Exclusive Interview with 'GIONATAN SCALI'

East Londoner Gionatan Scali’s “mystical soft-core” sound is built on a dreamlike balancing act of overlapping layers. A powerful and expansive sound with psychedelia, krautrock, and Middle Eastern influences is created by slurred vocals and melodic riffs. Following the Headlining Show at Moth Club on March 15, 2022, the highly anticipated new album RIDE ON is scheduled to be released on May 15, 2022. At London’s Cable Street Studios, the album was recorded between September 2020 and December 2021. Gionatan and the band collaborated in the studio with Richard James, who also produced and mixed the album. The Record does a fantastic job of capturing Gionatan’s eclectic and erratic personality, which encompasses a wide range of emotions from the existentially dark to the heavenly and dreamlike, with the opposites appearing to interact. For live performances and recordings, Gionatan has been working with a sizable ensemble of musicians, the majority of whom have jazz training. Bassist Mark Thorne and guitarist Lorenzo Martinotti, who works with Gionatan on music composition, are the band’s reliable members. The three members collaborate to produce the unique sonic fusion.

Following the Headlining Show at Moth Club on March 15, 2022, the highly anticipated new album RIDE ON is scheduled to be released on May 15, 2022. At London’s Cable Street Studios, the album was recorded between September 2020 and December 2021. The next chapter, titled “A Prophet after His Turkish Bath,” is scheduled to be published on June 15, 2022, one month after “RIDE ON.” contains 7 Tracks with a total playing time of 41 minutes. Work on the album, which Gionatan co-produced with Richard James and Lorenzo Martinotti, began in February 2019, just before RIDE ON. The album’s two singles are “Perfect Town” and “Suncannotpass+.” In October 2020, Nice Guys Records released “Perfect Town.” The Record does a fantastic job of capturing Gionatan’s complex and erratic personality, which encompasses a wide range of emotions. Check out the latest album and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how you got started?

GIONATAN SCALI: Usually I would say Calgary, which is not a place in Canada but it is a far place in my head when I imagine where I am from, doesn’t necessarily have to exist. Other times I say I was born on Mars. The Truth is that I was born In Turin in Northern Italy, and I started playing music when I was 8 years old. I Have a background in Engineering, but since I was a teeneger I was playing in Local bands in the Suburbs of Turin. Coming from a working class simple family, Dad worked all his life in Fiat Cars Company. I was born in the biggest industrial area of the whole country. I tried to imagine a life bigger than just working in a Car Factory. But anyway I think it is more important for me where I am heading to than where I am from.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

GIONATAN SCALI: I Took piano lessons at an early age ( 8 years ), but I didn’t like it. I was 13 years old when I started the guitar blues method, and that decision was my own initiative and i self-taught by watching tutorials. I think it started from there, and then the rest unfolded naturally. During that summer, I think it was 1997/98, I was doing my first lo-fi recordings on cassettes with my best Friend. We were just enjoying playing guitars. At that time I was listening to bands like The Verve, Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead but my friend was more of a metal head. I stayed on the dissonances more or less for my whole life. I guess I couldn’t play any faster or better than any average guitarists. But emotionally I found a way of playing guitar which was quite weird and unique I guess, and allowed me to start singing my own songs. I ended up developing something that nowadays I think stands for itself. Still looking, and researching. It’s not complete yet. I guess it will never be.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘GIONATAN SCALI’?

GIONATAN SCALI: Influences have arrived in various stages of my life. I do listen to everything and I’m always in constant search. Sometimes there’s something that is echoing with me more than anything and I tend to listen to it till I’m exhausted.Yesterday I was checking new releases on Pitchfork… But as I said earlier, in my teenage years I was into alternative rock. Then I moved to Elliott Smith trying to develop better Songwriting. Syd Barrett for strange guitar chords. Then after 2010’s Connan Mockasin and Mgmt changed my life completely. After 2017 I started getting into Krautrock, modern classical and Drone Music ended up listening to more experimental and avant garde stuff. I mention some of the current music that I really Love which I think we have been influenced through making “ Turkish Bath” and “ Ride On”: Ana Roxanne, Durutti Column, Kurt Vile, Kevin Morby, Can, Dominique Dumont, Kikagaku Moyo, John Carroll Kirby, Cate Le Bon. I am a massive Vinyl Collector and for this reason I always end up being pretty skint. I do absorb a lot, feel like I’m getting more and more ADHD. London is crazy for stimulations, and I do ride that wave every day of my life. I ended up incorporating in my own way those endless listenings and the results are quite visible in my music.

Why Gionatan Scali?

