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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Alberto Trentanni of King Bong

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The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Alberto Trentanni of King Bong

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m a musician, specifically a bass player. I started when I was 14, picking up the instrument after a pretty random conversation. I always had a passion for music, but I never saw myself actually doing it before a classmate half-jokingly said “If we do a band, you’ll play bass cause I’m too short.” The idea started to grow in the back of my head and a year later I was buying my first Precision copy. I never actually played with that guy.

I took lessons for a few years and I played in several bands growing up, while looking for my musical voice. There were a few cover bands, a short-lived punk one, a prog-metal one, and finally a Southern rock one which actually co-existed with King Bong. They both started in 2008, although the other project is now defunct.

Initially I was a very straight bassist, in-the-pocket if you wish. As I explored the instrument and discovered new music, I expanded my vocabulary: since I play in an instrumental band with lots of improvisation, this is kind of a feedback loop. Our music pushes me to find new colors and I’m also pushed by my bandmates’ growth.

Describe your first musical memory.

It’s quite hard to focus on a single one: my parents have a passion for music, so I grew up surrounded by it. Right now, the oldest one I can think of is listening to Bowie’s Never Let Me Down and being mesmerized by the cassette’s cover. He’s done better albums, with better artworks, but I remember being obsessed by the background of this one.

It’s either that, or listening with my dad to Santana’s Greatest Hits, the one with the white dove on the cover. Speaking of which, I’ve recently brought him a recording of Santana’s 1970 concert at Tanglewood, which I highly recommend to everybody, it’s on YouTube.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I’ve used Paranoid as a nickname on the Internet since I installed Napster in 1998, so seeing Black Sabbath play “Paranoid” in Birmingham was a highlight of my life. I was in the front rows and it felt so uplifting.

Best concert as a whole has to be either King Crimson at La Fenice theater in Venice or when I saw Motorpsycho play a three and half hour set which included the whole Blissard album as an encore. Two very different forms of musical elation: King Crimson was perfection embodied, sonically and creatively. The Motorpsycho one was in a small packed club, there was an electricity in the air that I’ve felt very few times and the band gave a performance I’ll never forget.

As a musician, it was when we recorded a collaboration with Chris Haskett, guitarist from the Henry Rollins Band. There was a moment during our sessions with him that sounded so good it still gives me chills. I distinctly remember looking around at the rest of the band while we were playing and thinking “Wow, we wrote this, and it’s actually working”.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Growing up an atheist in a very Catholic country, I’ve always had some pretty hard anticlericalist views. Luckily, the world every now and then brings up examples of outstanding individuals with a strong faith, reminding me that any group of people is made of single minds and looking at them not as persons but as members of that group is a dangerous and a negative line of thought.

Specifically, my anticlericalism was put to test the most when I was 20 and on an InterRail trip. I don’t know if it it’s still a thing, but at the time European citizens under 25 were able to buy these cheap train tickets that allowed almost unlimited travel around areas of the EU.

I bought one of these tickets with a group of friends and went to Spain and Morocco (which for some reason was included in the program). On our way back from Marrakech, we took a ferry from Tangier which brought us to Algeciras, on the Spanish coast.

We fucked up the timing of the trip, so we arrived in the middle of the night. We slept inside the docks, unrolling our sleeping bags under some stairs. The following morning, we ventured into the city with the aim of taking a train to Sevilla, but first we needed a shower and some food. The trip from Marrakech had started two days earlier and we looked like hobos.

Lo and behold, here’s a tiny house with a garden and a sign that explains it’s a Christian mission welcoming travelers. They made us breakfast and gave us access to their showers. After that, we actually had a very nice conversation about Christianity and organized religion.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

For me, it leads to growth and salvation. Art has taught me a huge number of things, both experiencing it and doing it. Progressing as an artist means to constantly feed a hunger that otherwise would never be satisfied. In this sense it leads to salvation: without art life has not much meaning, but also to remain stuck as an artist will make you lose that meaning.

How do you define success?

As an artist, to move the audience. To actually be able to find an audience, regardless of its size, that resonates with what you do.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Timo Kotipelto singing Queensryche’s “I Don’t Believe In Love” at Wacken 2002.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

An ambient album with just layers of my bass and my effects. I’ve got several ideas, but I lack the focus to actually do it. Those ideas are also too scattered, so maybe I simply haven’t found the right concept yet.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To express one’s self. Art is a language, at the very base every artist is saying something and opening their inner world for the outside to look in.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I have a phobia of needles, but I’ve never wanted an injection so much as with the Covid vaccine! On a larger scale, I can’t wait for things to be under control so we can resume travelling and going to concerts.

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