abroad, I was surely wrong... But a couple
of minutes later Luca jumped laughing into
the pub room!
He told me about his trips around central
Europe, people he met and worked with, after
that I purposed him to play together again,
explaining what had happened during that
period: after three or four try sessions
we were back on stage. It was not bad, sure,
we had a lot of fun and his musical level
was a little grown up but I thought we could
have done it better. In October 1997 I separated
from my wife and had a mess in my head. Working
became really the most important thing in
my life: I wanted something more for Distillery
and Luca was a good boy but he didn't like
great engagements at all: 1998 new year's
eve was the last gig we had together.
Left to right: Luca and I during a live show. A couple of hours after this pic was taken, I was involved in a car accident.
The new course (1998 - Today)
I was tired of continuous changes, and I
thought I'd better playing alone, but one
night I met an old high-school friend in
a pub (you're able to realize I'm a great
beer drinker... :-) and when I told him what
was happening to me, he replied: "What
about Davide?".
Davide was another high-school friend of
ours, I didn't see him since a long time
but I remembered he was a great background
vocalist.
I called him the following day, it was the
middle of January 1998: that was the most
important phone call in the ongoing history
of Distillery: I realized immediately that
Davide was what Distillery really needed.
We tried hard two or three weeks then we
were on the road.
In the fall of the same year we recorded
two songs: "God's sultry summer",
written by Davide and "Too soon"
written by me. I invited Davide's wife Alessandra
to overdub a piano track on "Too soon"
and we decided to go on performing as a trio,
that line-up lasted till the summer of 1999,
then we went back to be a duo, the present
line-up.
The death of my wife Paola on December 23rd,
1998 shocked me a lot: it took a long time
before I started writing songs again.
In March 1999 we started a collaboration
with "Rollo Blues Band" of guitarist
Eugenio Arrighetti. Davide (as bassist, vocalist)
and I (as guitarist, vocalist) have been
in tour with Eugenio and his band for quite
a long time but never fogetting we are Distillery,
first! Eugenio is a great friend of us and
when it's possible we still use to play with
him. After a period of little troubles, Luca
rejoined us in December 2003 so that we became
a trio again. We've been very pleased of
this... So that we decided to celebrate issuing
another album that runs along our band history
from the beginning until today. So here you
are "Family Tree" and you'll find
much more details in the "Recordings"
and "News" pages, where you'll
find a surprise that I don't want to anticipate
you now... ;-)
I want to thank Davide a lot for the serious
hard and good work he has done (and he's
still doing!) with Distillery and for having
understood every situation I passed through
with friendship and comprehension and Luca
for having never ceased to be a "Distillery"
inside...
Through these pages I just intended to tell
you the most important happenings of our
12 years history so that you could know us
and our music better: it's time to grow up
again for us...
Thanks to everyone of you for having read
these pages, if you're not a Distillery fan
yet we'll try to do our best to make you
like us!
FEDE
January 2004. Left to right: Davide, I and Luca... Distillery is a trio again!
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