Gionatan Scali is my real name. I know it may sounds unreal, but probably is the reason why I didn’t have to think about anything else than that.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

GIONATAN SCALI:

Key elements? Mmm… I do not know. The approach is chill but deep and intimate. We hope that people that have a more meditative way of listening to music catch our vibes. I think this music is for them.

I’m trying through my music to reach some sort of spiritual realms but not always. Trying to recreate trippy drug feelings without taking them. I do not take them. I do rarely drink. It makes me foggy, and it doesn’t help me. I do need to be present to get the most of myself.

Sometimes my approach in music is multifaceted, from a Spiritual and mystical state, all of a sudden, it drags me into the exact opposite one and I end up being creepy or goofy. Because as much as I like dreamlike states I do want to try to stay as much as possible on the ground while I am on the planet earth.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as INDIE?

GIONATAN SCALI:
I wouldn’t say Indie. I do not know yet or not exactly what it is. I think it is the sum up of my years of playing, living my life and perceiving myself. INDIE is probably one the millions elements in this compound of what I am doing. But It’s hard to trace it. Probably I was doing INDIE in 2014, or when I released “My Curly Hair” which does have a slacker approach. Sometimes I label what I do as “lo-fi contemporary table” due to the use of coffee tables in all the live appearances that we did in the recent years. Sometimes Ideas come out from being Limited. For example, whilst we were recording “ A prophet after his turkish bath” we were lacking a drummer, and for this reason we ended up using drum machines. And those Drum machines’ sounds dictate the vibes of the songs (example Perfect Town), that beat is probably the most important of all the beats we ever made. It felt simple to create music and start overlapping layers. This foundation was strong and I ended up putting our story and the vocals in it. We are hoping to not be INDIE in the next record. I’m sure we won’t.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative and entertainment?

GIONATAN SCALI:

I do think what I am trying to do is more personal than just making music. Music is the medium. But if I can say something, I want to be perceived in a different way. I do write, draw, I am an activist, I am an LGBTQ+ advocate, I’ve been running events with some Local communities In east London. I try to push new values and a new lifestyle in the way I am approaching things. But Before getting into that big pot of human relations I need to be recognised for something. So Music is the answer to access the cultural gates of heaven. So at some point I will be more than happy to join new causes or projects that have nothing to do with music. But music is that thing that comes to me easier. And will always be with me hopefully.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

GIONATAN SCALI:

I recently released 2 albums with a combined total of 17 tracks. I did it for myself first and for the people that I love around me. The others will come when the time will be mature. Do consider yourself lucky if you know this music already.

If I do think in terms of expectations I would have probably stopped 10 years ago. Lol

Never thought like that. But this does not mean that I won’t try to be heard. Silently I did, and I always will do with respect. I am lucky to be where I am even though I haven’t got any big rewards. Have a nice entourage of Musicians around me, and I work with amazing music people. But I feel those rewards are on the way anyway. The feeling of being creative is the most important part that I have to make sure it will always be with me. The rest is bullshit.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do you usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

GIONATAN SCALI: I always start in a different way. Sometimes it can be a little jingle in my head. A melody. A beat. Sometimes it can be the aftermath of a strong experience. Sometimes it comes from nowhere. I am not fully aware when it happens. I do play sometimes, trying to combine 2 subjects that haven’t got anything to do with each other. Although I learned to spot the right time when I feel something that is special. I do work with 2 band members that are special for carving some of the foundation of the Music: Guitar player Lorenzo Martinotti, and bass player Mark Thorne are the guys involved in the creative process. I do come with some ideas sometimes. And we ended up jamming and repeating the main idea until it became something that we are quite happy about.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

GIONATAN SCALI: Depression and low moods and brain fatigue during covid. Those times were a painful killer. I did suffer from anxiety and I still do but I am more conscious now. Meditations and making music helped me a lot. But I still do struggle sometimes. For the rest I am quite lucky, I’ve been raised in Love from both my parents, and I haven’t had much issues in my childhood. There’s only one fact that I felt my whole life that I was a “loser” as I have been strongly bullied when I was at school. I felt the difference between me and the others that it resonates a lot in my music. In music I found my best companion but in getting to know myself I faced some of my fears and anxieties. In that creative state you are feeling pretty high and hyper conscious, above everyone and everything, and that it helps to push away all the silly stupid noise of the world. Things that won’t make you better. Things that push away from your best.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

The first show we performed in two years, at the Moth Club in London on March 15, was probably the most memorable thing that happened to me this year when Lockdown was lifted.

I experienced a unique emotion that day. The crowd, in my opinion, experienced it more intensely than I did. As though something is about to alter. I didn’t even need to try. I didn’t need to force it. Getting it was simple. The same as downing a glass of water.

But I guess the real significant point is still yet to come.