We have the pleasure to interview in this article an Italian-Venezuelan artist of the Prog scene, Leo Carnicella. With his new album “Super Sargasso Sea,” featuring many top artists.
Hi Leo, how are you?
I’m happy and healthy, which is very important in these still strange times. I hope you and yours are doing well too
Where does your passion for prog music and keyboards come from?
My passion for keyboards came first, I was a little kid living in an apartmment with my parents and my big brother in Caracas, Venezuela. We had a lot instruments at home, which I never understood, because nobody at home could play a note. From all those instruments there was a tiny electronic organ where I spent a lots of hours just making noises, then one day, a friend of the family, which used to play organ in an evangelic church, came to visit us and told me during one of my abstract sessions “Hey, why don’t you play something that everyone can sing?” I think my answer was. “How can I accomplish such a feat?” she sat next to me, and began to teach me the basics about the notes, how to get them, how to put them together and he started to show me the way to play some Christmas melodies, which at the end we did
together. From that day on, I doubled the time I spent on the organ trying to play other songs that I liked. On the other hand, my love for Rock came from our neighbor’s house. His son was a year older than me, and at some point he received two LPs from Queen “A day at the races” and “A night at the Opera”, which he played at full volume to exhaustion, but he used to always play “Somebody to love” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, so one day I asked him to tape me one of those full albums so I could hear the rest. He gave me a tape with “A night at the opera”, and listening to “You are my best Friend” I was fascinated with the sound, the vocal works, the melody. I felt a call from that day. After a while, on the recommendation of an adult, I bought the albums “In the Court of the Crimson King” and “In the wake of poseidon”, I remember that I did not like the first one, but the Mellotron arrangements of the second one, shook me in deepest, and from that day I became a King Crimson fan, and I started to follow even all the works of the musicians who played on those albums, so I met bands like ELP, YES, Genesis and Camel thanks to King Crimson
The album “Super Sargasso Sea,” was released on September 22. How would you describe this work?
I consider it a very deep work with very intense moments without being strident, with a halo of some kind of “misty nostalgia”
The themes of your album are very sophisticated, what are the lyrics of this work about?
I tried to express through the lyrics, in a certain way, the different dimensions of loss in each human being, not only death as the loss of a loved one, but also the loss of trust in the system, the loss of the natural balance in our lives , and the most personal part of the album, to get lost in other states of consciousness through a substance called Dimethyltryptamine. Such subject, connected me with the death of my father in 2020
The sounds are also very sophisticated, how would you describe the music on the album?
Musically speaking, It’s an album that combines elements of Progressive and Symphonic Rock in the classical way, with some nuances of pop and even classical music and new age. I have never liked labels for music, I think they are only necessary to improve the marketing and the way to sell it better. Basically, it brings together my musical tastes in compositions that are aimed at a wide audience.
You collaborated with some guests on the project, how is the creative process and how do these artists contribute?
Well, as many people can guess we work the entire album remotly. We are all in different countries, nevertheless that formula has been working fine for me with these musicians. All the main concept of each song and also the lyrics are mine, I start writing the base melody and keyboards arrangements, then I work with Vincet Velazco on the drum parts, sometimes I give him some minor indications and other times I give him full freedom to develope the drum parts as he wish, then I do the same with Tony Franklin. Before the guitar sessions, I use to record some reference vocals and then when the whole instrumentation is ready I record the final Voice tracks. For the mixing process I tried to create a Pre-Mix to give some orientation to Stav (Mike Stavrou) about how I want the end result.
Many Prog fans will wonder if there will be a chance to hear your music live, or is the project only in the studio?
This is a question I’m starting to hear more often. As we are not a band “per se”, there is no team behind that can take care of certain issues, there is no crew, there is no manager. As you can imagine, Touring always involve much more complex preparation and logistics than studio work. I have talked about it with the main musicians, Tony Franklin and Vincent Velazco, both would be willing to tour, but an interesting proposal would be needed that deserves everyone’s planning and mobilization. At the moment there are no plans for it, but I don’t know what the future may bring, I just know that if it happens I will make it a worthwhile show.
This record contains many quality ideas, are there any new studio projects in the pipeline?
Although I am not 100% dedicated to music (not as a main profession), my mind is always on the quest to create structures, riffs, melodies and sound passages that are worth exploiting. Regarding the theme, I don’t like to focus my songs on something as common as love, relationships and things like that. I prefer to focus on topics framed in a deeper philosophical context and that allow to develop something that gets into people’s feelings, anguishes, hopes, dreams and fears. I have a couple of ideas in mind, and I think I’ll start working on them with Vincent Velazco by the end of this year, if something interesting comes out I’ll slowly start working on a new album.
What advice would you give to young artists who decide to pursue more sophisticated sounds like Prog?
A musician, a composer must do the things that he is passionate about, in the way that his mind and heart dictate. No one has the formula for writing million dollar hits, you can only do it by trying over and over again. The most beautiful thing about composing a musical piece, is that you can create from nothing, a melody, a structure, a lyric that can change the mood of many people, that can make them laugh, cry, feel angry or even change someone’s life. I think that the most important thing when composing a track and then producing it, is the desire to evoke some kind of feeling in people, and not the fact of doing it so that it has millions of reproductions on the platforms, that is not the idea of music , is the idea of the business, and music is obviously linked to a business, but the creative process should never be
How do you see this genre, which seems niche but has its many followers, in the future?
I’ve had the opportunity to listen to some bands not very mentioned, mostly reproduced in Progressive Rock podcasts, who have been interested in what I do and have supported me. There are people doing wonderful things, there are compositions that bring back the sound of the golden age of the genre (which I also try to do in my compositions sometimes). So when I hear such good material from people who are contemporary with me or even younger than me, I can only laugh to realize how wrong some people are that they think this genre is dead.
The last question, as usual, I leave it free to give you the opportunity to address any topic you like.
All this, about the musical genre, call it Symphonic Rock, Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Space Rock, psychedelic Rock. It is something that people should not take into consideration so much, I think that the best way to enjoy music is to listen to it and then decide if we like it or not. Some consider my work progressive, others symphonic, others a mix of things. I can only refer to it as the music that is born from my influences and that I produce with a lot of love and delicacy for each one of you, hoping you enjoy it.
I thank Leo for the interesting interview and wish him all the best for his artistic career.
I thank Leo for the interesting interview and wish him all the best for his artistic career.
Read our review of his album “Super sargasso Sea” here: https://progrockjournal.com/review-leo-carnicella-super-sargasso-sea/