The Niro (IT)
The Niro (IT)
Davide Combusti, a.k.a. The Niro, is one of the most exciting voice of Europe.
In 2005 he opened for the Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche in Rome and subsequently received scores of invitations to share the stage with international artists such as Tom Hingley, leader of the Inspiral Carpets and Lou Barlow of Dinosaur jr, who as a result had nothing but words of praise for him ! He also opened for the Zephyrs, Okkervill River, Isobel Campbell, TKO and in 2006 went to Tucson, Arizona where he played The Red Room two nights running (the same Red Room where Howe Gelb often performs) with Tom Walbank, named best Arizona bluesman 2005 and Pearl Handed Pistol.
In 2006 Boston University Radio invited The Niro to take part in a tribute concert in honour of Elliott Smith, where he performed his own rendition of ‘Everything reminds me of her’. That summer he opened for Carmen Consoli in London and toured Europe: playing the Tunnel and the Café Carina in Vienna, and the “Fléche d’Or” in Paris.
Meanwhile a tribute album to Belle and Sebastian was released, a compilation called “A Century of Covers”, in which The Niro’s cover track was a lo-fi rendition of “I fought in a War”.
Towards the end of 2006 The Niro was contacted by Chris Hufford, Radiohead’s manager, and asked to take part in a project called Anti Atlas which Hufford was producing with Ned Bigham. Davide wrote the lyrics and a new arrangement to part of the instrumental track “Coro”. From this came “The Travellers”, which was included in the album ‘Between Voices 2’, and released in August 2007 on the British label One little Indian.
From 2007 to now The Niro has got many gigs around Europe (Paris, Brussels, London, Glasgow, Brighton, Leeds, European Music Fest in Lausanne, …) and US (Los Angeles, Austin,…), and obviously hundreds of gigs and festival in Italy, playing in the same line-up with dozens of International artists from Deep Purple to Regina Spektor and Adam Green, Amy Winehouse, Badly Drawn Boy, Mirah, Isobel Campbell and Chris Leo.
In January 2008 Davide released with Universal a 5 track EP called “An Ordinary Man”, just a taste of what was to follow, for mid April a full 13 track album release called quite simply ‘The Niro’, produced by Gianluca Vaccaro (of Carmen Consoli fame) and Roberto Procaccini, keyboard player with a well-known Italian band. Front cover artwork of the limited edition vinyl version is courtesy of Mark Kostabi, the well known American artist, the same Mark Kostabi who did the cover artwork of “Use Your Illusion” Guns’N’Roses and “Adios Amigos” the Ramones. What is remarkable is the fact that after listening to the album Mark offered Davide one of his paintings of his own accord.
The first single from the album, ‘Liar’, is still being played on the radio 2 years on, while reactions from the press continue to be staggering with numerous articles and reviews bearing testimony to the fact that he is considered to be in a class of his own.
‘Liar’ was used in the first Virgin Radio compilation release along with songs from Radiohead and the Editors while ‘So Different’ was used in the Mtv Brand New compilation, with Iggy Pop on the same tracklist. He has also found the time to connect with various film producers, on his tail to get music penned by him for their film soundtracks, which is another exciting new chapter opening up to exploit the talents of the young, eclectic Davide.
Whilst his new album “Best Wishes” is released by Universal on 16th April last year, the young singer-songwriter was performing at South By Southwest in Texas, an international event which has for years been an important way for new, and not so new artists, to showcase their talent. Just in case anybody needs further convincing!
italian management: Gaetano Puglisi Italian booking: michele.gatti@livenation.it
