Claudio Simonetti (Goblin)

Though born and initially raised in Brazil, Claudio Simonetti is synonymous with Italian music. In the ’80s he was a pioneer of Italo disco and before that he composed soundtracks for Italian horror films such as Suspiria and Dawn Of The Dead together with his progressive rock band, Goblin. The son of Enrico Simonetti, he was born into a musical family and once spent 15 weeks at #1 in the Italian charts – only to be knocked off by his dad. At the 2004 Red Bull Music Academy, Simonetti tells us the story of a remarkable career.

Hosted by David Nerattini Transcript:

David Nerattini

Please welcome Mr. Claudio Simonetti. So you have to understand that, for us, Mr. Simonetti and the music he has done through the years – especially for us kids in their thirties – means horror music. We all grew up scared to death by some of the songs he composed. You may know some of the movies he made soundtracks for, [with] Dario Argento, the horror director – Suspiria, Deep Red, Phenomena, and even George Romero, Dawn of the Dead. Then in the ‘80s he was a main figure in Italo disco, responsible for the Capricorn band, which wasn’t really a band but was Simonetti himself in his home studio. But we’ll talk about all this later on. So, you were born in São Paulo, Brazil?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes, I was born in São Paulo, because my father worked there for 15 years, and I stayed there for 12. I have a lot of feeling for Brazilian music because I lived there for the first part of my life. For everybody, the first ten years are very important for your whole life. I have a mix between Brazilian culture and Italian because, of course, I am Italian. My father Enrico Simonetti was a very famous musician in Italy and also a TV entertainer, so I was lucky because I was born into a musical family. I started playing and studying piano when I was eight, in Brazil. But actually I didn’t like it very much, because I was very young and to study music is very hard, it’s very boring. I didn’t feel like playing for hours and hours. But after two or three years, at the end of the ‘60s, the era of pop music was arriving – The Beatles and Rolling Stones, then later Genesis and King Crimson, that’s my culture. I really enjoyed studying again, to study piano.

David Nerattini

So you studied at Santa Cecilia?

Claudio Simonetti

I studied composition and piano here in Rome, at Accademia di Santa Cecilia, but at the same time I played with rock bands in garages. It helped me learn how to use my classical background and put it in rock, because progressive rock and classical at the time was very similar. Most of the rock bands were coming from classical music – Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Yes, even Deep Purple. They have one album live with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. So that's my background.

David Nerattini

You formed your first band in ‘72, I guess?

Claudio Simonetti

My first band was called Ritratto Di Dorian Gray [Portrait Of Dorian Gray], because I’m a fan of Oscar Wilde. That was one of my favorite books.

David Nerattini

There was a time in the early ‘70s when we had so-called Italian pop, but it was really progressive rock, similar but quite different to what was coming out from the rest of Europe.

Claudio Simonetti

We had some famous groups like PFM and Banco. Goblin came a little later.

David Nerattini

So at the time you formed a band with your buddy Walter Martino, the son of another famous singer?

Claudio Simonetti

We were a band of second generations! We lived in London in 1974. After Ritratto Di Dorian Gray we formed a new band with Massimo Morante. I was doing military service at the time, in 1972. In this period we were writing songs in the studio for one year, and then we formed the early Goblin band, but under the name Oliver.

David Nerattini

Like Oliver Twist?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes. Then we lived in London for almost one year in 1974, we recorded a lot of demos and played a lot of concerts in England. Then we returned to Italy and had a contract with Cinevox Records, and they were the publishers of Dario Argento’s films. This was 1974, he was a very famous director at that time, he’d made some films like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. He was searching for a rock band to play in the film because he was a fan of rock. He’d contacted Deep Purple for the The Cat O’Nine Tails but they didn’t agree to do it, so out of necessity our producer lent him our music. And Dario Argento liked it so much, he decided to choose us for Profondo Rosso. We were only just in our twenties, we were very young. He was very brave because he was a very big director, so it was unusual to go with a young band. But he made a good decision because the album Profundo Rosso sold more than three million copies.

David Nerattini

This is the music that scared the kids quite a lot. It’s synonymous with horror.

Goblin – “Profundo Rosso”

(music: Goblin – “Profundo Rosso”)

So this track was on the Italian charts for 13 weeks?

Claudio Simonetti

For 15 weeks at the top. And one year in the top ten best-selling albums.

David Nerattini

And this is an instrumental track, so it was very strange.

