Bar Italia: "When you consider of playing songs live, eventually you change the way you write"

If you haven’t noticed what’s been going on with the British band Bar Italia, you might remember them from their appearance at the Plissken Festival in 2024. If not, then it’s definitely time to do so, so that you can catch them live very soon, since on February 13th we will have the honor of enjoying them at Gagarin. This highly interesting musical trio (even though there are five members on stage) represents the full spectrum of shoegaze, indie rock, and, more recently, increasingly alternative rock influences, from the middle of the quarantine period up to today. One of their defining characteristics is the way all three members share the vocals, as well as the intoxicating dance of their lead singer, Nina Cristante.

We had the pleasure of speaking in more depth with the latter on the occasion of their upcoming performance in Athens. A Greek girl and an Italian girl from London sat down and analyzed the entire journey of Bar Italia, from the time when no one knew their faces up to today, their change in sound, the importance of dance, and much more. Nina proved to be a deeply artistic person in an interview that is well worth reading - and you definitely shouldn’t miss them, especially since that night is also her birthday!

So my name is Irene. I come from Athens, Greece, and I'm representing Rocking, Rocking.gr here. Well, welcome to this conversation today. And let me, first of all, ask you who actually Bar Italia are, because we've never spoken before.

So it's me, Nina, and then it's Jezmi Fehmi and Sam Fenton. And then we play live with Liam Toon and Mathilde Bataille.

That's great. So, first of all, I know that you have an Italian heritage, but I also know that there is a place in London, if I'm not mistaken, that's called Bar Italia. So where did actually the name of the band come from?

So there's this really iconic bar in Soho called Bar Italia, and it was one of the very few late night spots open. Everyone used to go there. It was right across this very important jazz bar. So we're talking about from Iggy Pop to all the kind of indie scene later on, but it's just been an iconic place since forever. I think the way in which it makes sense with us is the fact that it's like an Italian pastiche. You don't go there to get real Italian food. You don't go there to get a really good coffee. In a way, it's way more British than Italian. You know, it's like a British institution more than an Italian institution. But then obviously I'm Italian. I'm from Rome. I lived there until I was like a teenager. So, yeah.

When I first moved here, I really wanted to be British. I was not really into being Italian. But now I'm cool with it

Do you sometimes feel that way a little bit more British than Italian now?

No, no, no, no. No, I think I feel quite English because I've been here for so many years, but, in fact, I'm just about to get the (British) passport, which is kind of crazy. But I think the more I grow the more Italian I feel. When I first moved here, I really wanted to be British. I was not really into being Italian. But now I'm cool with it.

I kind of get the vibe of what you're talking about. At first, we actually met Bar Italia during these dreadful pandemic and quarantine years. Did you plan on releasing your first album around those years or did it just happen?

It just happened. We didn't have that much to do. And like, I lived upstairs and they (Jezmi and Sam) lived together downstairs and we just started making music. We knew each other from before, but we started making music. And then Dean Blunt had this label called World Music and he had the record and really liked it and they put it out within a week or something. It was very, very organic.

Were you at all afraid that this could backfire - starting the band at the middle of a world altering event?

We didn't have any expectations. I had my solo project happening and Sam and Jezmi had their band together. I also had a normal job, I was a trainer and an artist, and I was just happy kind of making things. And we were all happy to just put it out when it was cut. We didn't have a sort of master plan. I don't know if that makes sense.

It sure does! Is that the reason why initially you decided to go through the anonymity way? Because for people who don't know, in the beginning, nobody really knew the people behind the band. You didn't show your faces.

Yeah, it wasn't a conscious decision. I understand that that is how it comes across. But it was COVID. We didn't play gigs because no one did. And so when putting the music out, unless you put a photo of yourself on the cover, no one knows. But it wasn't a sort of SD key thing where you're like just trying to hide your identity. It was just circumstantial. And then obviously, because we got associated with Dean Blunt's label, he's quite interested in how he's represented, his identity and he often kind of has multiple aliases, etc. So I think because of that, we became part of the same kind of presentation. You know, he didn't put us out as a label with like a bio saying, this is Nina, Sam and Jasmine's project, like he just put it out.

Jezmi said on an interview we’d rather be boring than mysterious and was singled out of context. None of us is that cocky. We don't need to be that cocky. Obviously, I would rather be mysterious than boring

Right, but I believe that the other choice to show your faces a few years later and appear to the public was a conscious choice, because I've read somewhere a very interesting quote that you would prefer to be to be boring than being anonymous, something like that.

