The most famous Italian world music singer in Quebec spent nearly 20 years in a thrash metal band.
Marco Calliari, known in Canada and around the world primarily for his modern covers of classic Italian songs, spent the first 17 years of his musical career as a guitarist in the Quebec metal group Anonymus.
And while Quebecois thrash metal and Italian world music might seem like two distant worlds, for Calliari both genres are anchored in some of his firmest beliefs about music.
He talks about listening to Cannibal Corpse, or Rammstein: bands whose lyrics he doesn’t understand but that evoke powerful emotions in him. When a song moves him it pushes him to investigate the culture or language that underpins it.
And that’s what he’s trying to do with his own music.
Calliari’s solo music is sung in Italian. He says that when he started playing his songs in Quebec, people didn’t come to see him for his words, but for the feeling and energy of his shows.
“It’s cool if the words are cool and fun, but my first job is to get them to my music, and get them to have a good feeling about everything. And after that if you’re curious enough ... you can find out the rest,” he says.
“I’m trying to inspire everyone just to open up even more.”
Calliari’s parents are from Italy and his first language is Italian. His switch from metal to world music was propelled by his attempts to reconnect with his Italian roots. He became popular in Quebec despite singing in Italian, not French, and in the process taught many Quebecois about Italian culture.
His latest album, Mi Ricordo, aims to do the reverse, by bringing some of Quebec’s most beloved authors and songwriters to an Italian audience.
The album consists of 11 songs, that he personally translated from French to Italian, and stretch from the 1930s to 2000s, and represent some of his province’s best poetry.
He says if his songs can get an Italian audience interested in Quebec or Canada, he has done his job.
“I try to promote just openness and trying to inspire everyone to just widen their ears to anything, because there’s so much good music going around.”
At the end of the day, Calliari is a musician, and he says he just loves for people to engage with his music.
He comes to Jasper April 8, as part of a trio that includes Julie Houle on tuba, Amelie Poirier-Aubry on accordion and himself, leading the show.
He says he is excited to play in Jasper for the first time, and hopes that he can get the crowds at the Jasper Legion moving.
“I’m just inviting people to open up and come have fun with us. It’s a really, really fun gang, and it’s fun music,” he says.
“Come have a blast with us.”
Trevor Nichols
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