Claudio Simonetti

For us it was a very weird and strange, because we never thought that this kind of music could reach the top of the charts in Italy, especially in this period, because they had very commercial pop music. When we went on television to play this, we were like a white fly, because everyone was typical Italian singers and bands and we were so strange.

David Nerattini

Then after 15 weeks you were knocked off the top by your father?

Claudio Simonetti

My father had recorded a soundtrack for a TV series called Gamma, a sci-fi story, and the main title theme was successful. After 15 weeks he knocked us off the top. But Goblin played the drums, bass, guitar and keyboards for my father on this record.

David Nerattini

This particular track has been sampled many times in Italy. When you hear it you immediately remember the TV movie or the song. It’s been sampled by [inaudible] and by another hip-hop artist from Italy called Kaos One. So, let’s listen to it.

Claudio Simonetti

It was the story of a brain surgery.

Enrico Simonetti – “Drug’s Theme” from Gamma

(music: Enrico Simonetti – “Drug’s Theme” from Gamma)

The church organ in the song was a real church organ, because we didn’t have plugins or electronic keyboards, so every time we needed an organ we went to the church. It had 15,000 pipes – very big. For every instrument, you had to play the real one – no samplers, nothing. I think it’s a little better, more creative, because you have to construct your sound by yourself, not using just what you can find easily now. Especially for Suspiria, we did a lot of research. This was 1975. I used the Hammond B-3, the Hohner Clavinet and the Minimoog. That’s it, no more keyboards. The Moog was the first big synthesizer in the history of keyboards. There were no computers, no MIDI. The first MIDI keyboard I had was a Yamaha DX-7 in the early ‘80s. The first time I saw a MIDI keyboard I said, “Why do you need to play two keyboards with the same one?” And that was the beginning of the next stage of technology, now we can’t live without it.

David Nerattini

The success of Profondo Rosso immediately made you a major player in the world of soundtracks.

Claudio Simonetti

With Goblin we played together for about three years or more. We did just two films with Dario [as Goblin], the others were with different members. We split in 1978 after Dawn Of The Dead. This was our last soundtrack, with George Romero.

David Nerattini

Suspiria was next, and this is the most famous Dario Argento movie outside of Italy.

Claudio Simonetti

Suspiria in Japan was so famous that Deep Red was known as Suspiria Part 2, even though they’re two completely different stories with different characters. Suspiria was very interesting because we worked for three months in the studio, using a lot of strange instruments like the Greek bouzouki, the Indian tabla and the Mellotron, a keyboard that uses pre-recorded tapes. It was an English keyboard you can hear in groups like Gentle Giant, Yes, King Crimson. Even The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” is the flute from the Mellotron. There is a very exceptional plugin that does it. The Mellotron uses tapes – every time you touch a key it plays this tape inside with a motor. You can play for eight seconds, no more, then at the end it starts again. To get the length of the sound, in the studio we started recording, then in the middle it starts again, so we get 15 seconds.

In Suspiria, it was Dario Argento’s first film about witches. He asked us to write the music so the audience always feels like the witches are there, even if they’re not on the screen. But the music should be... not scary, but always feeling like the witches are around them. I think Suspiria is Goblin's masterpiece.

Goblin – “Suspiria Theme”

(music: Goblin – “Suspiria Theme”)

David Nerattini

What was that synth we were listening to?

Claudio Simonetti

It’s a big Moog. We rented it because it was so expensive to buy. We also used a programmer because we didn’t know how to use it, it was so complicated with the [imitates changing wires]. Now you have the plugin of this one – you see it with the same knobs, but it’s very different to the real one. For example, to do the witches’ strange sound we used plastic glass in front of the mic like this [wobbles back and forth]. With echo you hear something that sounds like it comes from outer space, but it’s just special tricks in the studio. Now with samplers you have… but it’s not the same. It’s still better to create your own sound. Even now I use computers and plugins and keyboards, but if I have to create something I always look for something different.

David Nerattini

So Goblin ran from ‘75 to ‘78. The last soundtrack was Dawn Of The Dead, but you never met George Romero?

Claudio Simonetti

No, because he shot the film in America and they released it there with an American soundtrack. I don’t know if they used something made before or if someone wrote music especially for it. But Dario Argento was one of the writers and Alfredo Cuomo, together with Richard P. Rubenstein, who was the producer, decided to change the name to ZOMBI. Dario asked Goblin to re-do the soundtrack for the film. So the first time I saw the film with the original soundtrack it was a normal orchestra thing. Then we had a new release on film because they cut it, 20 minutes or more. The film was faster and better, and we changed the music. After that George Romero liked our music so much he decided to re-release it with Goblin’s music instead.