Well, that's okay. That's something that Jezmi said on an interview and was singled out of context. None of us is that cocky. We don't need to be that cocky. Obviously, I would rather be mysterious than boring. I don't want to be boring. But what I think Jezmi was trying to get to is that often in interviews, they ask us why we were mysterious and why then we did not talk to the press. And the answer is a lot more boring than what you think. We didn't think the band was going to take over our entire life. We're really glad it did. Once you get signed or once you start working with teams of people that operate in the world in a slightly different way with press, then we started getting requests of interviews and then we decided to do interviews. When we first came out, there wasn't a journalist knocking on our door, begging us to do interviews, it was just like an underground kind of cool thing.

We don’t agree beforehand on a common theme for a song in order to write lyrics

Right. Thank you for explaining this. It was very interesting to see what this quote meant for you. On another topic, I really admire what you did from the beginning - for at least the basic members of the band, the way that you share the vocals. All the three of you are singing in the band, again I want to ask if that was intentional or just ended up working for you.

I think it was intentional in the sense that we are three singers and we all have very different voices. I personally always saw it at the time when we started making music together, I was listening to a lot of trap and hip-hop and we started making loops, it was different takes on an instrumental. There's no communication between each other’s vocals, even though it becomes communication in the end. I would often just write a poem and lay it out and split it with Sam and Jezmi's vocals or the other way around, they would write and then it would be split. But without having said beforehand, ok this song is about love. This song is about my mom. There wasn't a collective understanding of the subject matter.

But inevitably because it's people talking to each other, your brain as a listener just joins a dot, even dots that are not necessarily there. I think we all kind of love the fact that I rarely know what they're even talking about in the song. Sometimes I ask, sometimes I don't and like vice versa. I think we like the fact that you're almost living it, becomes kind of magical then. The interaction is not casual because it can't be casual, but it's you're kind of letting it do its thing rather than controlling it. And obviously the way we structure the songs now is way more complex than it was at the beginning. Not to say that it's better, it's just we've progressed as musicians and we're changing and there are certain parts that call for a certain performance or call for an offset. We have very different voices, so that is helpful. Sometimes we even build a new instrumental part within a song to fit a vocal because we feel like it needs that kind of register or that kind of energy.

Right, I really like that. Do you start from a common theme, let's say, in order for each one of you to say the lyrics or you just combine different thoughts?

Yeah, usually, okay, there can be a scenario where Sam is playing a riff on the guitar and then me and Jezmi are in the back room and both of us start humming and I've got loads of poems. He's got loads of writing and we just figure out our parts and then lay it. If they're both good, you keep both and you just either separate, maybe one verse, Jezmi, one verse me, or one chorus, etc. Or if one’s is much better, then we just keep the one that is better. Sometimes two people are playing and one person is just sitting. So that person ends up putting the vocal first and that dictates the vibe of the song, or inspires someone to write a chorus instead. It's organic in that sense and quite intuitive. It's definitely not planned though. It's a very interesting process. Yeah, it's a bit of a strange process.

When it's a girl and a guy singing, a lot of people think it's about love

No, it's interesting in a good way. So you basically leave the interconnections between the themes to the interpretation of the listener.

Yeah. And often, in all honesty, when it's a girl and a guy singing, a lot of people think it's about love. And there's loads of my lyrics that aren't about love or arguments, but I think it's kind of nice because the interpretation is nice. It just brings it into this kind of pop aesthetic, where it's words are just universal and they fulfill whatever experience the listener is going through.

Okay. But is there anything that you choose or want particularly to say blatantly or provide through your music and your lyrics to whoever is listening to you?

Yeah, of course. I think the reason why people respond to our lyrics is the fact that we are very honest and they're not gamey. And even though they might be interpreted, there is a base core of truth and they feel lived in and we often get told that this song has helped someone through this situation. And it's like, And I think as much as you may say that we're mysterious or this ισ calculated, etc, we lie quite bare within our music. And regardless of whether we are communicating with each other while doing that or just simply being with each other, that still feels very vulnerable and sincere, which I think speaks to people.

There's been sets in the past where I've screamed for the whole way because I was really feeling charged, and completely missed the point of a lot of songs because I was giving it the wrong vibe

Yeah, I see. For me, I find both in your music and how it expresses itself lyrically and on how you perform, this balance between delicacy and harshness, because I see you all quite often, even in the same song, jump between more delicate lines and calmer lines and soft dances to more harsh and angry performances. Is that the goal for you or does it you let it go?

