"Written by, Producer" - Ivan Iacobucci
At the age of 13 he was already a DJ… to date Ivan Iacobucci’s story spans some 40 years. Impressive, to say the least. It’s a lifetime in music that brings with it a certain esteem, a knowledge and cultural base. This year Ivan celebrates his 50th birthday, his present day somewhat embodied in the latest Perlon release (number 121). What can only be seen as the revered birthday gift for any artist of our era, the next chapter is underway.
Having spent over 20 years in Bologna, living the city’s party prominence in its heyday most memorably as resident for the Selecta Matinée afterhours at Donna Rosa Club (ex Contatto), playing along the Rimini coastline, hanging with the likes of Francesco Farfa, and producing a wealth of a back catalogue, his name had undoubtedly become synonymous to the region of Emilia-Romagna. How then did the Italian story translate to the birth of the pseudonym U/More and a revival of the genre that is Ivan Iacobucci…
We explore the journey underpinned by its musical theme. A DJ since the age of 13 to the present day and beyond - that’s the story.
March 9 - it's Saturday afternoon in Berlin. The sky’s somewhat heavy as the rain falls in and out but the grey landscape serves as a mere backdrop as Ivan sits down to tell me his story…
Within weeks of arriving in Berlin, I’d started making music in the studio. For me to make music, I need to be constantly immersed in this world... I wouldn’t be able to go to work, come home, then start in the studio - it just wouldn’t work. I started DJing back in 1983 when I was just 13, and I’ve never done anything else since. Sure I know other worlds out of curiosity but when it comes to work, just DJing then producing. I’ve always lived in this club world – probably for this that I feel still young, and for the fact that I have so many friends in their late 20s early 30s... I don't feel age gaps.
That's a musical career spanning nearly 40 years, where do I start! Let’s take some steps back... you’re 13 and I’m assuming in Pescara. Tell me, how does a 13 year old boy make his first entrance into club world.
It’s easy. On my 13th birthday my mother asked me what I wanted for my present - I wanted a radio so that I could listen to music (back then the radio would even have a cassette player). And so I started listening to the local radio station '7giorni7'. They didn’t have so many listeners so whoever called in the most number of times would be invited in to host the Sunday morning show 'Easy Listening' - you see, that was my moment. I even remember preparing with a newspaper 'Tv Sorrisi e Canzoni'. The hosts were impressed, and asked if I wanted to work with them on the musical program. So, all the while still going to school, I became part of the radio staff.
But I hadn't yet encountered the world of 'DJ' - it was only after passing by one of the studios in the radio station - the owner's son was a DJ. It wasn't long before I developed an affinity for it all... I started to buy my own records. My mom even came with me to buy my turntables… imagine... And my first experiences playing came soon after.
Nice!
Near my house there was a discotheque / piano bar 'Happy Time' - they needed a DJ. Maybe you don’t know this but back then it was always the club that would buy the records. But I was 13 years old and each week I'd adamantly walk to the bar with my record bag in tow.
One opportunity led to another with various radio shows including Radio Flesh Abruzzo. Someone then mentioned me to a friend of one of the station owners who had been looking for a DJ for the summer (in Rimini). "I know a young boy, very good but he's underage - he can't come to the club." "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." They even had me stand on a bench because I was too small, I couldn’t reach the decks. And from this moment on, I was booked in all the clubs in Pescara.
I was going to Rimini to Disco Piu to buy my records (as was almost all of Italy) - it was a place to hang-out, to meet other DJs, I even met Angelino who booked me to play. Imagine, at that time there wasn’t the Internet, no mobile phones, so the idea of going to Riccione from Pescara to play… I couldn’t believe it.
With no social media back then your reputation would have been held in person - your credibility being built on the back of people coming to see you play.
Exactly, a club owner from Bologna heard me play in Rimini and gave me my very first club residency – in 1988, at the age of 18 I went to live in Bologna and I stayed there up until 5 years ago. In my time it was a party city – non-stop Monday to Friday. But how could I tell my mother that that’s what I was going to do (it had been ok whilst I was in Pescara and studying...). So, what I did I enrolled into an Economics course at the University of Bologna, and my mother was happy (very happy). But then I started hanging out with the students at DAMS...