Goblin – “Dawn of the Dead Theme”

(music: Goblin – “Dawn of the Dead Theme”)

David Nerattini

So in ‘78 Goblin finished, and that was the time of disco music.

Claudio Simonetti

By the end of the ‘70s, progressive rock was finishing. And I don’t know what was happening because we arrive in the ‘80s with the disco era, Saturday Night Fever, Grease and many films with dancing, so we had an identity crisis. The bass player Mario start a new Goblin, but with different music, no more horror films. They did something very commercial. I met an Italian producer, Giancarlo Meo, and with him I started my career as a disco producer, just for a few years. My first album was Easy Going, which was also released in America. [David Nerattini holds up the sleeve, which shows two figures in a sexual position] You can find a sex manual inside. I’m joking.

David Nerattini

This sleeve was obviously a nod to the gay disco scene.

Claudio Simonetti

In 1971 there was a gay discotheque in Rome. It was gay but everyone went there, and Paolo Miccione was the DJ there. This was one of the pictures on the wall, and with Paul we decided to do one record with the kind of music this disco played. The discotheque was not like now, we used the orchestra, real instruments, drummer and guitar player, background singers. No samples, because in 1978 samples didn’t exist. This was the most popular track.

Easy Going – “Baby I Love You”

(music: Easy Going – “Baby I Love You”)

David Nerattini

This was one of the first examples of Italian disco. Was like selling out for you, coming from a rock background?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes. This is my Brazilian feeling. And we used a vocoder for the first time, a big expander, same as Herbie Hancock. I didn’t see it again, because it was the best one. In 1978 we were just at the beginning of Italian disco. There were the Fratelli sisters, La Bionda and [Mauro] Malavasi, just two or three arrangers making dance. Many producers told me, “You’re crazy, you can’t do dance in Italy. This typical of German or American music.” In Italy now, maybe 50% or 60% of the world’s dance music is produced here. If you go anywhere in Europe, many tracks you think are American are made in Italy – like the spaghetti western. We change names. This record was fun. Because we were Italian we changed all the musicians’ names to sound English, because no one would believe that Italians could make disco.

David Nerattini

You were telling me the drum track on the tune we just heard was a loop.

Claudio Simonetti

It was a handmade loop because we didn’t have the samplers. With Walter Martino we recorded the kick drum and hi-hat and cut the tape for two or three bars, then we did a loop and put it on the tape recorder with a microphone stand and did the loop for 15 minutes. It was fun because we used a lot of tricks. When I speak of these things I feel like a caveman, like Jurassic Park, but it’s just 20 years ago. 15 years ago nobody had a cellular phone, it’s all coming fast in just 15 years. When I started I just used a Moog and a Hammond, no other keyboards. It's just fun.

David Nerattini

But the first really successful Italian disco track in the States was Vivien Vee, “Give Me A Break.” Originally this record was in red vinyl.

Claudio Simonetti

Yes, red vinyl, this was the demo, the white label.

Vivien Vee – “Give Me A Break”

(music: Vivien Vee – “Give Me A Break”)

David Nerattini

So this was a hit in the States as well?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes, in 1979.

David Nerattini

And in the same year you did something quite unusual for you – playing on somebody else’s record, a Herbie Mann record.

Claudio Simonetti

He was a very famous jazz flute player. I was in New York to record with him in 1979. The producer of this record was a friend of mine, an Italian-American. I met him for the first time when I was in America to mix some of our productions and he called me in to play Moog synthesizers on Herbie Mann’s album. It was a very fast experience because I played for just two days. I arrived there and I just put my solos on. Actually I don’t have any special memory of that, I just talked with him for two days. But he asked me to do a tour with him and go play live concerts, and I was very upset to say no because I was very busy in Italy, but maybe it could have been a good experience to play with him in America.

David Nerattini

So let’s listen to…

Herbie Mann – “City of Dreams”

(music: Herbie Mann – “City of Dreams”)

Claudio Simonetti

At the time in the ‘70s many jazz players used to do these kinds of records. The producers called the famous jazz players, they would arrive in the studio and play flute on the arrangements that were made before. It’s just a commercial business.

David Nerattini

So we’re up to strictly ‘70s music with a lot of real instruments. From the ‘80s onwards, a lot of electronics started to come around, you started to work more with electronics. One of the first good Italian disco tracks, so once again a pioneer, was the Capricorn thing.

Claudio Simonetti

“I Need Love.”

