6/15/2023
GQ Style
The return of Planet Funk, more than a band a brand
We chatted with Alex Neri about fashion, dance and featuring
«We are not a cellar group, but a collective». During our chat, this is how Alex Neri defines Planet Funk, which he founded together with Marco Baroni back in 1999. And probably, in addition to the quality of their sound, this particular nature - more similar to a brand idea than a band - has always made them very attractive in the eyes of fashion biz professionals. The Tuscan-Neapolitan collective of DJs, musicians and producers has participated several times in Pitti Uomo in Florence and this year it arrives with US Polo .
How did the collaboration with US Polo come about? These partnerships are always born on the basis of music: someone at the top chooses you because they like the way you play, maybe then they also saw and appreciated our previous shows at Pitti. With Polo we also share attention to the environment: last year, for example, they launched an eco-sustainable line (together with Treedom, a tree was planted for each item purchased, ed.) and we really like this kind of initiative. You are now at home at Pitti… Planet Funk's relationship with Pitti undoubtedly also depends on my bond with Florence: Tenax's historic resident DJ. I also believe that relying on a ”brand” rather than faces - when you think of Planet Funk you don't have faces in mind - is more appreciated in this kind of event. How appreciated is the fact that ours is a versatile, dynamic, indie and pop music together, which goes well with any brand. Italian music, but international. We come from 90s dance, the only music that Italy exported abroad, so it has always been quite natural for us to make an international product. We immediately chose an English singer and this made things much easier for us. When an Italian sings in English, the effect he has in the UK is a bit like what Mal had here with us when he sang Furia Cavallo del West. Success is held back by an accent and language problem, not just music. Phenomena like Måneskin are an exception or perhaps their worldwide success means that something is changing abroad. And dance, since 1999 - when you started - how has it changed?
It has evolved a lot, DJs today are rock stars, they weren't once. We also need to see what meaning is given to the term though. Here in Italy the range is well defined: only commercial, techno or house music are recognized as ”dance”. Abroad, on the other hand, it includes all that is danceable, even Massive Attack for example. We have always had our own sound, we have evolved, but without letting ourselves be influenced too much by fashions. We have adapted to new technologies, experimenting as we always have. Do the boys still dance? The world of young people has changed radically, society has changed, the way of experiencing the world. Today kids live everything in a more individual and solitary way. Just think of the concerts - collective experiences par excellence - which today are instead experienced through one's mobile phone pointed towards the stage. The downside is that, in addition to dancing less, they miss out on the present. I'm 50 years old and when I say these things, my little boy who replied to my father ”you're old!” comes to mind. Actually, more than a judgement, mine is an observation: without social networks and this constant need to project, we enjoyed the moment. But like Planet Funk we have a lot of songs that make people jump and scream and in those moments there is no time to film. Speaking of jumping and screaming, have you ever thought you could be a stadium band? I am thinking of your performance at the May Day Concert in 2017, for example. Yes, we thought about the stadiums, but we also had many logistical problems, being a collective with a singer and drummer in England, us in Florence, the others in Naples... it's always been a bit difficult to get everyone together, but we've done important festivals, While it's not just us, we've played in front of incredible crowds, like Heineken Jammin Festival. This year we will play with Placebo in Matera. Our nature is to blow up many people at festivals and in large squares where we don't miss the stadium at all.
How are your successes born? We are all a bit multi-instrumentalists and when we enter the studio we never have defined roles. I can find myself playing guitar or keyboard. The first step is almost always the message from which the lyrics of the song develop, it is the vision to which the musical sense is then associated. The text for us remains one of the most important things. We've always worked transforming analog into digital, so the sequences and synths you hear on our records are almost all guitars transformed into synths. What was the main inspiration for the upcoming new album? The greatest inspiration, after the blow of having lost our partner Sergio Della Monica a few years ago, was finishing a work that he too had started. The new album is a bit of a dedication that we wanted to make to him.
Will there be features? There will be our longtime singer, Dan Black. Also Alex Uhlmann, the last singer who accompanied us from Another Sunrise onwards and there is the entry of a new singer that we discovered during the Covid, a pleasant surprise that we will be touring next winter. Speaking of collaborations, you have many behind you. Is there an artist you would like to do something with in the future? Unfortunately all the artists I like are gone. I'm thinking of Prince, Tina Turner, Jeff Beck… Apart from this, we are very organic in our choices, when we decide to do something it's because the opportunity has arisen to do it. With the singer of Simple Minds, for example, it was pure chance: he came to look for us in Naples and from there the collaboration was born. We rarely decide collaborations at the table, our collaborations have always been born from a human attraction.
The collection in collaboration with U.S. Polo Assn.