▷ S1E4 Dialect is a Luxury: Peppe Voltarelli sings in Calabrese
Peppe Voltarelli is a songwriter and actor who travels all around the world singing in Calabrese, the Calabrian dialect. He and Rose Thomas taste a wine from the Cirò DOC. They discuss moving from Cirò to Bologna, and from Nebraska to NYC. They swap sayings, and both Peppe and Rose Thomas perform live songs! Peppe demonstrates how the tarantella rhythm changes from region to region all over the south of Italy, and shows how the spiky—spigoloso—Calabrian dialect is perfect for expressing that you are not joking around. Don't miss this delicious episode.
Peppe's Music: https://linktr.ee/peppevoltarelli
We were drinking a wine by Sergio Arcuri:https://golden-vines.com/producers/sergio-arcuri/
Read more about Peppe's Tribute to the Italian folk singer Otello Profazio: https://italoamericano.org/peppe-voltarelli-singer/
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Learn more about that Sicilian folk tale in the book Peppe mentions by Italo Calvino: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Folktales
This is the Russian songwriter Peppe mentioned, Vladimir Vysotsky
Hear more music by Rose Thomas Bannister: https://rosethomasbannister.bandcamp.com/
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And everything is okay, you can talk in Italian, of course, everybody else is speaking Italian. But when you get angry, and you are a little bit angry, and you make something different of tune with your voice, you are gonna talk in dialect. Because this is moment where they understand that you are not joke, that It's something more serious, no? And this was the game we played with our friend, with the band. We became the first band in Italy who played Tarantella punk, was a Tarantella is the rhythm from Calabria. - Now I am curious about two things. I want to hear some angry Calabrese, and I want to hear it Tarantella. Pepe is an award -winning singer, songwriter, and actor from the Southern Italian region of Calabria. In the 90s, he founded the folk rock band El Pardo della Nuvola e Peçanti. He has released many albums. He travels all over the world, very often singing in the Calabrian dialect. Pepe, I also want to mention that I had a fantastic time on your YouTube channel. There are so many great music videos and cool performances. Welcome. Thank you. So you're here in New York working on a new album. Please tell me how about this project? How is it going in the studio? Yeah, I'm here because I have this great dream since I was very young to have a record year to work with the New Yorker musicians. And I found this situation now with this producer called Simone Giuliani, who works on the band, and finally we got these new songs, and I'm very happy to be here. That's great. We were talking about the name of your old band, and I realized that I didn't quite understand the name. Could you explain for our English listeners, il parto delle nuvole pesanti? Probably is the birth of heavy clouds and it means something very close to something that will burn and heavy clouds mean something about the big the tempest, you know, I don't know. Big storm is coming. Because we make music very with a lot of energy, especially in live shows. That sounds amazing. As you know, this is the podcast for local drinks and local sayings. Pepe, we have a local drink already. We are here drinking chiro. If you're listening from the United States, when you visit your independent wine retailer, if you're lucky enough that they stock a wine from Calabria, it's probably chiro. The chiro DOC, a DOC is an officially recognized quality wine region in Italy, does make some white wine from the Greco Bianco grape, but most of their wines are reds and rosés or rosatos, as they call them in Italy, made from this delicious red grape called Gallioppo. Let's let's taste this wine together. We we met by chance guys in a wine shop And you told me that you and this wine maker Sergio, our curry are actually friends. Yeah. Yeah, we are friends My town is very close to Chiro to the city of wine in Calabria and Sergio is one of the best producer in the city So let's taste this together. It's the 2018 vintage. So this is the red chiro. He does make a delicious risotto. Yeah, what do you think? I don't know. For me, it's very special because it's the sound of my land. It's the taste of my land. So I know what I'm drinking. It's very... Tell a lot of things about our land. Yes, definitely. really the, the spirit of this whole project is to find these stories in a glass of wine or a piece of language. I am, you know, speaking of tasting notes for people who have never tried a Chiro before, you know, I'm finding this beautiful light in color wine. Yeah, yeah. If I, if I was doing a blind taste before putting it up to my nose, I might think like a Nebiolo, like a lighter in color, right from the color, just from the color alone. alone, but I'm finding some like dried flowers, like roses, and maybe even lilacs, bright acidity, notes of oranges, sour cherry, and this dried herbs like Timo, thyme, some tannins, for sure, but nothing crazy, just a little light touch of tannin, nice long finish, refreshing, very pretty. - Yeah, the point is that our wine for a long time was considered a very strong wine with a very hard soul