Paolo Siani Genova - Nuova Idea & The Psycheground Group

Genova attending school at a very young age.

When and where were you born? What was growing up like for you? Are you originally from Genoa, Italy? When did you first begin playing music and what was it specifically about the drums that interested you? Was this something that was relevant in your household growing up?

I was born in Genoa on December 11th of 1949. My uncle Alessandro Siani was a double bass player in the Stokosky's Philadelphia Philarmonic Orchestra in the 50's (the one who played in Walt Disney's ''Fantasia'' movie) and often he sent many 78rpm records by ship to his brother (my father) in Italy so, as my parents had a home knitwear workshop, they put me in the crib near the radio - gramophone and played the records of American Big Bands and Italian operas in order to make me feel comfortable. When I was 3, or 4 my father bougth a little drum set and other toy tools so music was always by my side. When I was 12 my parents sent me to an accordion school for a couple of years till I started the High School. A few years later my class mates and me gone to a rehearsal room: one took an elecric guitar, another bass and a third one started to play piano so I try to sit at the drum and so started my adventure with that wonderful instrument. At the end of 60’s I enrolled at the ''Percussioni riunite'' course at 'Conservatorio Nicolò Paganini' di Genova directed by M° Torrebruno from La Scala theatre in Milan.

Live debut in public under the name of The Feudals circa: 1966.

Plep circa: 1970.

Who were some of your influences early on? Where would you go to see shows in your community and what groups/performances stood out to you the most during that time? What would you and your friends do for fun back in the day?

The so-called ''Swinging London'' in the mid-60s produced countless pop and rock bands: I played with my first little group The Beatles, The Rolling Stone, Yardbirds, Them, The Who and many others, but the ones I liked listening to the most were Traffic and Moody Blues. My first serious group was ''I Plep'' (acronym of Paolo, Luigi, Enrico e Paolo); we liked from the beginning not only play the songs, but arrange them and for this reason we discovered the symphonic rock of American ''Vanilla Fudge'' . They came to Italy to a musical Festival in Venice and their arrangement of 'Some Velvet Morning'' was a real bomb for us. We loved them (Carmine Appice and Tim Boggert above all) and we started to arrange track as Cream's 'We're Going Wrong' and others that we presented live and given the success throughout Italy, this way of playing turned us into a progressive group ''Nuova Idea''. We Might have been the first prog group in Italy; we made it onto live concert, tv, radio etc, and inevitably we became professional and apprecciated session-men in many studios.

Nuova Idea.

Prior to The Psycheground Group, you participated in the incredible group Nuova Idea. Can you tell me about this band and you initially formed? How did you meet your band mates and Gian Piero Reverberir? How did the name for the group come to be? Did you guys have an overall vision for the band when first starting out?

Our producer M° Gianfranco Reverberi opened his studio in Rome and he needed to try acoustics and all the equipment, so he called us to play. We simply played jam sessions, riff and rhythmic improvisations. Many years later Mr. Reverberi resumed those tapes and recordings, added melodies and published a record with name 'Psycheground group' which in fact never existed. 'The underground set' was the same thing. Plep & new name, Nuova Idea, were under exclusive contract with Ariston music label, so I imagine that this was the reason of the mysterious names of the groups. Also, we never had any contact, or revenue for the Underground set & Psycheground products. Strange, but true.

Third "version" of Nuova Idea circa: 1973.

You mentioned in our correspondence that “Psycheground was a fantasy name invented by the producer Gianfranco Reverberi in order to publish studio jam sessions of Nuova Idea (your prog rock group). Can you tell me a little more about that?

The pop songs of our two 45rpm records were not written from us: our first original track was the suite ''Come, Come, Come'' inspired by the Shakespeare novel of Macbeth. We had to participate in the first Pop Festival of Italy in Tuscany, so we thought to play only one track of 20 minutes. It was a big success in front of an audience of 20,000 people (a huge number for those years). At the same time we recorded a demo in a little studio on a 3 track tape recorder using scissors to cut and and paste the tapes. Unfortunately the Ariston music decided to use that demo to publish 'In The Beginning' without our authorization. (We were not stupid, but Ariston used pirate methods to release that LP).

Genova.

The group recorded some amazing LPs in the early 70s, with the more infamous release being the band’s debut. Can you tell me about writing as well as recording those songs that were featured on “In The Beginning”? What was the initial process and approach to the music? When and where did recording begin and how did the deal with Redcap Records come about?

We followed with normal recording and publishing ''Mr. E. Jones '' (1972) and ''Clowns'' (1973) after which the group disbanded. I became the drummer and producer of Ariston music in Milan andit was an interesting and profitable period for me from an artistic and economic point of view. I produced different albums with most famous italian pop groups like 'Equipe 84', 'Matia Bazar' and 'Opus Avantra' in addition to all most famous pop artists in Italy.

Nuava Idea in a Fiat ad.

After the record was finished what happened to the band? Did you continue to play drums and pursue music in general? You also mentioned in our correspondence that you didn’t know the album was released after all these years until fairly recently. Why do you think that was?

Then in 1974 I abandoned my career as a professional musician and I opened a commercial company and wrote music for the theatre, I also studied electronic music (Varese, Stockausen, Berio, Cage etc)
In 2009 decided to try to write Prog music again and in 2011 Black widow records published my first solo album 'Castles, wings, stories and wings' with the collaboration of many italian music friends. In 2012 was published the second one 'Faces with No Traces' in 2014 a Live DVD 'Live Anthology' and finally in 2019 the last one of the trilogy 'The leprechaun's pot of gold'.

Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

As of 2020 I'm writing 'The soundtrack of a never shot movie' and I hope to finish this work in the first half of 2023.