"I believe that writing about myself is not very correct, honestly I would have preferred that someone else would have done it".
But I also believe that its right, and hope interesting, to entertain all the people that hunt for Eiffel 6, all of those that live our music with passion and of you reading now that will believe, thanks to a real story, a dream can come true.My name is Maurizio Lobina, nick Name Maurizio Lobina, born in Asti on the 29th of October 1973.
A nice sunny day in the year 1978 my mother asked me if I would be interested in attending piano lessons. The faster ones probably understood that I was five at that time and how can a five year old kid understand if he wants to attend Classic piano lessons? The only thing I can say is that I decided to do it cause I dreamed of becoming some kind of Bruno Martelli, the piano player of Fame.
I was almost 10 when I first played the piano in front of a crowd, playing 2 classic songs Per Elisa by Beethoven and one of his greatest songs Adagio al Chiaro di luna
After 9 years of playing Classic piano songs, Waltzes and Minuets, I got a little tired of it all even because I had a great hype for Pop, Disco and Dance music of the time. Weird enough to believe, these new tunes made those classic artists look dull and grey, but unfortunately no one at that age has the proper maturity to understand what those geniuses (its the only word that can get close enough to describe what I think of those artists) created. So there I go leaving my Classic Piano studies and off to playing something written by someone that wasnt dead for more than 20 years....
During my first years of Hi school my hobby kept swinging for Classic music to Contemporary music. After a few Jazz and Blues lessons I started playing with some of the bands of my town.
My fist experience in a band was a pure disaster! Thanks to my Classic piano lessons I was technically able to play anything but only if written on a music sheet.In other words if you would close the music sheets the piano would turn into a construction of wood made by a pop art sculptor.
Not everybody knows that the most common way of bands to get started is to play Covers of other artists (obviously) using those little books bought in a music shop as a reference where you would find the chords and the lyrics written on top. Talking about Chords who in the world had ever heard this word before in 9 years of classic piano studies? Surely not me!
After 2 months of reconsiderations, I was contacted by a band that played a couple of times a week in a garage put up to look like a studio and theres where I started having fun. The name of the band was Vitanova and we started off playing U2, Simple Minds, Police covers and we ended up with Rhythm and Blues and Italian melodic rock. In the meanwhile we wrote a few songs and two of them got us to be winners of different music festivals and got us on a couple of important TV shows. The record was printed although in a very limited number of copies.
But the turn around popped up right after my graduation and slightly before departure for the army. From the age of 14 and thanks to my Dance music passion, Ive been in and out of thousands of Discos, more or less 3 times a week.
Thats how in summer 1992, roaming around discos I got to meet a DJ called Roberto Molinaro (Today one of my best friends and partner and also co-composer of MOVE YOUR BODY). Well it took him about two months to convince to go and visit the studio he was working in at the time and he introduced me to the producer that founded it Massimo Gabutti that I consider a teacher in my life, one of the biggest producers that I know and absolutely a person that has changed my life.
So I abandoned all the jobs I had to make ends meet and I was totally captured by an irresistible passion for this small half built studio that pulled me there every day looking for the chance to get my hands on a Dance track produced by me. Right after that A Sicilian Singer called Gianfranco Randone moved in to pursue the same dream that we all had. And many other like a young DJ called Gabriele Ponte, which was growing in the discos of his town as a DJ. If you didnt catch the hint, the two guys just mentioned are Jeffrey and Gabry, that I now share the incredible adventures of a band called Eiffel 65 after many years of work together.
So thats a brief story of how the Bliss co. Company got started that more than being just a record company is some sort of launching pad for young artists. After producing a large amount of records with good results (that wont mention to not waist time) at the beginning of the 90s we ran into our first Down, this means that things work out pretty bad and the economical situations drop. Important to say is that you need times like this to evaluate a real artist. Most of all because when you ride the wave again you realize that you have grown and are stronger than before.
One evening like another we were in one of our studios in Turin. It was 18,30 and we were about to leave when we willing paid more attention to a melody that we were dragging around for a while. In one hour BLUE was written and sang and 15 days later in all store in the Vinyl format.
We were definitely not expecting the amount of success it had. We thought it would have ended up like many other tracks that die in a music store without any glory but we were surely proud of what we did cause it came thanks to the theory Lets do it the way we like it inspired only by ourselves!. After two months, thank to radio back up, the engine was on. Eiffel 65 had become a wonder to fight over for all the record labels and from the moment that it hit a market it was sure to smash it way out of sight. We couldnt believe that this could ever happen to an Italian artist that most of all produces Dance music, but even more surprising was the fact that we were living that dream.At that time we had already worked for years in our studios conquering the entire Italian market with some of our bands of the time but nothing really comparable to what weve seen in the past two years.
The Eiffel 65 name comes from a computer program that helps us pick names and 65 comes from an transcription error due to two digits of a phone number that accidentally ended up on the label copy. (Label copy is the sheet where all the record info is written).
In no time at all we were taking 500 airplanes a year, doing 400 concerts and over 200 promos all around the world.
Thanks to all of this and most of all to what weve learned watching other artists play weve gradually improved our live shows that has to obviously be considered an Electronic band live show that plays Dance music and that provides not only a front man (Jeffrey Jey) but also a keyboard player (Maurizio Lobina) and a DJ (Gabriele Ponte). During the live sow there are a few surprises cut to fit the crowd so that they are the real show, that we consider the one and only real judge of it all.
Well folks I think its about time to say bye bye and I must say that Im happy of how Ive lived my life and I wouldnt change a thing. And if this is the story weve told you till now I cant wait for you to write the future, to know how the story goes..!!!
Big Hug and see you all
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