Bar Italia was born with suspense, without wanting it at all. This trio formed in the London borough of Peckham began releasing music in 2020 without revealing their identities. There was no intention, it wasn’t a pose, they simply didn’t appear online or give interviews because, they said, they had nothing to tell. But it was good for them. The wait was born in England, always attentive to the last one who picks up a guitar to make a pop song. After a while it started to bother them, they talked more about the mystery than about their music. And with their third album they exposed themselves.
The next difficulty was having to explain the name of the band. It’s a bar in Soho called Bar Italia where he goes after going out partying. It’s also the title of a Pulp song, even though they want nothing to do with Jarvis Cocker’s band. The fact is that neither their music nor them was talked about, but people liked what they did: shoegaze game, postpunk, lo-fi, grunge…tags that allude to dirty guitar sounds accompanied by ambiguous and intimate lyrics. Loneliness, disappointments, life are present. But there is light, they have light.
In this interview they will not be asked about their origins or their past. “Thank you,” says Nina Cristante, sitting in a Madrid hotel with her colleagues, guitarists Sam Fenton and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi. Bar Italia has just been released Some like it hot (Matador), an excellent album, the fifth of their career and the one that will have to make them take off, as happened to REM, who until Document (1987) were a small thing independent of worship.
“My God, I was just about to tell you REM,” Fehmi is surprised when he mentions them. “Have you heard their first albums? They were terrible,” he says. “Their lyrics were about nuclear disarmament and stuff like that. They were very political, and that’s not a bad thing, but there was a lot of talking, the lyrics were almost incomprehensible. The guitars were incredible, yes,” he says. “It’s a great example of moving towards making accessible, more commercial music without it being shit. Maturing in your sound, creating something enjoyable, is an art. When a band gets it right…” continues Fenton. “We’ve talked about it many times, our best songs are pop,” he adds. “But hey, I don’t think it’s going to happen to us like it happened to REM,” Fehmi adds. They also aren’t worried about getting big. “Didn’t they tell us that with the previous album?” Cristante rushes. “Yeah, but no one put it on Twitter,” Fenton replies sarcastically.
These guys take the profession lightly. Of course, they are enthusiastic about earning a living with music, they like playing, they have always wanted to do it, “to be able to leave our normal job”, underlines Cristante, but they don’t talk nonsense about improvement and merit. “I think I’m more cynical than ever. Sometimes I find it very difficult to take it seriously because it’s stupid to play the guitar and sing things. It’s good to keep approaching what you do with humor. Otherwise you become that kind of person who goes to a party and talks about yourself all the time,” Fehmi insists. “We put a lot of effort into this album,” Cristante reminds him. “Yes, but it’s not about doing the most intellectual and serious thing of all time. The beauty of this profession is that while you work hard you have fun. We rock and roll,” replies Fehmi.
All three write the songs, but not at the same time, but each comes with his own verse, then they come together, and they make sense. Anyone who wants to give each. The whole album can be read as a letter, as the chat of two people who have loved each other, who have broken up, who have returned, who have to make things right, that there is something missing to prove, that maybe one little more message will do the trick… “That wasn’t our intention. But there are things you can only understand or feel in music when you’re in love or when you’re suffering from heartbreak. Having three people working on the lyrics alone can provide a universal experience,” admits Cristante. At the time of writing these songs, Fehmi was going through a breakup. Everyone pours their thoughts onto the page, nothing is too obvious, don’t expect a manual. “The other day I started reading a book from the seventies that my girlfriend bought as a joke, it’s called How to be better in relationships. From the first page you realize that writing that is the most useless thing you can do,” he says. “Falling in love is something incredible, strange and futile that we all do. It’s crazy. But it’s the best thing.”