No, it's what is required by a certain vocal line. So as long as you're feeling what you're saying, then inevitably your performance will dynamically shift. It's very much like the strength of a performance is whether you are listening to what you're saying and feeling it, regardless of whether it's screamed at you. Sometimes you might scream for an entire set, there's been sets in the past where I've screamed for the whole way because I was really feeling charged, and completely missed the point of a lot of songs because I was giving it the wrong vibe. It felt urgent in a way that maybe a song instead requires you to sit back and lure the audience in, rather than just scream at them. Aside from the fact that you lose tone when doing that. I mean in terms of the performance, it's important to go with what you're saying.

OK, I see what you mean. And there was this point a couple of years ago when you released in the same year, the albums "Tracy Denim" and "The Tweets", which had this difference. Well, how did it end up for you releasing two albums in the same year because, it's a lot of work to do.

Yeah, again, the answer is not going to be as seductive as you wish it to be, I think. Because it has to do with timings, the timing that you have and the timing that we have is completely different. Τhe "Tracy Denim" was written the year before, from summer into winter. Then we got signed and since we had already an album, we were like, okay, let's put that out. But while we put that out, because it's our first label album, instead of sitting on it and waiting to see how it performs and then touring, we said let's use the money that we just got given to write another album and then put that out at the end of the year.

One album has the energy and the scattiness of a period where everything was changing in our life, but within London. The second one is the aftermath of being signed, the three of us together in a place with nowhere to hide and nowhere to leave either

And that's I would assume the reason why they are not connected, at least obviously, thematically.

Yeah. You have one album that is written where we could. This label was giving us a studio. This is not the label we signed with, but it was giving as a studio. We were writing as much as possible within this kind of studio, it was the first time we weren't in Jezmi's bedroom recording stuff. Βut it was still not like a fully functional studio. It was mostly a really good room. We were using that and that momentum. Meanwhile, we were talking to label, then we signed and we were like, we're just going to use that money to go to Mallorca in Spain and build a studio in a house, stay there for 2 months and write an album.

One album has the energy and the scattiness of a period where everything was changing in our life, but within London. The second one is the aftermath of being signed, the three of us together in a place with nowhere to hide and nowhere to leave either. I feel "The Twits" has this kind of haunted energy that "Tracy Denim" hasn't. as an energy. I love both projects equally. I just think it's very obvious that they are very different for that reason.

Knowing that a song will be then performed on stage, that will change the way you write

This was quite an interesting process. There's also your latest album that you released the past year called "Some Like It Hot". And we see a shift in this album again, musically. It goes from the more indie rock, post-punkish, whatever we could call you back in the day, because it was all of these things and more, to a more alt-rock, heavy guitar sounds and poppy references. What was the occasion? Because I understand from the previous explanation about the previous records that there is also this real time timing that makes the music happen.

Yeah. I mean, this question is super interesting and I would like to know myself as well the answer, it's very hard from our point of view to detect in real time why we’re shifting. But it's a combination of also playing live. We started playing live loads, we played around 200 shows the year before. Learning how to be on stage, knowing that a song will be then performed on stage. That will change the way you write. In fact, a lot of the new songs are very easy to perform on stage. Not easy in the sense that they're a simple song, but you can tell that they're written with tour in mind. And also the space of a festival of 20,000 people, is usually bigger and poppier and they're more alt rock, as you said, and less kind of awkward and experimental or quirky. Sounds like that, they're meant to be played to a vast audience, which is what we're doing nowadays.

I think we all had that in mind a little bit. Not that the small gigs don't have that too, because small gigs are incredible. But I think it was just coming for us. We had recorded it as a sandwich in between loads of touring, recording, and then loads of festivals, and then recording again. I think it's inevitable that is informed into the album. Then on top of that, you're dealing with better musicians. Whether you like that or not, whether the audience likes that or not, it's secondary. We all know our instruments better. It's harder to create, to maintain some of the awkwardness that was making us kind of special at the beginning, just simply because you can't just put it on, you know? There are dissonances and things that you naturally want to clear out when you start developing yourself as a musician and and then there's a width of just wanting to communicate to more people and listening to music. I've always listened to loads of pop in all honesty. I've always been really interested in pop myself and I think Sam and not just me, so there hasn't really been an attempt to make very conceptual experimental music. Inevitably, as we grow, we will probably try to create a really good song more than anything else.