In the early 00s you were a central figure in the party scene in and around Bologna (Emilia-Romagna), most memorably as resident for the Selecta Matinée afterhours at Donna Rosa Club (ex Contatto).
I have so many memories from Donna Rosa - we can start the stories another time. Insomma there was an excellent electronic setting in Bologna. Link and Livello 54 are still in the memory of that generation's clubbers. From 1988 there were so many artistic movements pulsating through the city, continuously evolving but distinguished with their underground streak - Robot Festival one of the most successful examples in recent years. And for street art too, the artist Blu had started tagging the buildings right behind Link. You felt the party vibe in the streets.
Parties were organised by the best promoters. There was no end to the choice of clubs, whether they were 'fashionable' or less publicised they always strived towards avantguarde.
You played your role in the development of house music in the 90s, for which the ripple effects are still felt in the generations after.
It was a new musical era - we were all so curious yet excited. Each one of us had their own character and musical style, (I was influenced for the most part by 'Black Sound') but we all made our contribution to Italy's club scene despite not having the benefits of today’s technology. To have any rare record you would have to travel (overseas), there was no Internet, no low-cost, and the first mobiles you could use just for making calls.
A track that reminds you of Bologna?
So what spurred you to go on to make music – by now we know that the idea of DJ and producer are not intrinsically tied…
In the 90s to make a record you had to go into a proper (and expensive) studio. I was lucky enough to know someone who already had the set-up. And I developed my passion just watching... I brought the hardware to Bologna and hired a sound engineer - I would (try to) express to him all the sounds that I had inside of my head, then I’d choose, “this works”, "this doesn’t”, and bit by bit we’d make the record. But I needed my time to do it all and naturally he would lose his patience. I had 3 or 4 engineers one after the other, each one exasperated. Then I started to teach myself – I never went to school to do or learn things. And this is when when I started making music that I really liked (because it was coming from me). I’m doing this from such a long time already – imagine, these instruments that you see around are the same instruments that I was using when I first started making music in 1991. I haven’t added anything.
Each time that I have an idea for a track, I make a voice note. Then I’m in the studio and I start – I can take inspiration from anything. The other day I was watching a film and I still remember the drum. It was a short musical interlude, just a few seconds long. Amazing, I had to listen to it over and over. Taking inspiration is a little like this.
So how is a day in the life of Ivan Iacobucci as artist.
I’m in the studio from 11 in the morning to 8 at night. I have to have a clear mind – if I have to go shopping or pay the bills I don't start – no distractions! I take a break if I want (sometimes to watch 'L'eredità' on Rai UNO) but in any case at 18h40 I stop then I eat. After, I start back in the studio or I’m in bed listening to records. And that’s it, my every day, meticulous as it may be.
Your routine must naturally stem from an inner discipline...
Most people think that I’m not so “normal”, but perhaps this image of normality fits me the best. And it’s not just discipline, I’m very methodical (precise) especially when it comes to my work, perhaps more so finicky. As for my routine, it does stem from me, and it's become my routine only because I live it day by day. In the end, everything that forms a part of daily life should do you well - for example, my morning espresso sets me up for the day, it gives me the right mindset to be in the studio.
On the question of mindset, it's fair to say your journey to date has been characterised just as much by the up as the down.
The highs and lows are part of the journey... it’s just enough to take the positive from it all (always), especially when things don't go right. If it were not for my professional and then psychological decline, I don’t think that I would have ever moved to Berlin. I wouldn’t have met Zip, and most likely I wouldn’t be playing today.
So what happened?
I was a DJ from the old school of music, typically Chicago house. And in Italy 2008 this music wasn't so fashionable anymore - me (and other DJs of my generation) suffered an artistic decline. Many left this world behind. But I couldn’t (and I wouldn’t). I didn't get bookings; I was no longer in trend. The word I kept hearing in Italy was “ormai”... my moment had passed. In 2011 I told myself that it was enough, so I started doing other things – I opened a restaurant in Bologna, a club in Sardegna, I even contemplated opening a store to sell electronic cigarettes. I thought of everything, and everything that I had I spent. But now I think on it, it had to go like this. It was part of the journey.
Though your alias U/More was born shortly after these periodic ventures...