taste. But now in the last 20 years, I think that they're gonna make a new kind of project about the wine. So we are going to make some wine that you can use and you can taste and you can live in a different situation. So I am now I'm curious. I'm here interviewing you as a musician who sings in the Calabrese dialect but I'm curious about this. I wonder is it a change in style or I mean for our listeners with the wine a lot of Italian wines are famous, the reds, for a lot of tannin and a lot of acid, both. And you can do something with a tannic wine, you can age it for a long time, wait for the tannins to chill out, but there's been this realization in, you know, over the decades to pick the wine at the perfect, pick the grapes at the perfect day, to get the tannins ripe in the same way that the grapes are ripe and, you know, as technology changes. So I'm wondering if it's a technology change or making a style lighter wines. These are all questions. I mean, you told me about the the general move towards like a more refreshing versatile style. Yeah, I think that the great challenge of our wine and of course of our culture in general is to became something that people can understand, that people can share without prejudice, so Our story is very, it's very long, you know, it's very, very long in and the old, the old time. So for, for our cultural wine is something that has been present in our family since before we were, we was born. So this is the reason because we have to recognize this kind of thing that we have inside to, to the world that is changing so it's important to it's something that like I can I can explain you about dialect you know our dialect is very is very first for someone is very hard to explain because it's not like a Sicilian or Neapolitan that are very musically you know our dialect calabrese is very is very you know, Spigoloso. Spigolosa. Yeah, I was going to ask you about the, what sets it apart, the sounds or the grammar, anything you can explain. I'm so interested. Yeah, but also the way as you talk, the way you move, the way the energy you give in You know, you need to give to people some instrument to understand better what are you doing. And this is the great challenge I do with my music, and writing in Calabrese dialect today is a great challenge for me, because I want that people, I would like that people to understand and discovered my land with my songs and this is the same thing about the wine because if your wine I think can be shared in a table in very long distance you can tell a lot of story of your land with your work and this is the work that they are doing in the last 20 years with this small producer, that they are going to study a new way to stay together, to be convivial, to be in the world, not only in our table. I'm actually really interested in the wines of Calabria. I just think it's a fascinating region. I've never been. I hope to visit soon. Yeah, please. Yeah, so we've talked a little bit about the story from the wine, this sense of the land. I wonder if you could teach us a few, a few moro di dire, a few sayings from the Calabrian dialect before we move into the music. (speaking in foreign language) (laughing) (speaking in foreign language) Well, we talked about one when we met by chance. We met by chance in a wine shop and we're exchanging sayings, so I don't know if you have a proverbial that comes to mind. About wine, yeah. Oh, it can be about anything. Anything, not only wine, yes. Yes, there's one nice "Panzaggina canda, no camisa yanca", è interessante. È significato che quando ti fai, puoi cantare, ma non quando hai solo l 'acqua bianca, l 'acqua bianca per la partita. Tu puoi avere... Tu puoi avere... "Panzagina sing, no camisa yanga." Oh, oh my gosh. I don't know if I explained the meaning. What is the literal meaning of just the phrase? That you have to eat? That's, I think that the appearance is not the way that can give you the right relationship but you have to have some time inside something inside that can give you energy and story and stuff to tell I see not the white shirt no not appearance oh I love this I'm actually going to use this the next time that so for our listeners I'm a folk musician as well from the American West Midwest Midwest and in fact the the In fact, the name of Pepe's old band, I think they're maybe a song of mine that I would like to share with Pepe and with you. So I thought only he would play, but now I have a song about a storm coming that I think you might enjoy. But when I perform, which I do as often as I can, there are often many things to take care of before you go on to the stage. I think maybe next time I'll, I'll wonder if I've eaten some bread more than about my outfit, about my clothes. So, as I think this is better, I think this is better. Yeah, it's more about the soul, the soul of the person than the fancy clothes. Is this, is this correct? So that's something that it's connected with the reason why you are, you are singing. And the reason sometimes is when you are happy and you sing. For our culture it's a little bit different maybe with the blues but when you're already here you can sing better. Well let's jump right in. Can you play us please a song in the Calabrese dialect and then maybe explain after the language. Before the song or just