Interview – PIER C: I’m not comfortable with stability. On the wire I feel alive

After eight months away from the public Pier C returns with On the wirethe first song written entirely by him after X Factor.

It’s a song that looks at the disco of the late Seventies and brings it back to Italian: minimal verse, exploding chorus, a far from light theme sung with the lightness of an uptempo.

Behind him is a singer aunt who weaned him on bread and Gloria Gaynor, a professional life far from music and a relationship with Francesco Gabbani, his talent coach, which in the meantime has become confidence, frank criticism and friendship. Gabbani unexpectedly went on stage at the Santeria in Milan to sing with him.

With Pier C we talked about the precarious balance as the only possible condition, about regrets, about choices and about an album that is taking shape.

Let’s do it like in the exam: ask as many questions as you like. What do you want to tell me about On the wirethe first piece of this new project? What do we put on the wire?

I’m glad we came out with this song. There are others ready, but this one describes well an existential condition that I have always experienced and which intensified after X Factor, since I had the privilege of transforming passion into work.

It is the condition of those who are constantly suspended, balanced, on a thread.

On the other hand, for me there is no alternative. Because of how I am, because of my character, I am not entirely comfortable in conditions of extreme stability.
Staying on edge costs me effort, both psychological and physical, because you’re always in deep water and you’re never calm.

But it’s the only way to feel truly alive, and as I say at the end of the piece, I’ve never felt so good on the wire.

Musically the song is sunny, playful, even a little crazy. Listening to him it really seems that on the wire you are fine, calm, in balance.

That’s right, in balance. I might fall, but I survive. It’s part of that disco tradition of the late Seventies and early Eighties that didn’t just talk about going dancing on a Saturday night, but addressed existential conditions, things that were anything but light, and did so with the lightness of an uptempo. Many examples come to mind, songs that I know very well because my aunt, one of my mentors, made me sing as a child. He had several bands and sang exactly that genre. I’ve always had it inside me, I was weaned on bread and Gloria Gaynor: it’s my guilty pleasure. In this song I was happy to be able to bring it into Italian and in a revisited key, because the verse and the first part of the chorus are very minimal, contemporary, and then comes the explosion of the second part. It’s a hymn to lightness, even when the topics aren’t all rosy.

I’ll tell you my personal taste: this song resonated with me much more than the unreleased one you brought to the X Factor. When I heard that I thought you should bring this.

I’m happy. The other had been written by the authors, I had made some musical changes to it. I actually wrote this one, so I’m glad you noticed. In these eight months I have worked a lot, and not only on Sul filo: there are other songs, some in finalisation, others already finished. It’s definitely more personal. The other day I was listening to some things around and I realized that Sul filo is a bit crazy, so it stands out, for better or for worse.

At the concert you did in Milan, Gabbani took the stage. Is there still a relationship between coach and competitor or have you become friends and colleagues?

He gave me an incredible surprise, he came to visit me at Santeria in Milan. You know, I’m familiar with it, but it’s still Gabbani, and I was almost ashamed to ask him: listen, don’t you want to come and do the piece?

It was what we also did during the spring leg of his arena tour, when he invited me to open his concerts, and it was a huge honor.
He replied “but very gladly”. Having his support in a delicate moment like this is wonderful.

That aspect of a mentor, a tutor, a coach remains. It’s a safe place: I send him things and he always answers me on the merits, he’s very helpful. I’m happy that you answer me frankly, which in my opinion is a symptom of mutual respect.

If he tells me “look, you can improve here like this”, he is not afraid to give me feedback even when it leads to changing things, and I am always ready and honored to receive it.
Then there is the convivial aspect. We saw each other during the tour and on other occasions, this spring I spent a few days at his house, in his studio, rehearsing, singing together, talking about life. So it’s also a friendship.

The X Factor has started again. If we rewound the tape to last year, with bowls stopped, is there anything you would change about yourself along the way? Or would you do everything the same way again?

I don’t believe in regrets, in “I would have done’s”. If you did something there was a reason. I’m also very prudent, very rational, I think about things a lot, so I would say I have no regrets.

A finance mentality.

Maybe a little yes, the accounting aspect comes out. And maybe it helps me, because for better or for worse the world I have entered, the work I have the privilege of doing, is made of choices.

Every morning I wake up and I have to make decisions that have an impact, and I put my face to it. There is no corporateism where you can say “someone else did it”: I am the one who has to choose for myself. For someone like me, who would be slothful by nature, it’s very difficult, but it’s helping me mature as a person.

At a certain point you realize that you also have to throw yourself. I’m greatly re-evaluating the importance of intuition, of gut feeling, in a job that deals with an intangible matter like music. You have to trust. Not having too many regrets helps me both to make sense of the things I’ve done and to encourage me for the future.

In this hypothetical business plan of your musical project there is now a single, there are live shows. Is an album in the works?

Yes. The idea is to release other singles and then collect these songs together with others that I’m writing and that I realize are very intimate, very introspective, those that perhaps a record company wouldn’t choose as a single. I’m doing one now, very intimate, which I take live but I haven’t published yet. For a month I dedicated myself to preparing for the concerts, because I am a perfectionist and I want to do things very well. I recharged myself with the wave of love and energy from the public, which had been waiting for me for eight long months, and now I’m ready to go back to the studio, to finish what needs to be done and to write new things.

For me the most important thing is to leave a mark with music. I fought to do this job. I took the plunge and took a risk, because going on television without a parachute is risky. My character, who isn’t a character because it’s really me, is a bit crazy, so there’s always the risk of getting hurt.

It went well, the planets assisted me.

Let’s say you’ve reached your break even point?

Exact! Doing this job has been so longed for that it is sacred to me. Music, making music, is sacred. If compromises have to be made, I certainly don’t make them on the music I choose to sing.

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October 8 | ROME @Largo Venue

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