I had started making music again (but no DJing), just on the computer. I didn’t want to go downstairs to the studio, to turn on the machines even. I was a little depressed. So “let’s play around on the computer and see what comes from it.” I had a lot of time on my hands. And so with my finicky methods, I started making a different kind of music - I was looking for a new sound that would reformulate the many different musical influences I had absorbed from 1983 through to 2012. One of the first to contact me was DJ Masda, still living in Japan. All the tracks I made in this period, he liked - this told me that I was on the right path. It was time for the next step, but I had to change direction and at that point I realised that it was time for me to leave Italy. It was time to absorb some “colder” industrial influences. I was 44 years old when I came to Berlin (my move coincided with my first release on Cabaret ‘The Slope'). But still no one knew who was behind U/More (not even my brothers).
After the success with Cabaret - U/More had gained traction, you were playing more regularly - didn't you feel as though you wanted your success attributed to 'Ivan Iacobucci'.
Absolutely. I started telling people that it was me behind the alias. If people had known from the beginning that it was me, would they have even wanted to listen to my music... by the end of the 2000s as I told you, I had become a moment of the past. But now, there was a hype surrounding the new “kid” on the block, and people started listening to Ivan Iacobucci again.
And then came the Nudge edit…
The band found my name written inside the sleeve. When they asked me if they could make the edit, instead of using the vinyl I brought them the DAT. From the copies they gave to me, I brought one to Panorama Bar and I gave it to Zip – in that period he was playing often with Ricardo B2B. Zip was playing the record, everyone going crazy because they thought it was Ricardo playing it - you would hear the WHY vocal whilst Ricardo had his headphones on to mix in the next track...
All of these positive attributions from artists around would have no doubt put you in good stead.
Yes but I felt that I had to make yet another step. I started going to Panorama Bar – Perlon was in my head. And Zip was interested in me a little (because of the Nudge edit) – he listened to everything I sent to him but didn't reply. Then last year I sent him 22 tracks, just one hour after he replied - he wanted to play them at New Kids'. I was the first to arrive at the party - 11pm not one minute later. And from the 22 tracks, he chose 4. Two days after he wrote asking (only if I were ok with the idea) to make a release in February. You can’t imagine the emotional high I've lived since... how anxious I was too.
How does it feel to have this accomplishment tied to you now at the age of 50.
'Ivan Iacobucci' had been known in Italy, not so much overseas. If people check my back-catalogue they see that I’ve done a lot, but typically an artist of 50 years is drawing to the end of his career. Yet me at 50 and only known in Italy, but with 40 years’ experience behind, I don’t know… maybe for some people it’s strange. I don’t think anyone can understand how I feel - I cannot describe it... it's a happiness that I can’t explain, how do I… like when you fall in love. Or me with my sound engineer all those years ago trying to explain the sounds that I had inside of my head…
Up until a few years ago I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer – as I said, I’m not technically schooled – I make music from the perspective of a DJ not a producer, it’s different. A sound engineer goes to school, they're taught how to use the machines. It’s a studied art, a science, a math. But I just go from my feelings and from my experience of playing music in a club. "I want to play a record that goes like this…" There are no rules and for sure I make mistakes but maybe these mistakes add different dimensions to the music. Otherwise I’d be doing the same as everyone else. I listen to everything, and then I do the opposite. I don’t mind being a DJ of the moment – I want to make music that’s in trend but then I want to make my take.
The 4-track EP doesn't represent the Perlon sound as we know it…
The idea was to make music that didn’t have anything to do with the Perlon sound. And this is why I made 22 tracks, so that he could choose. But I was hoping that he would take these 4 as they were my favourite (and he did). Why I like Perlon, because it’s always been its own trend; so I told myself that I’d try... but in my way. And that’s what Zip loves - that something different - which makes me even more grateful for this opportunity. It’s one thing to make a release because you’re a friend, it’s another because you've done something 'else'. Perhaps other labels would have never taken the tracks... but Zip did. I have so much admiration for him - he's an artist who never once gives the impression of his own importance, never the superstar or VIP. You know, at the mastering session I was so quiet, so serious and nervous... but he was so engaged. He kept telling me over and over that he was so happy. This is what makes it even more beautiful - when I look back on my journey, all the people who thought I had become a thing of the past, to hear Zip tell me these things, and have my name on the Perlon label... wow. I guess you just have to tell yourself that there's never a need to vindicate yourself in the hard moments, because when the good moment comes it just comes.
That’s my story, more or less.