uh Well, let's see. That's a good thought. You've spent many more years sharing dialect than me. Do you want to start with the words? Sing a song and then explain after. non c 'ha c 'ha d 'uba o il lundamù, dall 'acqua, la terra lontana chi ne c 'ha dove chi ne cammina fa freddellite manimane l 'evitmica che Che fatta rimane Chi sarà vita rimane? Chi seru core rimane? Chi seru sanghe rimane? Chi seru vita rimane? Chi seru core rimane? Umare l 'igarucona a un mette d 'arriva, come se stai qua a navarco un arriva. Usula quando te cocia da brittare carne, facci nivore è cappella pesante era terra caccivola chiana umarte sincette porta lontana chi sarà vite rimarnare chi sarà uccore rimarnare chi sarà sangue Quisera y vi, te rimar, nara. Quisera y vi, te rimar, nara. Quisera y corer, nara. Me cuana de colla tu sentem tiri, paso pe paso cuane camin, (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) Bravo! Thank you, thank you. It's a beautiful song. Thank you, this is called "Marinae" It's a song about sailors of my town and I wrote this song in 2010 for my album "Ultima Notte Malastrana" last night in Malastrana. It's an album dedicated to this beautiful city that's Prague, where I play a lot of time. And in this album there is "Marinae" and with this album I won a prize called "The Premio Tenko" as the best album in dialect from Italy in 2010. And I'm very proud This is because it's the first album in Calabrian dialect that won this prize. That's amazing. Thank you. I would love for you to take us through some of the lyrics. Would you talk to us a little bit about the lyrics of that song? Yeah, the song is telling the story of the relationship between these people with the sea and with their work And how they still think that the sea is like a big friend, but also it can be a big enemy. So the work in the sea is always very strange, because first time you have to respect this big brother. And the lyrics And the day that we do, when they grow up, healing among, when it's still night and when it's still dark and they go inside, they, so I stay with this friend of mine. I spent time with them when I was at university in Bologna and something that hit me is probably this kind of expression that they have in the face when we start to go in the sea for work and I tried to put in the song this kind of vibration that they give to me as I was a student and they were workers so this is a big difference and I tried to put in in the lyrics this kind of big experience for me to see people that love their job and still after 30 40 years every day they renovate this this respect for the for nature for for the sea for the work and for the life for the life That's beautiful. I love I love the ideas I'm wondering if you can take just maybe one small piece of the dialect and compare it for us to Italian to show the difference in the sounds Yeah the first the first part of the song say Umare suka suka rosangua remarenare riporta un saccio a duvo, la città prende il sangue dei marinai e li porta in un sudova. è molto strano in italiano perché il mare, il mare succhia il sangue ai marinai ma non sarebbe succhia but "il mare prende il sangue dei marinai e li portano su doa." It's very special the difference between dialect and Italian, because when you talk in dialect it seems to be something that have no filter. And when you try to translate in Italian, you need to translate as another language so you have to find the special word to tell this it's not it's not simply let literally not not a straight yeah there are things that you feel that you can express in your in the dialect that you wouldn't it would be a different yeah yeah something Italian doesn't work and It looks like it's not poetic stuff in Italian. - Can you talk a little bit about your experience when you were young with the dialect? Like, yeah, please tell me how you became so interested as is this something you spoke a lot with your family or was it everywhere? - But we talk in dialect in school and family and everywhere. And when I arrived to university, Bologna is maybe 1 ,000 km from Calabria, in the north direction. And when I arrived in Bologna, I found that my language is very esotic, you know. And the first time was the immediately the thing that can recognize me around the friends and around people. So when you are talking normally, you make conversation and everything is okay. You can talk in Italian, of course, everybody of us speak in Italian. But when you get angry and you are a little bit angry and you make something different of tune with your voice, you are gonna talk in dialect, because this is moment where they understand that you are not a joke, that it's something more serious, no? And this was the game we played with our friend, with the band because we started to sing in dialect and we was the the first rock roll band that play in that play song in dialect from Calabria but with the punk folk attitude so we mix the punk with mandolin with guitar folk the melody from south italy and so we became the first band in italy who played the tarantella punk was a tarantella is the rhythm from calabria a rhythm the seiyotavi you know six bar eight so in this kind of rhythm we put inside the electric guitar and more other thing and it was amazing because people start to look at this this