June 2012
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This months interview takes a closer look at one of the remixes of 2011 single Never Let Me Go as Fred Ventura and Paolo Gozzetti, together known as Italo Connection, goes into details about their excellent remixes of the song. And I found a couple of italian guys who turned out to be huge fans of the band and very much into their history, even back to the really early days. |
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Interview by Niels Kolling, pictures by Italo Connection |
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First a little background. How did you end up in the music business in the first place to become highly respected artists, producers and remixers?
Paolo Gozzetti; I started out as an electronic music enthusiast, being highly influenced by the sound of DM, Yazoo and Kraftwerk I used to listen to at my best friend's house when I was a child.
His parents were english and they were into the new wave scene of the time. At 12 my mother bought me my first synthetizer (a Korg Poly 800). Afterwards I begun playing in little bands and after several years I met my friend Fred Ventura who was actually my first producer!
Fred Ventura; I started first as a drummer in various punk and post punk bands around 1978, then in 1981 I decided to move to singing first in a funky new wave band called State Of Art where we were already flirting with electronics, drum machine and synthesisers.
But my real love for electronic music started when listening Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk, followed by discovering Human League live supporting Iggy Pop in Milan and John Foxx Metamatic. During those adventurous days I decided that producing music was going to became also my work but it all happened by coincidence, I was too young to masterplan...
Fred Ventura; Super fan since day one...or two maybe
How did it come about that you were picked out to do a remix of the 2011
single Never Let Me Go?
Paolo Gozzetti; mmm, strange.
Fred Ventura; They tried to sound like the good old days but it's a little difficult if you don't work with Martin Rushent (R.I.P.) or Jo Callis...
As you deconstructed the song for the remix, any particular parts you enjoyed the isolated sound of?
Paolo Gozzetti; The vocals of
course
Paolo Gozzetti; Just a little. For us, working for the Human League was like having to cope with a piece of art.
Fred Ventura; The only pity for
me was that there was too little Philip Oakey in the track, I love his
voice too much
What kind of gear did you use for remixing? Is it all virtual synths for you or do you like to "fiddle with the knobs" from time to time?
Philip Oakey is famed for collection old synths, so do you have any favourite synth or gear yourself?
Paolo Gozzetti; Yes. My alltime favs: Jupiter 8, Matrix 12 (which I owned), System 100, Tr-808
Fred Ventura; Juno 106, Oberheim
DMX, Linn 2, Tr-808, Jupiter 8
Fred Ventura; Don't think so, records labels are scared to release dance vinyls nowadays...
Your mix is part of a great remix package with DJ Pierre and Aeroplane
also
providing some excellent remixes. So have you heard any of the |
other contributions?
Paolo Gozzetti; We loved
Aeroplane remix
Paolo Gozzetti; The Lebanon
Fred Ventura; The Sound Of The
Crowd
Fred Ventura; Synth disco with an industrial edge
The band signed to Mark Jones cool Wall Of Sound label in late 2009, looks like a perfect match?
Paolo Gozzetti; Sure
The label released first new Human League material in 10 years in march 2011 with the album Credo, have you had a chance to hear it?
Paolo Gozzetti; Yes
Fred Ventura; Yes
Fred Ventura; Dare, The Sound Of
The Crowd, Empire State Human
Paolo Gozzetti; Never had the chance
Fred Ventura; Yes, two times, as I said as young punk rocker in 1979 when supporting Iggy Pop and in 1982, during the Dare tour.
The 1979 tour was very special mainly because 'till that moment I never saw any band using such a strong visual backdrop, people there were only waiting for Iggy to perform so most of the audience was showing is disappointment with screamings or boo...
I was young and courius so I enjoyed very much the HL gig even if I didn't know that much about them, the sound of a siren at the beginning of the concert was really scary feeling...
The Dare tour was just a simple big success, they were so popular by then so it was a messy happy sweating crowd...
Fred Ventura; I think I went to see Kraftwerk 10 times, I was a little obsessed with them and their clone robots.
Fred Ventura; The same as for the
Human League but in the Sony office in Milan...
Paolo Gozzetti; Our aim is to produce some classy, good sounding productions that are based on the vintage classic sound of the 80s while being focused on the future
Fred Ventura; We are real
modernists flirting with our roots on a daily basic..
Paolo Gozzetti; We're busy on some new remixes and we're planning our own production within not so long.
You can listen to the Italo Connection remix here and you can buy it here.
To learn more about Fred and Paolo as Italo Connection, please check the below links;
http://soundcloud.com/italoconnection
http://it-it.facebook.com/pages/Italoconnection/180559351988556 |