When I walk in to the house and hear music, I know youre there because you are made of music. Your mother, like her mother before her, was made of jazz. And for my father, I was all about theatre and writing. Your mother is still jazz, I am still a pen: I hope that every day you will remain music. These are the words of Alberto Silvestri, the day of his son Danieles eighteenth birthday.
Danieles growth as an artist began in a cover band inspired by Duran Duran. He bought himself a keyboard instead of a much sought-after scooter he had been eyeing up and at 20 went Inter-railing around Europe. In 1994, he released his debut album, simply entitled Daniele Silvestri. The album earned him the Premio Tenco for best debut of the year. He also topped a poll among readers of Musica & Dischi magazine, again for best debut, and took part in Sanremo Giovani (the branch of the Sanremo Festival reserved for emerging artists) with the song Voglia di gridare, which got him as far as the stage of the Teatro Ariston.
He was again part of the Giovani section of the Sanremo Festival in 1995 with Luomo col megafono, which he sang seated on a stool and holding up a series of coloured cards featuring the songs key lyrics. As often happens at Sanremo, the artist ranked lowest went on to have major success: his talent was immediately recognised by a jury of songwriters who awarded him the Premio Volare, the prize for the song with the best lyrics, for Luomo col megafono. His second album, "Prima di essere un uomo", won him the disco doro and was ranked by Musica & Dischi among the top ten albums of 1995. The summer single Le cose in comune was one of the most played on the radio and earned him the Premio Tenco for best song of the year. Luomo col megafono came second.
In 1996 he wrote his first soundtrack (for Cuori al verde, directed by Giuseppe Piccioni and starring Margherita Buy and Gene Gnocchi) and recorded the double album Il dado. Judging by the reaction of the crowd during his concerts, the albums most popular song is Cohiba, dedicated to Che Guevara, but never released as a single. Il dado features a hidden track entitled Rappresaglia exactly 6 minutes and 41 seconds after Aiutami, the last track on Side B which features Silvestri on the drums and Max Gazzè on bass guitar. Gazzè was also a member of the band that followed Silvestri on his Italian tour for a year. Silvestris live performances are above all a platform on which to put forward the causes he believes in, notably the special concert in Rome in November 1996 to fight landmines where he sang La bomba.
In 1997 he performed at the Primo Maggio in Rome, sang in Milan as part of the concert for Adriano Sofri, Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio Pietrostefani, took part in the Premio Città di Recanati and Arezzo Wave festivals and on July 31 left for Havana for the Communist Youth Festival. The theatre has proved another outlet for this artist of many talents. In May 1997 he performed a triple role of writer (with Rocco Papaleo), actor (again alongside Papaleo) and singer in the stage-show Rosso fiammante bloccato neve dubbio vetro tesi infinito. The collaboration with Papaleo continued on the latters album Che non si sappia in giro with a duet entitled Foca. A few months later (21 October 1997), Frankensteinmusical, a musical written by Antonello Dose, Marco Presta and Tullio Solenghi, opened in Cesena. Daniele Silvestri wrote the music. He also penned Al fratello che non ho and Il fiume e la nebbia for Fiorella Mannoias album Belle speranze, which came out around the same time.
In 1998, he had a hand in Tiromancinos debut album, co-writing and featuring on the track La storia and writing Dying Again. He was awarded the Premio Ciampi and the Premio Mariposa (for emerging artists) for the lyrics on his album Il dado. He wrote the words for two songs (Iolanda e Sete) from Angelo Orlandos play Domani notte a mezzanotte qui. From the theatre, he then turned his attention towards the cinema: he composed the music for Barbara (with Valerio Mastandrea) in which he also had a cameo role playing himself.
He returned to the Sanremo Festival in 1999 (this time with the big boys) with Aria, a song against the death penalty. He is also ranked significantly higher this time around, in the top eight. He was given the Premio della Critica (a prize in honour of Mia Martini) and the jurys prize for best lyrics. A short time after, radio stations turned the new single Amore mio into an enormous hit. On the 1st of April 1999, his fourth album, Sig. Dapatas, was released. The title is an anagram of all the first letters of the songs on the album. A month later, he was again one of the stars of the Primo Maggio performing Aria, Amore mio and Cohiba. Another honour, the Laurea de Andrè of the Premio Lunezia prize for Aria, arrived that summer. The autumn saw the release of Subsonicas album Microchip emozionale with Daniele featuring on the track Liberi tutti. In 2000 he performed Aria and Cohiba in a live concert organised against the death penalty (July 7 in Pescara) and wrote 5 songs (La rivoluzione, K.N.A, Automaticamente, La quiete che verrà and Polvere) from Serendipity, the album from P.F.M released in the autumn. Drawing on his brief but powerful experience as a busker, on September 23 he took part in the fourth Stradarolo International Festival of Music, Art and Theatre of the Street, organised by his friends from the group Têtes de Bois. A month later, he released a greatest hits album, Occhi da orientale, which featured three previously unreleased tracks: the title track, Testardo, and Cuore di cera. He also wrote the music for Tango, Francesca Zannis show inspired by the troubles of the Argentinian desaparecidos.
In 2002 he began to record a new album which saw him perform for the third time on stage at the Teatro Ariston and in which he again crossed paths with his friends Têtes de Bois. Indeed their new album, "Ferrè, l'amore e la rivolta", was about to be released and featured Silvestris performance on the track Non si può essere seri a 17 anni which he also translated into Italian. His appearance at Sanremo with Salirò was marked by the final evening and an unforgettable surprise performance with actor and dancer Fabio Ferri, something between one of Silvestris own songs and Saturday Night Fever. Unò-duè, his sixth album released at the time of the Festival, spent weeks at the top of the album charts while Salirò was the most played song on the radio in 2002 and earned him four prizes at the Italian Music Awards: best single, best video, best arrangement and best musical composition. The year closed with a concert in Praça da Independencia in Maputo, Mozambique (on November 1) in which Silvestri, invited by the NGO Movimondo, played in front of thousands of Mozambicans.
In 2003, he again performed at Romes Primo Maggio concert, playing Il Mio nemico which won him the Premio Amnesty and released his first book, Lautostrada.
January 2004 saw the release of his live double album Livre Transito just after the single Kunta Kinte, written with Frankie Hi-Nrg. He returned to Maputo on October 4 for the second concert in Mozambique, this time with his friend and former bassist Max Gazzè. In the last three years he has devoted his time to his sons Pablo Alberto and Santiago.
He is back in Sanremo in 2007 with a new single entitled La paranza and a new album of unreleased material is out on March 2.
Enzo Micel has produced each of Daniele Silvestris albums in the last 10 years. An uninterrupted artistic partnership which has seen him follow the man with the megaphone through his glittering career.
(press office: MN Srl Umberto Chiaramonte, Marcello Giannotti, Mary Cavallaro)