this music as something that connect themselves with our with their land and with their history with something of different attitude so maybe a little more proud little more different way of look this this land you know and this was funny well then after nine album I found myself on 35 years old so it's different that 19 but still today that I'm 22, I can tell you that today I feel the same kind of challenge with my language, because I think that the story of a place can be, it can't finish in one life. It's very short human life, so maybe we can give our contribute to people to understand better what we are. - I think when I think in terms of an afterlife, which is not something I imagined discussing on the Wine and Language show, but I do think of it as our legacy and especially if you write something, if you sing something, if you change something, if you tell a story, I think of as the thing that that carries on and I think of the larger the entire human experience and if you you step back and you see see the big picture yeah so yeah yeah in this direction I think that there is some kind of music that you can consider it music can people can use for for day for the life for the For the objective, you know, it's like music. I already call in Italian music a utile Music out of useful music for music that you can use for your your ordinary day for your work for your Your dream and but whatever you need in that moment that can help you to do something you give encourage you, give you energy, give you sadness, I can, and this is, it's very different from the pop music, no, from commercial music that you can, you know, you can consume very, very fast, no. It's like the food, I think, you know, the slow food. Slow food, yes. Slow food, They means that you have to hit something that connect you with your land where you are in this moment Now I am curious about two things. Yes, I want to hear some angry Calabrese and I want to hear a Tarantella Angry Calabrese There is a there's a theater show in the beginning of and that's called Rocco Storto was a piece about a Calabrian soldier in the First World War and this soldier Rocco is the name I get crazy during the war and he talked with an austrian soldier In un momento sei che fa cazza brutta catene, ti pensi che mi spagni i tienti, catepigliosa faccia cazza brutta, usa come ti comegno, ti comegno una pezza, ti distrugio, ti mangio, ti ammazzo, ti faccio... Non mi ricordo, non mi ricordo che ho detto l 'ultimo texico, ma... - Bravo! - C 'è questa sorta La stituto. Deciata l 'antella panca così. Allarma l 'armare e campanessona, chi durche su sbarcata la marina. Allarma l 'armare e campanessona, attenta chi noti, sta vicinovo! RADCHA! RADCHA! That's great! So that's the tarantella. That's a summary of the rhythm of the rhythm. Yeah, tarantella is a And There are several ways to play it. A way to just do the right hand. For our listeners, the strumming pattern is different. And as a guitarist myself, I'm watching very closely that's very cool pepper yeah because they're very different kind of tarantella around the south Italy and just maybe the the calabrian way is a little bit more nervous more you could say in Italian we say arrabbiata no like angry angry so maybe in in in Puglia there's a there's the pizzica no In Sicilia? In Sicilia pura, però adesso non trovo soffario. la gente lo chiamava colapisce perché stavanta marco non pisce non divini vanunza più a nessuno forse era figlio di lui, lui di un ettono lui orno colorre facci E' cola di lumari curri e veni, o cola lumeregna scandacchiare, su quali pedamento si sosteni. E' cola più curieva, vai a torno maista. Vai a torno maista. Lalalay la -Lalalay Lalalay la -Lalalay la -Lalalay Lalalay... This is a Sicilian song. "What's that one about?" The legend of Colo Pesh is the story of... It's a very old story about... a fisherman, that... That go in the sea and... the king of Naples "ask to this man of looks about about Sicily if the Sicily is stable and Colapesce Colapesce is the name of the the fisherman is called Nicola everybody called Cola Peche Peche fish so then Nicola Peche go inside the sea and never come back so the king and the queen of neighbors they wait for him and say okay why Nicola Nicola and he answer from from the deep sea and say I can't come back because the Sicily is on three columns and one of this is broken so I'm keeping because if I live Sicily will fall down and this was a legend because it's triangular shape shape of Sicily, which is very famous. Oh, I didn't know about this. I didn't know this element of the legend, though. That's beautiful. You can find this story in the book "Le fiappe italiana di Italo Calvino", it's one of the oldest from South Italy. And I do this song, "La leggenda di colapesce" for a songwriter tribute, attribute Coladotelo Profazio, an old Calabrian folk singer who wrote this song and I do attribute to him a couple of years ago, a legend of Colapes. You're like a historian of as well as a musician, I feel. I want to know more, okay, so you're speaking the Calabresa dialect your whole life, right? Then you go off to college and you only speak it when you, when you, it has to come out. So then you're playing music, maybe regular music, and you decide to do this new thing. I want to hear more about