Paul Mazzolini is 'Gazebo'

Paul Mazzolini is an Italian musician. He has a legend status among the fans of the "italo-disco" music style, a variation of 1980s eurodance, also known as eurodisco.

He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of an Italian diplomat and an American singer. He learned to play the guitar at aged 10 to impress a German girl in his class.

As a rather cosmopolitan teenager Mazzolini began a career in a variety of jazz, rock and punk bands before meeting Rome based producer Paul Micioni. The first release, Masterpiece, was a minor hit in 1982.

He made chart history with his 1983 release "I like Chopin", popular opinion notwithstanding, the piano motif herein is not a Chopin composition. The release sold 10 millions copies worldwide and reached #1 of Italian charts along with 15 other countries.

The follow-up song "Lunatic" and the eponymous album also entered the Top 20 across Europe. Since then Mazzolini has released more albums, not counting the occasional hit compilation with all his best track called Portrait & Viewpoint. In autumn 2006 he released a new single called "Tears for Galileo", which achieved constant radio airplay on Italian RAI Radio2 and peaked at #1 in the Euro dance chart.

Gazebo found his own record label, Softworks, in 2006 and relaesed his latest CD '...the syndrone' in 2008.

My good friend Kate Rossi Stewert hooked Paul and me up while he visited Los Angeles for a concert and some vacation time with his daughter Eva. We met at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood which didn't open for business for a few more days so they sent us on the subway to the Hard Rock Cafe in Univeral City. It's just one stop away we were told. Well that is true if you know what you are doing. We ended up going the wrong direction everytime resulting in about 45 minutes of waiting around for trains! Everyone was on a time schedule so we decided to do the interview underground waiting for our trains. I snapped the photos while we waited for a tram to take us up the hill to Universal City! Sometimes it's just a lot of fun! Paul and Eva were both delightful in every way.

 all photos: Alan Mercer

AM: So you visit the United States about once every ten years. How did your performance go?

PM: It was great. I had a lot of people who are involved in my kind of music so it was alright.

AM: Speaking of that your newest CD, '....the syndrone' is so good! How did that come together?

PM: '...the syndrone' is my latest album and it's quite different from my earlier work. I think a musician has to develop. By the time I was making my third album back in the eighties people were copying my first album. I was trying to get away from that style of music. All my albums are very different.

AM: Yes I noticed that. I've heard all of them and you have a certain individual style that remains no matter what the music is.

PM: That's my main goal actually when I make a production. I think an album is an image of you in that period of your life. I take it very seriously. I don't think an album is something you make just to sell to people for money. Money is not the issue there. That's how I've always made my music and maybe that came out. Maybe that's why some of it has been successful. I have the same way of approaching songwriting and singing. It's always been about the pure love of music. I've always had an interest in production and arranging.

AM: Do you produce other artists as well?

PM: Yeah, but very few. I live in a country where music has been destroyed by piracy in the last few years.

AM: That is so unfortunate.

PM: It's a very strange situation for us musicians. Many of us have had to get other jobs. It's not like the United States where the market is so big you can find different opportunities. Italy is very small and when the market has been killed there isn't much to do.

AM: But not for you right?

PM: I'm quite lucky because I had a lot of hits in the 80's. I have songs that are considered evergreens and they play all the time on the radio. I survive because I have a lot of copyrights from that.

AM: Are you a different artist now?

PM: That's how I approached '...the syndrone.' I wanted to make an album that reflected the fact that I am a fifty year old man. I did not want to compromise.

AM: What did you do differently this time?

PM: I called in the people that I really wanted. People that were my myths when I was small. Not the top notch at this time, just people that I really liked all my life. I dreamed of calling them and they turned out to be really perfect and in sync with what I was doing. This album reflects what I am doing right now. There is a bit of 80's in it of course. There is a 70's band sound behind it as well. There are actually people playing instruments. It might seem strange but people think if you have a band of course you're going to play an instrument, but my career started off with electronics. People are not used to identifying my sound without synthesizers. I've always tried through out the years to put different instruments and drift away a bit from the keyboards.

AM: I guess the keyboard is so closely associated with your big hit, 'I Like Chopin.'

PM: I'm very happy with the album. I like it and I know the people who listen to it like it. It's not on top of the charts or selling millions of copies but it has a lot of heart.

AM: CD's have a longer shelf life now with downloads.

PM: Exactly, people can approach it at any time and appreciate it at any time.

AM: Have you always recorded in English?

PM: Yes

AM: Italian isn't as popular in recording is it?