David Nerattini

“I Need Love,” that was an influence on the Chicago and Detroit scenes, still played by DJs to this day all over the world. But Capricorn was just you?

Claudio Simonetti

It was a demo I made at home – real house music, music made at home [laughs]. I had an Akai 4-track and published it just as a demo. Here we have just the instrumental. They didn’t like my voice. I was singing just for fun, and I went to some New York discotheques and heard my voice. It was funny because it was just a demo, you know? It was maybe 1980.

Capricorn – “I Need Love”

(music: Capricorn – “I Need Love”)

David Nerattini

So this track was made just by yourself at home?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes, with keyboards – a Roland Jupiter-8, an E-mu Drumulator – and I played guitar and bass myself. There was also an album that was never released.

David Nerattini

The time is right [laughs]. You told me your favorite from your early disco era was...

Claudio Simonetti

The second album of Easy Going. I recorded this album in New York and I played with the orchestra in Philadelphia. I think this is the best album of that time and my favourite song is “Fear.”

Easy Going - “Fear”

(music: Easy Going - “Fear”)

David Nerattini

This was ‘79, so the first synthesizers were coming out. How was the transition from the Hammond organ, the analog thing, to a straight synthesizer sound?

Claudio Simonetti

I always liked technology. I bought my first Minimoog in 1972, so I had lots of synthesizers from the start. I’m very upset because I’ve sold many of them, but I’d like to have them again. I have a few vintage keyboards, I have the original Mellotron and the Minimoog, a Roland System 100, the first synthesizer with wheels. I have the Arp 2600 and PPG Wave 2.3. I have some of them. But now I try to keep all the keyboards I have, maybe in the next 20 years they will be appreciated more than now.

So I always like working with electronics. Even with Goblin, our last album wasn’t a soundtrack, it was Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark, mixing rock and electronics. I had Roland synthesizers and the sequencers. So the passage through genres wasn’t difficult because I always had the technology. In ‘82 I did Tenebrae, with two members of Goblin, because we couldn’t use the Goblin name. For the first time Goblin – even though it was a different name, it was three-quarters of Goblin – used electronic drums. We used a Linn 9000, the first famous drum machine because it was the first to have a sampler inside and a MIDI sequencer. It was a big machine, very heavy.

David Nerattini

Like the granddaddy of the Akai MPC60 that came like eight years later?

Claudio Simonetti

All the ‘80s sounds were made on the Linn 2000 and 9000. We recorded the soundtrack of Tenebrae mixing electronics and rock, and we used a vocoder.

Anyhow, now I have a new band called Daemonia. We play new arrangements of old Dario Argento stuff. We recorded it two years ago live with a big symphonic orchestra in Sienna, Tuscany. We did a remix of all the most famous Dario Argento soundtracks, not just mine but also Ennio Morricone’s, Keith Emerson’s, plus two of my favourite songs, which are [the theme from] Halloween by John Carpenter – who says he was inspired by Deep Red – which we mix with “Tubular Bells” from The Exorcist, by Mike Oldfield.

David Nerattini

What were your influences when it came to composing soundtracks?

Claudio Simonetti

We started just playing our music, we weren’t influenced by anyone. Goblin has its own style and many composers imitated us. For instance, John Carpenter made Halloween in 1979 and we made Profondo Rosso four years earlier. But he says he was inspired by our music. I like a lot of American musicians but we had our own style. Of course we were influenced by rock bands of the ‘70s, like Genesis, but I think with Suspiria we found our own style.

(music: Simonetti, Pignatelli & Morante – Unknown music from Tenebrae score)

In Italy in December there will be a special DVD box set of Dawn Of The Dead by George Romero. It will include a documentary and interview with George Romero, audio commentary, the Italian version in 5.1 sound with restored negatives. And there will be a fifth disc, a CD with the entire score completely re-played by me and Daemonia. The same Goblin soundtrack but remade by us.

David Nerattini

You never use your own name in your records. You used it just a couple of times, one of which was “I Love The Piano,” which did well in the States and was released by Salsoul. How did that happen?

Claudio Simonetti

There are two versions, one is by Kasso and one is my version, which was the main track for an important TV show in Italy. One of the main writers of Italian television had their 30th birthday and we had a big show and I wrote it with the orchestra and the piano. They liked it also in the States, Salsoul is a big disco label.

David Nerattini

In the late ‘80s you started to look back.