what led you to give such importance through your whole career to know I'm going to sing in the the Calabrese dialect. I'm not just for one song or two. This is how I want to express myself. Was it more for yourself just bringing those ideas for yourself in a more honest way in your songwriting or was it more kind of a larger picture like I really I really want to share this language with with the world? It's the two things because in the first moment was absolutely a spontaneous choice because dialect is my ordinary day, I talk in dialect with everybody. And then in a moment I discovered that it's like a mission, you know, you have like a mission about your, you have to give back to your hold something that they give you to you. So you have this kind of religious approach that you have to continue to defund this kind of language, but not only as an aesthetic choice, but as a more, more than this choice. Like a moral choice, almost, like a... Especially, I tell you that the way I realized the meaning of my language was when I first time I've been outside of Italy for example in Germany or in France or in Switzerland and and after in US or in Canada and in Argentina and I realized that our dialect is more and more than only language. Tell me what you mean because you you know that there are there are some people that they conserve They they take care about the language or the old language all the world that nobody used today in Italy or in South Italy but this This is kind of you know not only nostalgia Operation Operation nostalgia, no, it's something else. It's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a desire of a need. See, yes, a need of your, your... It's essential. See, it's a, it's maybe the meaning of total your life. I'm trying to imagine, as a songwriter myself, writing in a second language and thinking that that's was was the was the dialect for you your mother tongue and you learned Italian at the same time but I want to know more about in Calabria specifically at the time when you were growing up how did you switch from from dialect to Italian Italian and as I'm making air quotes I do this operation when I sing because when I sing I put in my way of singing the same meaning of when I sing in dialect in Italian, but this I discovered when I see when I heard the first time a songwriter from Russia called Vladimir Vysotsky, that's one of the best songwriters from East Europe. And when you hear the songs of Zoski, you don't need to understand what kind of language he's talking or he's singing. This is the (speaks in foreign language) - The object. - The object. You, When you hear Bruce Springsteen, you think that that's it, and you don't need to translate, it's not simply operation, because you have to put in your mood, in your voice, something that di più che semplicemente voi o semplicemente tu sei un buon canale, tu sei un buon giocatore, no, c 'è qualcosa di più che tu... More than the camisa bianca. Sì, come la camisa bianca. Tipo, una cosa del genere. Cioè, tu puoi aiutare yourself with something, no, with your attitude to stay on stage, your good tuner, but there is something that especially when you found that it's not important that you are in time or you are tuned, when you found that this is not The only thing you are you are start you are started to go in the world Can I give you an English phrase? Yes, and the English saying? Use we say Now you are cooking now. We are cooking with gas And this is the same cushion under the gas. Do you say that in Italian? No, it means like now we're cooking now. We're really doing it now we're doing it yeah yeah that's it now that's it yeah yeah but this is important for for an artist to realize this because especially in this moment I feel that a lot of young young artists young people have this kind of approach to music to theater to art in general That's an approach like very superficial, very, very fast, rapid, and, you know. Just about the style. Yeah. The Camilla Banca. You see, molto, molto connected with the spot. With the, the, the spot. The spotlight? Si, la luce è tac, Fina, after one week you, you remove everything. - We say a flash in the pan, fast, fast fame that fades. I couldn't tell you the origin of this phrase, the flash in the pan, but I know it. - Yeah, maybe it's a problem that We grow up in another kind of experience for technology, for a way of organizing our day very different from now. So now we feel a little bit disoriented about many, many things. So I think that maybe we can really understand what's up and now. so maybe we will understand the next 20 years, but the feeling now is, my feeling is that I'm tired of something that stays only on the surface. And only on the superficial level, yeah, on the surface on the surface on the surface yeah I'm I'm not boring it's boring you know sometimes it's boring goes to the super deep no it's boring can be boring I know that's what I'm saying can be a result boring for someone but but you know the emotion you do I do music because I need to emotion myself we are here to talking because we want to get emotion, feeling, and other stuff that we, before we, we, we haven't. Now we have. Exactly. I think so much about, you know, how for me, books and music from the past just really saved me as a young person. And