Hi, my name is Fabio and my life is terribly hectic.
I moved to the U.K. five years ago to start a new career in music with my rock band, Mercutio, and as a session musician and songwriter. Once I found a house to live in, I decided to pick up another job (first time in my life away from my guitar) to sustain my London life so I could spend more time on songwriting and my projects without the hassle of an urgent income.
So I started a new job (as a bartender and successively as a bar manager) which was supposed to be a part-time thing. After a few weeks though, I was already swallowed up into it. I've spent the last 4 years working. Just working.
And two basically-full-time jobs don't really leave you any time for yourself; time to dedicate to your friends; to sit down and read a good book; time to recharge your batteries or eat your meals without stuffing yourself in 5 minutes as you need to run to catch the next train. By giving you this quite stressful picture of my recent life, I'm trying to make you feel (even just for a second) what I feel in that moment in which our entire planet... Stops.
Hi, my name is Fabio and I feel guilty.
I feel guilty because even in tragedies I always find a good reason to carry on and have a motivation to reset and reboot. So... The music industry has stopped. Everything is still. The year in which you're supposed to be on tour, playing at big festivals in front of thousands of people has just been cancelled. Everything crumbles, but, for the first time in four years, you breathe.
And you suddenly realise that you weren't before. You lived four years of your life in apnea. And you take a look around and realise that the quiet place where you live, it's not just quiet anymore. It's silent. Slow.
The trees surrounding your garden now have a sound, the wind has a sound. Even the Sun, now, has a sound. New bird species start to gather on your garden fence and sing, numerous families of squirrels now hang out on your lawn as do the foxes and the cats. The year 2020 didn't give the planet a hard time. It just gave the humans a hard time, whilst the rest of the planet looked, instead, in pretty good shape. So not having the possibility to vibrate together with other humans I tried to vibrate together with the planet and think only about my music.
Hi, my name is Fabio and I am lucky.
I am lucky because the decision I made to pick up that job four years ago takes me to this moment. Still, but paid. Unemployed, but on furlough. My anxiety stops. My heart rate comes back to normal. “This is an opportunity that I can't miss” I think. I can't. So for the first time in my life I decided to live according to the Sun, waking up early, eating only genuine (and vegan) food at the right times, and going to bed before 11pm.
This was the first step for a full body and mind reset.
A second step was the introduction of a yoga and gym routine to repeat every day to keep my muscles toned, and a third step, to sit down at my music desk and start to write. Freely. No time restrictions. No deadlines. Just me and my fantasy. Big time.
Then I started writing remotely with my band so we could release two singles across the summer and prepare a four-song EP that will be out in December (pre-order here)
I also produced a few other songs for myself and other artists, plus I wrote music with my fellow musicians who live in other countries and started publishing videos of me playing with them remotely. But one day I took a look over the fence and realised something I had known for 2 years but not really processed. My neighbor Naomi is a Cellist. A very good one. So we chatted about it and decided to put together this very unconventional mix (electric guitar and cello) to entertain the neighborhood during lockdown. We started rehearsing in the garden so as to be together, connected by the music, even if separated by the tall fence dividing our properties. I thought that what I was feeling during those sunny days had to be immortalized somehow, just because it was, for me, the perfect metaphor for the weirdest time of our lives.
Hi, my name is Fabio and I am a Rockstar.
No matter how big your bank account is or how many people follow you on Instagram, whatever you think you are... You are.
Finally the big picture is suddenly clear again. The last time I had this picture in my mind I was 17. Many years have passed since, and life took me through its incredibly intricate paths, up and down, shaking me, pushing me till the point I am, in 2020, 17 again.
So this cursed year made us suffer, made us die, set us apart and attacked our mental health. But my overall vision of it is completely different. For people not affected by the pandemic, this has been the right time to look inside, to understand our role on Earth, to slow down and connect with mother nature and our passions. For all that I feel guilty, guilty for being good and healthy whilst so many other people weren't. Guilty for having had enough space and enough time for myself. But proud to have taken this year as an opportunity and not as a failure, blessed for feeling alive again after such a long time.
