Posted on June 22, 2010 - by Mark Zonda

From Prog to Disco: interview with Silvana Aliotta

It’s quite impressive how first steps on Italo Disco where moved from the foreign ground of Italian Prog Rock Scene. Not only it was interesting to discover Alan Sorrenti was a huge fan of Tim Buckley, still another band called “Le Streghe”, had the front singer Silvana Aliotta being the main voice for one of the coolest Italian best kept secrets form the ’70s: Circus2000. And it was so surprising seeing video of this brave girl, in the seventies, in Italy, IN A ELECTRIC ROCK BAND, with such an energy and putting such an effort to her voice on her dreams. It was quite surreal! It was also nice to discover such a sensitive and spiritual person. Artists from the past’s got uncommon personalities so very rare on nowadays singers. Don’t know why. Anyway: here’s my interview with Silvana for the project Neo Italo Disco.

Mark Zonda: Silvana: When your love for music was born?

Silvana Aliotta: My love for art come really quickly. I was only nine when they brought me to a show academy to make my dream come true: I wanted to became a classic ballerina dancer. It was there that they encouraged me to sing because of my lookalike to Betty Curtis. I began to sing as young mimic in a baby show at Alfieri Theatre in Turin. That’s where my career began, and my study on “The instrument of voice” as well. O met Spooky Gianni Johnny after a lot of studio recording and live experiences. The meeting with Johnny and Dede was essential to get “Circus 2000″ started.

Mark Zonda: Did you felt brave playing with Circus2000 at those times?

Silvana Aliotta: The Circus2000 project was surely brave on its experimental nature. Also being a female vocalist at the rhythm session it was not the average situation for those times… Still our aim was to express ourselves above any possible limit, being free on the experience of our music. Today I can tall you I’m still pride of it, since I was one of the people holding high and tight the flag of changes among the main important and talented Italian and National bands of those times. I was there!

Mark Zonda: I was personally touched by getting aware that there actually were Indie Festival dedicated to avant-garde and new waves at those times.You were practically born indie! What’s your point of view on the Neo Italo Disco project and its aim to bring new indie artists to work on the old Italo Disco canons?

Silvana Aliotta: Avant-garde and new waves on music did come alive on those times: that was the main origin of it all! Only who played in a progressive rock project like I did on those times can say to have being part of the front-line, fighting for his right to express his freedom in feeling the music. Maybe indie nowadays has got a different meaning. It’s an independence from the Majors, when any band had a label at their back during those days.

Mark Zonda: How did you swift from progressive rock to disco?

Silvana Aliotta: Progressive was a thirst for freedom giving you the power to open the doors of your imagination. Bands used to play inside their rock opera just like living a fairytale. Sounds, lights and colours blended into one. I can clearly remember how everybody felt it like a magic spell. Spaces were made by the talent everybody brought in it, building an ensemble of experiences. Jazz, rock and psychedelia were Circus2000 keys to fully employ the whole potential of my voice. But time were changing, and music changed along. Rifi didn’t feel like supporting us on our progressive project anymore, and this choice brought to the break up of the band. Still the strange thing of living a passion is the eternal instinct and desire to find out shades and lights of things, and you find yourself running with a new dress without even having noticed you changed. And it’s still you, in another dimension of the wide Universe of Music.

Mark Zonda: Was progressive music helpful to this change, did it help to forge a new kind of sound, was there a real missing link or it’s just really a twist of fate?

Silvana Aliotta: I don’t believe there really was a missing link. I don’t believe in faith. To be what I am now I came throught a lot of different stages, and every thing that happened to me was really helpful in my growth. I’m not only talking about my artistic skills, but also for my spiritual side, that part of me unable to accept any kind of label with the power of surprising and bringing out the best of me, with enthusiasm, energy and the pure joy of a little child who just received many coloured pencils to play with.

Mark Zonda: I was really surprised finding out that you actually wrote “Don Don Baby”. Did famous producers like Shel Shapiro give you your own creative space?

Silvana Aliotta: Don Don Baby was some kind of game with rhythm and nonsense words, and I was really amused by doin it. I was also the writer of two other Italo Disco tracks, but you probably don’t know that because I signed them with the name of Ben Norman. “I got to be” and “Too many lovers”. A shame I was persuaded to speed the BMP of the tracks. Voice lost it’s spontaneity. Besides my little productions you brought back to my mind the names of some very famous and talented producers: Shel Shapiro, an impressive and important writer and arranger  with a great experience, and Sandro Colombini, a real genius with whom I work so much and so good for so many projects with Circus2000 and Le Streghe. Very special persons, clever, always ready to give someone’s ideas the right space without obliging you to follow their opinions blind. Working with them? It was a real pleausure.

Mark Zonda: Talking about Shapiro… One of the reasons that brought me to bring the whole Neo Italo Disco movement alive, was a girl from Sweden called Sally Shapiro. She was the first artist, along with the Japanese Tommy February6, to try to reprise the themes of Italo Disco. What was so special in this music to became so important all over Europe? Does it still have something to say?

Silvana Aliotta: Yes. I’ve listenet to Sally Shapiro and February6. They’ve got linear voices. Almost teenish. Their songs are simple, danceable, sunny, party-like and quite easy to sing. It was not uncommon for me to sing dance songs like “Shame Shame Shame” or “One Way Street”, that time with the name of Carol & Boston Garden. Even if they required a different kind of voices for those times, it was quite clear for me how disco music couldn’t be stopped by any kind of frontier. Discotheques are extraordinary useful to make a song quickly popular even spreading new waves and fashions being able to build international success. Just like happened to Italo Disco. Does Italo Disco still has got something to say? It’s really on the braveness and the geniality of the producers. Then, who knws? Neo Italo Disco will become a real mania all over the World! You should never underestimate the power of music, since it’s really impossible to understand its magic you have to believe in it. And believe me: with her anything is possible.

Le Streghe – “Don Don Baby” (Excerpt)

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