I, I, I I guess, you know, I'm 37, but I do think a lot. I think a lot about the mark that each of us puts on the world in the moment, it just by something like keeping a diary, you know, this with language, really. How we change everything. And I think maybe for younger people, it's wonderful to have someone who's doing this work to conserve these stories, these amazing stories about the sailors and the feeling of the words, the rhythm of the words, the attack of the words. I just learned this word for like, in English we would say a through line, but I was interviewing, I'm not sure when her interview will air, But just this week I'm interviewing in real time these two two artists who both work in in singing dialect and or you know Local language. I was talking to Mikaela Mussolino from See see from from from she's a Sicilian American Yeah, so she Taught me this word like and I can't remember but Philo like a a continuous line or a red ribbon. - Filaroso. - Filaroso, could you explain this concept to us? - Filaroso, that's not so bad, and Michela and I, for Filaroso, we use this expression to say when something is connect, it's a story that starts and go on and continue. there is a connection. - A red line. - Chonfilo Rosso, between me and you, between our music and our glass of wine. - Speaking of which, I had no idea I was going to do this, but in the spirit of a cultural exchange from the folk music of the American Midwest to Galabria, I would like to play you a song. - Please. Great, so I'm just gonna, we're gonna move things around a little bit here. I can sing about destruction I can sing about destruction ♪ To Love all the part and I could sing about conflict I could sing about blood I could sing about the sad wind mill On the hills of Iowa I could sing about judgment I could sing about religion I could sing about the heavy rain clouds That hang on the Iowa ♪ Were silver sad, heavy rains are coming ♪ ♪ Red waves, black and ♪ Sad women, heavy rains are coming over ♪ (guitar music) ♪ Shiny, silver, sad, windmill ♪ ♪ Heavy rains are coming ♪ ♪ Heavy rains are coming ♪ ♪ Heavy rains are coming ♪ ♪ Rain's are coming ♪ Il cambio! Le luci sono andate? È certo! Il parto della nuova e pesante! Questa è di che periodo è? When you wrote the song? Oh, that's such a great question. I'll tell you the truth. I was listening to some music that was singing about like drugs and rock and roll. I was driving in my car through the Midwest, driving, driving, driving. I used to write so many songs in the car and I would sing them because I didn't have a phone to record things. But I did have a big cell phone and I would call my home phone and sing the melody into my answering machine so that I could remember. I did this with this song. I was listening to, you know, Lucinda Williams? Yeah, she's great. She's a great American, American country, wonderful musician. She had this song called "Real, Live, Bleeding Fingers." Anyways, it's about this guy doing heroin or something. And, you know, I grew up in the country, guys, in Nebraska, you know? Like, we had our own creepiness, but we didn't do... I wasn't doing any heroin, you know? And I was just feeling like, "Oh, I'm outside of the experience of rock and roll, I've been so sheltered. I was feeling sorry for myself, but then I got into the groove of these chords, and so I heard this chord progression, and I said, well, I was thinking of the, I don't know if they tell you this when you're studying to be a writer in Italy, but they say this cliche nearly, write what you know. And I thought, well, what do I know? I just know about these fields fields out there. But, you know, of course, I was feeling the desire, the angst, the emotion, even in the cornfield and the wheat field with the red -winged blackbird, and I could feel this depth in a way was almost a profasio for me. I had no idea, you know really how much desire and emotion I had plenty of claim to and I would find you know when I wrote the song for me though for me the origin story of a song of course is very interesting because I love to study all the artists and everything they do but for me it's almost no it is more important the meaning the meaning becomes when the listener hears the song yeah And the words for them, the way they, the language, locks into their own experience. And the emotion that that word or that image evokes for them, that's the meaning. It doesn't matter that I was driving in the car and thinking this or thinking that. The song has a life of its own. And even for myself, when I play, when I write a good song, especially, when I play over the years this the speaker you know as we say in poetry changes or the it changes from day to day for minute to minute the meaning I would love to hear your thoughts on your own songwriting process or if this is how it works for you or how you think about meaning yeah the meaning is it's I think that's your right you believe in something, no? When you are involved in this process and so the words, sometimes they come without asking of them. They arrive and you put inside the song. Or maybe I use, several times I use an invented word, that I make some lack of crambleau and I say [speaking in foreign language] and then after when I hear this what I do I found inside this word something that I