Saturnino.org > Media

Saturnino with Demetrio Paparoni
Milan 8 January 2003

DEMETRIO PAPARONI: A few months ago I heard you saying that the only time you had been lovesick was when your bass guitar slipped away from your hands.
SATURNINO: It was six years ago, I think, while we were playing in Treviso. At that time, I’d play with a1965 Fender Jazz that Lorenzo gave me as a gift, a real piece of collection. The Palasport was full of people enjoying the concert. A few minutes before the end of our last song, I jumped with both feet – I always do that when people are excited. But that time, the stage broke underneath me and I fell flat into a black hole like a loser. It wasn’t a scenic pretence, as some people might of thought, somebody started clapping though. I know that who pays a ticket has to be respected, but I was totally pissed off that time, for I was aware of the risk I ran. I was fine, but the neck of my bass guitar was slightly cracked. The first person that came with an electric torch in his hand and tried to help me, was the security guy, then came the technician who, instead of asking how my bass was, asked if I was fine. How could he do that? My bass guitar was sick and nobody cared. I don’t know if an instrument has a soul, sure it has a great sensibility. It was able to play on its own, animated by the memory of all those people who played it before I did. Obviously I still have that Fender, now it’s feeling better, but that accident has left its mark – a real abrasion, a sort of perennial bruise, like after boxing...

D.P.: Now you box three times a week. One month ago Mario beat you up by mistake.
SATURNINO: Nothing serious... A cracked rib. It’s ok now.

D.P. Weren’t you worried you couldn’t play for a long time?
SATURNINO: I never thought about that. These things happen. In any case, I’ve stepped onto the stage even with very high temperature or dysentery and I can tell you it’s easier when you have a broken rib. Anyway, music is so powerful it can soothe pain.

D.P. Let’s go back to that time you fell down from the stage with your the bass guitar. You told me, you were “lovesick”: That’s nothing to do with love...
SATURNINO: Do you know what Warhol once said? He said that sometimes things are beautiful because in a certain way they’re different from everything that surrounds them. You know, a bass guitar with the right strings, the perfect tuning, a sensuous shape, the right chroming, can make you horny like a woman with a sweet ass and big titties, red fleshy lips...may God strike me dead if I’m not telling the truth!

D.P.: Then, now that you’re playing with a five strings Sadowsky coming directly from the States, does it mean you deceived your first love?
SATURNINO: Not at all. I love them both. And they both love me unconditionally... you know Sadowsy, the name I mean, reminds me of Monica Lewinsky, and that makes it sound more exciting. Then, a good and close-knit triangle can be better than a relationship between two people: bigamy is not necessarily a crime.

D.P. I wonder how happy Vanessa can be if you talk this way.
SATURNINO: I remember what Sgalambro told me during the recording of Battiato’s Imboscata in Paris: “Saturnino, in this theatre you’re an actor: act well!” I can’t remember who said that but it is a lesson for life. (now we’ve broken up).

D.P.: I remember that time Queens of the Stone Age were playing at Alcatraz. You had no idea of their album and when they started playing No One Knows you were totally captured. Few days ago I brought you their CD, you put it on, took your bass and started playing No One Knows as you had listened that song hundreds of times. God, I said, he’s a great talent. Then I thought that perhaps the person who wrote the music has talent, and yours is just technique …
SATURNINO: First I must say you have talent when you write and perform a song. Playing someone else’s music means understanding what it is about and to do that you need talent.

D.P.: Let’s say that Queens are playing now and their bassist hurts his arm. If they asked you to step onto the stage and play with them... and you had never rehearsed or listened their CD, what would you do?
SATURNINO: First I hope nobody hurts his arm, especially a musician. Then, I accept your challenge and tell you I’d step onto the stage without a moment’s hesitation.

D.P.: Would you be worried of making mistakes?
SATURNINO: I’d try to do my best, but I suppose I’d get off.

D.P.: Do you often play jam session?
SATURNINO: Not really ‘cause I hate them. It’s like to jack off all together …there’s not fun.

D.P.: When performing jam sessions, do you need more talent or technique? You can’t answer you need both as I want to know exactly what you need the most.
SATURNINO: Well, I must say you need more talent, especially if you don’t want to bore people.

D.P.: Why don’t you play solo concerts that often?
SATURNINO: I think I play like anybody else, no more no less. I don’t think they play live concert that often. The fact is that I’m very exacting and a good concert costs a fortune. I play with pleasure only if I can do what I like, otherwise, I do something else.

D.P.: What a sharp answer! Are you saying you see your future more as a producer than a frontman of a band or special guest player?
SATURNINO: I repeat, I can see myself as a producer.

D.P.: How much has your extraordinary technique helped in developing your skill as composer and performer?
SATURNINO: These are two aspects of playing music that shouldn’t be put on the same level. They’re completely different and each one is independent from the other.

D.P.: Today on television I heard you saying you like Marilyn Manson…
SATURNINO: I think he’s a very interesting person, a great showman of our days. You can say someone is a great artist if he’s able to exert his influence on young musicians. I think he exerts his influence well.

D.P.: Do you really think Manson is original? He reminds me of many other artists such as Alice Cooper, Bowie, Osbourne of Black Sabbath...especially when performing on stage.
SATURNINO: ‘Course you can’t say he’s original. I don’t care whether a musician is original or not, he must move me emotionally. Today I talked about that with Franz Di Cioccio. We were at Rock Tv. He said something I share: musical reincarnations don’t exist. You are, or not.

D.P. Before you quoted Warhol. Andy said something that remains engraved in my memory, he said you see the real beauty of a crawfish only when it’s dropped into hot water. His words make me think about the inhumanity of existence. Of course a crawfish is more beautiful when dead and you don’t think it had been dropped into hot water while you are eating it… the fact is the crawfish is dropped into hot water while we are the people who have it.
SATURNINO: Unfortunately, there are too many people thrown alive into hot water. If you take a walk here in Milan you’ll see there’s always someone begging in the streets asking help. I’m comfortably off, no matter if I’m a lucky musician, I don’t close my eyes in front
of wrong ideas. One of the most serious problems to solve here in Italy is that of the homeless. I think the lack of a real social policy results from the bad cultural habit of people thinking anyone of us is responsible for his own troubles. That’s not true. You know, there are people talking about the current situation of Argentina as if they were talking about another planet. Once I heard Madre Teresa of Calcutta saying a lot of people visit leper hospitals just to have a clean conscience, pointing out it is sufficient to go out there
to see the real nature of poverty and sufferings.

D.P.: Something else?
SATURNINO: When the talk turns on sufferings you can enter any other conversation...
Shall we have something?