I'm not so interested in a, sort of ethereal vocal. I'm really interested in the full body of emotions, the viscerality of what a female voice can do

I see. I also locate this shift in general. I mean, in the early '20s, I felt like the shoegazey, dreamy type of rock and pop revival would be more prolific in what bands in general would choose to play, along with post-punk, of course. And now I believe that after the mid of the decade, we're switching back to Alt Rock that had been dying for a little bit. I mean, not dying, but there weren't that many bands. They would consider it very repetitive because many bands existed back then doing similar things. So I think this exists outside of you.

For sure. And in terms of vocals, for example, the kind of dreamy bedroom vocals that I was doing originally, it had honestly just to do with skills. I'm interested in extremely strong and expressive performances more than anything and full vocal ranges and full confidence, especially for a female vocalist. I'm not so interested in a, sort of ethereal vocal. I'm really interested in the full body of emotions, the viscerality of what a female voice can do, for example.

All right. Many amazing bands have emerged from the UK the past few years. And I wanted to ask if there are any that you particularly like outside of yours, of course.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I love Sam and Jezmi's project, Double Virgo, they have they have a band the two of them, and I think it's great. And then I really love this artist called X Mile. I think he's amazing. And I really love, it's not from the UK, but it's an Australian band, but he's coming on tour with us and he's called Wet Kiss. And then Orazio (Argentero), who I've done solo work with, he's got a band (Vaermina) and he's incredible. He's also in another band called Triage, which is really good. And then Rita P, who used to be our bass player. She has her own solo project and she's incredible. Jezmi does music on his own. Me and Sam do music together. Then there's Mark William Lewis, of course. There's so many people actually, like we're very lucky.

I started moving because I was recording with my vocal coach and he started realizing that the more I moved, the more I could sing

Right. Well, another thing that I admire a lot about you is how much you import dancing into your performances. I mean, your body is a little bit more free than the other people that have instruments in their hands. So tell me why is dancing important for you and performances?

That's a really big question because I actually never trained as a dancer, but it's always been my dream. I used to be a trainer of Pilates and myofascial movements. So I love body science and I've always been really in tune with my body and I love movement. I think way before I'm a musician, I'm a dancer. I think that my soul is kind of made of that. I understand music through movements. I started moving because I was recording with my vocal coach and he started realizing that the more I moved, the more I could sing. There's some people that can just sit down and sing while I tend to not do that, I don't know if it's because I'm Italian or because I like to move or because I'm a dancer, but I think maybe a combination of all, it just opens up my vocal cords if I can express what I'm saying with my body.

And then obviously there are these moments where I'm not doing much on stage. I used to be really composed within that period. I didn't get shy about not having much to do in those moments. But the music now is so powerful when I'm on stage. It's very hard to stay still. It creates this cohesive experience for everyone, I think, because I'm moving almost as a signifier of what's happening between the instruments. I think that has made the show a lot more interesting in a way, not because it's great, but just because I'm also so engaged.

Okay, so that might answer your question to yourself before about why the music shifted. Maybe you wanted to do more of that?

Yes, exactly as well. Yeah, exactly.

So are you excited to play now in Athens since I believe you haven't been here before for your own show?

So excited. It's also my birthday! Yeah. So it's going to be a special night. I love the Acropolis. I went last time I was there for a festival, I went up the Acropolis at night and it was just so magical. I spent quite a lot of time in Athens before, because I had an art exhibition ages ago and I really love that city, the culture and the food and the people. I'm really looking forward to it. And I know Sam and Jezmi as well.

Okay, happy birthday! And I think you are currently in the middle of a tour.

We are in the middle of the tour, but we've been not playing for like ten days. We are going to Istanbul and Athens and then Copenhagen and then we're going back and we have other ten days and then we go back on the road for a month. And then we have festivals in the summer and going back to America.

All right. So, well, Nina, as I see, we're approaching the end over here. So first of all, I wish you the best with the whole tour. Second of all, I will see you in approximately 10 days.

Oh, no, it is 10 days! You're right.

Yeah, it passes like you don't understand ever.

It's crazy.

It was really nice meeting you.

Come say hi!

Yeah, for sure.

All of us.. And hopefully you have fun!

Thanks. So just leave me with something, because I tend to close the interviews in that way. Anything that you believe the band wants to share with the readers and people coming to see you.

I think I want to say how excited we are to come to Greece, and to Athens specifically, because we often tour north of Europe and it's always nice when we’re going a little bit in slightly different territories and Greece is such a special place so we really look forward to be there!