can use and I can transform in words because sometimes the words are a translation of something else that you you need to have yes and emotion and this and this is the meaning that you're talking about you know the meaning of of your the contact between you and and what there is around you it's strange for example it's strange that An Italian singer sing in in American Because Because in Italian nobody's talk in American and the expression is not there So you can sing in perfectly English perfect American English but be you less something or you have or you have to move and go to live in California and San Francisco and San Diego or in Detroit or in Seattle or New York City and so then you can sing in English without the the question of the people why you are singing in English of course because you are in in America you sing in america but if you're singing florans it's strange sounds strange that you sing in english because i can't believe out 100 what are you saying there's always something less in this i like to sing i love your list of city names i often sing about places you know I hear the folks so much, just the name of a town. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, because the town, the city, the village, the people that you meet, they are in the story, absolutely important in the story. - Yes. - It's not casually. You can dream, when I was 15, I, Of course I dream about Bob Dylan in the village that sing with the guitar and I say, "Oh God, one day I could be like Bob Dylan." Me too, me too. Yeah, because it's normal for a young guy, 15 years old. But when I arrived in Bologna from Calabria, the man of the label company, of the record company in Bologna told me your music, I got a band in Calabria when I was 15 and this man in Boronia told me, "Hi, your stuff is, your idea is good, but the sound is hold, is something of ten years ago." So between South Italy and North Italy there was ten years of difference, of style, of hearing, of experience, because maybe in Boronia there have been a 200th band from America, from Europe going to play in Calabria. Coming from Nebraska to New York, I can relate, or even coming from the country in Nebraska to the city in Nebraska. There's a lag, a delay. Okay, Yeah, this but this is the if you understand this and you leave this not like complex, but like normally think you can be what you are about 10 years 20 years ago, but in In the complete control of what you are not not Looking for for for someone that is in front of you and you have to run fast to arrive there. No, you are 20 years before, you wait, you build your time. But this is, you understand this when you are experienced or people teach to you or talk to you, but when you are 15 or you are 16, it's difficult to realize this. Oh, the first time I come in New York City in 2002, I got to make a show in the Bronx with my band, "El Parto del Epesante". And when I go on the stage, I say to the people in the hall, I say, "Hello everybody, I'm Pepe from Italy". Nobody talk, and nobody say hello, and nobody clap their hands. Absolutely silent. So I think I've wronged something, and I come I can say, "Hello everybody, I'm Pepe from Italy, "from South Italy, completely, ice." And so one man in the hall, stand up and say, "Please, speak Calabrese." And so I realized it was 250 people from Calabria that they moved to the Bronx in 1950 and they are waiting for someone who talk and we sing in Calabrian so I was completely out of my zone out of my meaning I had to start everything from the beginning and then I realized that also for the American people can be interesting to hear someone who speak in Calabreso in Sicilian or whatever or invented language can be interesting but only if you are if you believe in what are you doing if you are inside your your stuff and if you eat a lot of bread before you go on the stage yes can you tell us that phrase one I love this. Please spell out your website, your channel. Where can people buy your albums? Where can people follow you? Find out what you're doing next. Yes, please. My website is paperotarelli .eu And you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook, the name is Pepe Volterrelli Tutatacato. We will put this in the notes of the show as well. Go check this out. Thank you so much Pepe for the beautiful conversation to all of our listeners. Thank you so much for being here with us. Ask your local wine shop if they can get you some chiro, buy yourself some Pepe Voltairelli albums, and wherever you go and whatever you drink, always remember to enjoy your life and to never stop learning. Thank you for listening to Moto De Berry, the podcast for local drinks and local sayings. If you would love for the show to continue and grow, support Moto De Berry on Patreon and unlock bonus episodes. Do you have a local drink or local saying to share? Send me a DM on the Motodiberi Instagram or an email through the website at motodiberi .com. Music for the podcast was composed by Arcilia Prosperi and performed by the band OU. You can purchase their recordings at oumusic .bandcamp .com.
Theme music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com
Audio recorded and edited by Rose Thomas Bannister with assistance from Steve Silverstein.
Steve also mixed the live song recordings for this episode.