PM: No. I was brought up in American schools because my father was a diplomat so the first songs I learned on the guitar were songs by Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel. This is my world. I've never associated singing and music with another language. Being an Italian that is very weird. I've been asked many times to sing in Italian but I always say this is how I express myself. It wouldn't be me if I sang in Italian.

AM: Don't a lot of Italian singers sing in Spanish?

PM: Yes many do. It's a much bigger market.

AM: Do you speak Spanish?

PM: Yes of course. I speak six languages. In a certain way I don't consider it a foreign language because it's like cheating a bit. It's so similar to Italian. Many of my songs were really big hits in Spain and South America. There's no need for me to sing in Spanish either.

AM: Do you have an area of the world were you are more popular?

PM: Basically Central Europe, Italy, France, Germany, Austria and Scandinavia, but also Asia including Japan. The great thing about this trip is I discovered I have a great number of fans in the Vietnamese community. There are a lot of them in Southern California.

AM: Maybe you can come back to the States more often now.

PM: We were talking about that. There is a lot of demand and there's also a lot of fans in the Eastern countries like Poland and Russia. There's a lot of Polish and Russian people in the States. Who knows, maybe I will be able to come back for these various communities.

AM: That would be wonderful to have you here more often. Would you enjoy that?

PM: Oh I would love it! It would be great!

AM: Are you still hungry to create new music?

PM: Oh yeah. I write everyday.

AM: Did you write your big hits?

PM: I wrote all of them as far as the lyrics go. I wrote a good amount as well as the music too.

AM: Have you stopped performing at any time?

PM: I did actually give myself a break between the second to last album which was released in 1991 and '...the syndrone' which was released three years ago. I skipped the 90's.

AM: What did you do during that time?

PM: Basically I produced. I have my own studio and I worked with other artists and leased out my studio. I spent time with my family. I have two kids so I did those things. I have a boy named Gabriel who is 21 and Eva who is 16.

AM: Do you all live in Rome?

PM: Gabriel lives in France because he is studying Political Science. He going to college in France.

AM: Does Eva know what she wants to do with her life yet?

PM: She likes architecture so I think she's going to get into that.

AM: No more musicians or artists?

PM: They both are but I told them to get a degree in something normal and established first.

AM: Were your parents supportive of you being a musician?

PM: Yes, my father was very busy and didn't mind anything. My mother helped me a lot. She was a singer when she was young. She was the first one to buy instruments. When she saw that I was into the guitar she bought one right away.

AM: Do you have a philosophy you live by?

PM: My philosophy is basically summing up what I said before. Be sincere and give priority to the things that are important like your family. At the end of your life that is what's important. Try to be as clean as you can with your projects. Try not to be influenced by things that are not important. These things can be tough. Many times if you don't allow yourself to be compromised you will lose some income or contacts with people. It's not the easiest way out.

AM: What is your secret to happiness?

PM: I like to wake up in the morning knowing that I don't owe anything to anybody. I like knowing that nobody can hate me for any reason at all. I like to wake up with a smile. I don't understand people who live with so much stress just for money. Money is something you can have one day and not have on another day. You can rebuild your life every time. That's something I learned in my teenage years. I used to travel a lot with my guitar and sleep in train stations on the floor. The idea is you can come out of the station and build your life anyway. The sun is out and nothing tragic is going to happen if you know what you're doing. Of course I don't smoke or drink, and I don't take drugs.

AM: You never have done any of these things?

PM: Well being an Italian I cannot 'not drink' some wine once in a while. I don't like to be conditioned by external factors. I don't like things that alter my chemistry. The day after you drink you are not yourself anymore. I hate not to be in control. I like the idea of making music during the daytime. The stereotype image of people having to be drunk at four o'clock in the morning in the studio is something I don't understand. It doesn't make sense to me.

AM: Did you start off with this attitude even as a teenager?

PM: Absolutely my idea of life was that I was going to be a diplomat maybe. I never thought I'd make music. For me it was something that came from above. Getting back to me not singing in Italian. When I made my first song, 'Masterpiece' all the producers I shopped it to asked why wasn't it in Italian? I said, "This is not Italian music." This was the first time I was quite stubborn and clear minded about what I really wanted to do. It was either that or nothing. If it would have been nothing, too bad, who cares, life goes on. You don't have to compromise at any cost. That's the way I see it. Of course everybody's different. People have different approaches and different goals in their lives but that's the way I see it.

 To learn more about Paul and his music please visit his web site http://www.gazebo.info/