Claudio Simonetti

I went back to making movies, and in 1984 I started making soundtracks for Argento. In 1984, Phenomena, then 1985, Demoni, then Opera. I started working again with Dario, not with Goblin but just by myself. And I started doing music for Italian TV shows. Later in the ‘90s I started again with my rock band, not rock & roll but gothic, progressive rock. And after that I made two albums, Simonetti Horror Project I & II, I don’t have them here. Then I started playing with bands again. And in 1999 I formed Daemonia because I wanted to be on the road again, like in the ‘70s when I was doing Goblin. So we started doing the Goblin stuff in our style, re-arranging it, but now we’re doing our third album with completely new songs.

We play as Daemonia in many places – we did two concerts in America, we play in France and in Japan, where we had a live album, Live In Japan. Because Dario is very famous and Goblin didn’t exist, we had a small reunion in 2000 for Sleepless, not the last, but one of them. That’s the last film of Dario’s I made a soundtrack for. It was released this year in January and on this album it’s completely electronic, everything, because Dario made a film about a serial killer who kills by internet with a webcam. So Dario told me he wanted the music to be completely electronic, so that’s what I did. It was very fun because it was a return to the ‘80s when I was listening to Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream. So we heard a lot of old and contemporary electronic music. I like this album because it’s something different in my career.

David Nerattini

Of the new electronic music coming out in the last five or six years, is there anything you like?

Claudio Simonetti

Yes, of course. Aphex Twin, Squarepusher… [talks in Italian]. Anyway, this is the title track from The Card Player.

Claudio Simonetti – “The Card Player Theme”

(music: Claudio Simonetti – “The Card Player Theme”)

David Nerattini

So we’ve gone from ‘72 to 2004. Any questions?

Audience Member

When I heard Daemonia it reminded me of Fantômas, the band from America with Mike Patton and Dave Lombardo.

Claudio Simonetti

They do crazy music.

Audience Member

But on the second album they also do horror scores, and I wanted to ask if you know them? And my real question is, when you’re working with Dario Argento how do you prepare? Do you meet with Dario and see the script or do you see the set where it will be filmed?

Claudio Simonetti

Dario always tells me he wants this kind of music, we’ll listen to some records and he’ll show me. Then after that he leaves me free to do what I like. I was lucky because Dario is a good friend, too, so he listens to my ideas. Of course, if he doesn’t like it he says so. For Suspiria I read the script beforehand and we tried to play some songs to use on the set to help the actors. But when you read a script it’s not the same as the finished film, just as when you read a book it’s different to going to the cinema and seeing the film. Everyone has their own impression. We tried to record the music but we didn’t use it, because when we saw the film it was completely different to what our thoughts were, so we went and re-recorded the music.

After that I’ve always worked this way, watching the film then writing the music. Just for the last one, The Card Player, I started working on the music while he was shooting, because Dario was filming in Rome and I saw the mood and understood immediately what he wanted. So I went into the studio and started writing the music and then later I let him listen to it to see if he liked it. But this is unusual. Normally I still work on the music later.

Audience Member

We’ve heard some tracks from the beginnings of Italian disco and they were nice tracks. But when you say Italian disco to people they think it’s really awful, a rude word for some very bad music. Why do you think it got such a bad reputation?

Claudio Simonetti

Now in a disco, I hear the new songs, they use the same arrangements we used in the ‘70s, for example Alcazar, and bands like that, they use a disco sound. I think Italian dance music was greatly appreciated. Even now we’re some of the main producers of dance music in the world. [Talks in Italian] Because we had so many good productions of Italian producers recording with American singers, American players, most of them are very famous but no one knows it was Italian productions. Like I said before, it’s like spaghetti westerns.

Audience Member

In the ‘80s there was lots of really crap music called Italo disco. but it sounded completely different from what you were making.

Claudio Simonetti

Of course, you get much ugly music. It’s like every country, there’s good music and bad music. We have groups like Eiffel 65, they sold 12 million copies all over the world. They're from Torino.

Audience Member

What do you think of Giorgio Moroder and has he influenced you in any way?

Claudio Simonetti

Giorgio Moroder is the master of Italian dance. He made one of Donna Summer’s best songs, “I Feel Love.” He’s Italian, but he’s from northern Italy so he’s almost German, so he recorded his records in Munich.

Audience Member

I was under the impression he was German.

Claudio Simonetti

No, he was Italian and he was a real genius. He also won two or three Oscars for soundtracks. He wrote Top Gun and another soundtrack… [talks Italian] Midnight Express. I don’t know what happened to him, he disappeared, maybe too much money, he doesn’t need to write any more music. But he was the first very well-known Italian dance producer in the world, but he started in Germany.

