Ghiribizzi isn’t a normal band! That is for sure. After reviewing the amazing new cd, I thought it might have been a good idea to interview Mr. Centauri and Mr. Frodo. Here you find the answer.

Please introduce the band. Why did you choose such a strange name?

FC: Ghiribizzi means 'capricious' or 'often changing'. It refers to the surprising changes in our music and our diversity. It's a term used in classical music and can be used in daily life in every language. The band's line-up is Frank Centauri (lead vocals and keys), Yves Simmah (keys, programming and backing vocals), Pete Mush (vocals and keys), Little John (bass), Gino Bartolini (drums) and Dario Frodo (guitars and vocals).

DF: Frank choose the name, it sounded special and had an appropriate meaning.... it felt immediately as if that name was the one for us, since we have a diversity of musical knowledge and ideas in the band.

The title of the new cd is Pan'ta Rhei, quoting a famous ancient Greek philosopher. Why did you use it? Does it refer to life's fragility or to a musical style always on the move?

FC: Ghiribizzi changed constantly over the last few years, in line-up etc. so we thought this would be the appropriate title to come up with. And it was the logical continuation for Zep Tepi, our first cd.
If you want to know more about all this, please visit our website at www.ghiribizzi.com and visit the news/story area. There you can read the full story from 2000 'till now, month by month.
Pan'ta Rhei also refers to our music, in the same way Ghiribizzi does.

DF: as in the songs, the title is open to all perspectives of the human mind, which means that everybody can have his own opinion of what it means. I think it's very important that everyone can invent their own way of what it actually means, for us it reflects to the constant changes within the band and the music, but as you say, for someone else it could mean a change in his life or something else...

In the cd booklet you point out that the band doesn't like to be caged in a specific musical genre. Tell us about your musical influences: do you think the band succeeded in making not so easily recognizable (genre wise) music?

FC: Indeed, Ghiribizzi delivers not a specific genre and for most people isn't this easy to swallow. Most of the critics stamp us as prog rock. If they categorize us as prog rock, for me ok. I never intend to write a specific genre. Since I launched Ghiribizzi, people compared us with more than 70 bands/genres. Therefore I think I succeeded in making not so easily recognizable (genre wise) music.

DF: I never call our music prog rock, although there are of course definite influences in our music, from many progbands but also a lot of other bands, who don't belong in the progrock genre, I call ourselves a rockband with symphonic and theatrical influences, but I'm not angry with you if you situate us being a progband, that's fine by me. In fact, this is also a choice, like the song lyrics or the title "pan'ta rhei", everybody can make up their own mind on how they see us and where they can place us musically.

Why do you think that reading those introductory notes is so important before listening to the cd? Are you afraid that the listener would misunderstand your intention or do you want to take distance from the listed genres? And why?

FC: this one is for Dario, he wanted to print these notes in the booklet.

DF: first of all, I want to state that I don't want to be distanced from any genre, but the truth is that we are a very diverse band with six different personalities, as a person, a musician and as writers. This time a lot of the songs were written by Frank, who has already a broad taste musically and that reflects already in our music now, however on the next album there may be for example blues or reggae or jazz tunes, so if everyone puts us in the prog corner, what kind of devestating critics will we get then, considering we were ment to be a diverse band???

Is Frodo your real name? What's your attitude toward Tolkien? Did you avoid any reference to his works on purpose?

FC: /

DF: No, Frodo is not my real name. From the beginning we took another name for several reasons, first of all our names our rather difficult for foreign readers and reviewers, secondly if anything big should happen to the band (you never know), what would happen to our personal life if everyone knew our real names??? About my name Dario Frodo, I actually took it from my dogs, as I always was quite fond of Italian things (I really love you guys) I gave my dogs an Italian name, my Cane Corso Italieno [sic] is called Dario and my Pug is called Frodo, so if you put those two together.... It was only after that, that the first lord of the rings film was developed... So no Tolkien influence here...

I recognized British new prog as a significant component of Ghiribizzi's music. Do you agree with that?

FC: I'm just doing my thing. Like I said before, it's not my intension to write a specific genre. I know, you hear a lot of different styles in Ghiribizzi but they are always treated with that special Ghiri-sound and feeling, one by one.

DF: You're not the first reviewer that tells us, and as I told before we nourish our influences, there are certainly Brit-prog influences involved (much better than brit-pop I presume :-)) but there are also a lot of other things that can not be put in that corner...

What about the audience in Belgium: what was the response? Do you play live?

FC: Yes, of course we do live gigs. Most of the people thought we weren't able to perform this powerful music on stage. They were wrong.
Live gigs are important, but only if we are able to deliver a full blown show. This means stages of an adequate size are necessary. Ghiribizzi's sound is too impressive to perform at the local café.

DF: we love to play live, so if you ever need a band at the Arlequins festival (wouldn't that be a great idea?) we're happy to do you a favour and come over to play. With our three keyboardplayers we do need a lot of place (those guys are really over the top)! As we have a difficult audience in Belgium (most of them like techno or Schlagers) it's not always easy to perform at regular basis, but we are very happy that our fans have supported us from the beginning, and our fanbase is constantly growing, in Belgium and abroad!

Three members of the band take care of vocal parts. Why that?

FC: We are not alone. There are many other bands who share the same strategy as us.

DF: Many people ask us this question. For me, it adds to our idea of being diverse, and there's no way this is going to change in the future, unless some of us should quit the band.

What would be the direction of your music in the future?

FC: I really don't know. I think, Ghiri is one way, Centauri is the other.

DF: The new songs are musical wise between death metal, grindcore and trash. No, just kidding........... Who knows what the future brings, tomorrow you're here and the next you're gone... I hope to bring enjoyable music to the people, no matter what style they call it, no matter who writes it, who does what... music is so universal my friend.... so don't be affraid, just be open minded, if you are like that, you'll always love the Ghiribizzi tunes, no matter how diverse they are and will be in the future. But I can assure you this, you won't be disappointed when you hear the new songs!!! Thanks for giving us the oppurtunity to display our thoughts and our music at your magazine, thanks to people like you our music can spread a lot more easily!!!