Audience Member

I asked because his music influenced me, just in its danceability and also its complexity.

Audience Member

Who was Vivien Vee? Where did you meet her, was she American?

Claudio Simonetti

I met her the first time when she was an Italian-American model in Rome, she was a very good singer, too. And with Giancarolo Meo, we decided to produce her. So I wrote the songs for the album, but when we went to the studio she’d disappeared, because she was doing some modelling somewhere. She’d taken the plane and disappeared, we didn’t know what happened to her. We had booked the studio, so Giancarlo [asked] his girlfriend, she was 18 years old, very nice. And she said, “I can sing,” because she liked singing. I did two demos with her in my studio, and then afterwards we recorded Vivien Vee. The funny thing is, she didn’t know any English, she’d never studied English before, she didn’t know any words of English. She had to be helped in the studio with an American girl, and we taught her how to sing. And it was fun because she had very big success in the States and when we went there in 1979, ‘80, I was with her for TV shows and everyone wanted her autograph and I had to say, “No, no no,” because she didn’t speak English. We didn’t want to let people know she was Italian, they thought she was American. We built an untouchable singer, no one can speak to her [laughs] because, of course, she can’t speak at all. And then she became very popular on TV in Italy because she worked with Pippo Baudo, then the most famous television host. She was on TV for a few years and then she married and finished her singing career.

Audience Member

Some of the effects you used to record her voice were brilliant.

Claudio Simonetti

The accent is strange, but it works.

Audience member

I wanted to ask you about “Fear” because it reminds me of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” but it was two or three years before. Did you have any problems with the fact that he took your melody?

David Nerattini

You could have sued!

Claudio Simonetti

Do you have Michael Jackson’s phone number? [Joking] No, I never knew this.

David Nerattini

He’s a bit of a tease.

Claudio Simonetti

Many of his songs, for example “Bad” – it’s the melody of Ghostbusters, it’s the same. [Talks in Italian]

David Nerattini

Famously in Italy there was a trial between Michael Jackson and Al Bano, a popular folk singer. There is an Al Bano song that is exactly the same as “Will You Be There” by Michael Jackson. He sued Michael Jackson but then they discovered they both copied another track.

Claudio Simonetti

The judge declared they had both copied from another one. One of the most famous cases in the world was “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison.

David Nerattini

It’s the same song as “She’s So Fine” by The Chiffons, a vocal group from the ‘60s.

Claudio Simonetti

But anyway, of course when you write songs it could happen that you copy something, but you don’t mind, it can happen. After, when you finish, you realise this is a copy of someone.

Audience member

What’s your favorite horror movie?

Claudio Simonetti

There are many. My favorite… let me think. Of course I like Hitchcock, Psycho – it’s not a horror movie but it’s one of my favorites. Also Brian de Palma, John Carpenter, of course Argento. When I was a kid I always loved horror films, like Hammer Horror – Dracula with Christopher Lee. So I always had a good feeling between me and horror movies. The Exorcist – if you see it now you may laugh, but at the time it was a very scary film.

Audience member

What’s your favorite soundtrack?

Claudio Simonetti

Maybe Psycho by Bernard Herrmann is one of the best. But I like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams.

Audience member

What about soundtrack made as compilations?

Claudio Simonetti

Actually I don't like soundtracks made of compilations of many songs. If I want to go buy the soundtrack of Spiderman it’s very hard to find the original soundtrack, you find just the compilation of rock bands that you hear in the film for a few seconds. This is a commercial to sell soundtracks. I like some films where bands wrote music especially for the film. [Talks in Italian] Pink Floyd wrote some very good music for Antonioni. I like, for example, Evanescence, I don’t know if they wrote music for a movie but they are one of the most interesting new bands – very gothic, even if they are pop music. And Linkin Park and Nickelback – it’s good to hear that in a film, just for the end titles.

David Nerattini

You said tomorrow you’re playing in Bolzano.

Claudio Simonetti

Tomorrow I’ll be in Bolzano at the Eurac Auditorium because two years ago I started to composed the music F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent movie, Nosferatu. [Applause] Thank you! It’s my favourite film even if it’s very old. I wrote the soundtrack for this film, I presented it in Paris two years ago for the first time, and tomorrow for the first time in Italy I will play live during the screening of the film in Bolzano. It’s very unusual for me to play one hour and 40 minutes live, it’s nice. I hope to release it on DVD soon. I’ll send you the first copies.

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