Pablo Bozzi has been booked, blessed and busy in 2022. There have been two solo EPs, Ghost of a Chance through Dischi Autunno and Magnetisma through BITE. Then our Lisa Lisa-sampling song of the summer, ‘That Beat In My Heart’ from one of his musical duos, Infravision. While Soft Crash, his other partnership with Phase Fatale, just dropped their debut album, Your Last Everything, last month. Whew!
Bringing together Italo, Synthwave, EBM, Techno and more to each project, Pablo has created what is now lovingly being defined as ‘Italo Bozzi Music’. I mean if you have don’t have your own name in a genre, are you really even making music?!
His Boiler Room set from August has now racked up over 300k views just on YouTube and tonight Soft Crash play an exclusive live set as part of the eleventh edition of Barcelona’s Electronic Mira Festival. We catch up with Pablo to find out more about Mira, what to expect from the Soft Crash live experience and how the famous Pablo Bozzi look came together.
Hey Pablo, how you doing?
Hey, I’m ok. Feeling a little slow from jetlag. I just came back from Mexico yesterday. Such an amazing trip.
Ah yeah, you guys have been touring out there. How was it? And what are the essentials for a Soft Crash tour?
Yes, we did a weekend in Colombia and then a full week in Mexico. The essential is mainly food I guess, we ate a lot of Mexican food. Haha…Really really nice. But also the people we met, and meet, through music. We’ve both been to Colombia a few times so we have a bunch of friends there and then a few friends joined our Mexico trip too. So we were always with people.
And of course you are playing Mira Festival tonight!
Yes! I’m excited because I’ve not been before. I’ve been to Barcelona many times because I grew up in Toulouse, in the south-west of France. But the lineup for Mira looks sick this year!
Besides performing, who are you excited to see perform?
I definitely want to see Caterina Barbieri. I really love music like this – Modern trance, Ambient. It’s super nice. I can’t remember when they are playing but I want to see Orbital too, I mean that is really iconic stuff. Squarepusher also. Unfortunately I can’t stay as we are playing Positive Education in France on Saturday and then Berghain on Sunday. It’s going to be a long weekend.
Uff…sending you love & light! It feels like Mira is really bringing the visuals this year with Installations, Digital Art and 360 Degree Screenings, including one from our queen Marina Herlop. Have you guys got something planned for the Soft Crash show?
In the future that is definitely something we would like to do but with touring we just haven’t had time to organise it unfortunately. The last few weeks have been so intense. But JWVigers, the guy who did our visualiser for track ‘You Last Everything’ with Marie Davidson, is also going to be at Mira. Check him out.
I saw you guys do a DJ set together earlier this year but tonight is a Live set, right?
Yes. We’ve actually only done one other live performance before, so I am really excited to play music from our new album tonight. We’re bringing a bunch of equipment with us. I’m playing more synths and a drum pad. Then there is also the computer with some sequences and audio stuff. Hayden is using a drum machine. He has another little sampler too and a pedal for the mic. We have a few things like the drum pad and playing the keyboard that really make it feel like a live experience.
I get the vibe that you guys connect in EBM but maybe Hayden is more at the Techno end of the spectrum and you are more at the Italo end. Is that right?
Yeah kind of. We’ve known each other a couple of years now, maybe six, and in fact when I first switched to releasing music under my own name, it was through his label, BITE. That’s how we connected to start Soft Crash together. Even if on paper he is more on the Techno side of things, he also has a really big 80s, Synthwave, Italo, Freestyle inspiration. He played in Synthwave bands too. When my release came out on BITE, I think that was a bit of a trigger for him because he was like, ‘OK, it could be fun to try and do something together, something more Techno, Italo, EBM…all together.’ But yes on paper, he is more Techno and I am bringing more of the Italo flavour.
How does the writing process work between you both?
Well, we are both trained musicians. Hayden was playing guitar and I studied Classical for ten years in the Musical Conservatory of Toulouse with keyboards. So when we write music we always write in the studio together. Then we try and find a hook, come up with a fuller idea, record it and then it’s more like a jamming process. We always write and construct the track in Ableton which usually takes the most time. But the parts where we tweak and perfect it is actually quite fast. Then it’s just about what elements we want to bring to the track.
If you had to boil it down to one sentence, what would be the concept for this album?
Hmmm…I mean the album is really inspired by old, retro movies but futuristic at the same time. It’s hard to get it down to one sentence! Ahaha…But everything came together quite naturally and then when we finished we realised it was all connected together which was nice to see. There is definitely this Neo-Futuristic vibe from John Carpenter movies but bringing with it a little more modern vision.
I have to tell you that ‘Beat Of My Heart’ was Song of the Summer…officially. Hearing it at your Bass Valley gig and then during your Boiler Room set. Major vibes.
Thank you. That Boiler Room was so special. The vibe was really amazing. Being in the middle of that big room, the energy was just insane. Sometimes in situations like that I can feel a little bit stressed but this time I just felt great. Khidi & Tbilisi are like home. And the reaction after the set was great too. So many people have been sending me messages, it’s been great to see.
For me there are few greater compliments than being called Camp and I would say there is a heavy dose of Camp that comes with Italo music. I love it. How have LGBT audiences been responding to your music?
Actually I played in the Lab in Berghain in June, for the New Year’s Eve party that had been postponed – I think the vibe that night was one of the craziest I have ever seen in my life. People jumped up and were dancing on the bar and stuff. Yeah I feel this music is definitely emotional but also euphoric, so it’s easier to go crazy to. So it’s definitely a moment where the LGBT scene can go full-on. That Lab party was something else.
Now we need to talk lewks because there is definitely a Bozzi look going on here. How did this come together?
Haha…well, my Dad has a moustache so that’s a family thing. But honestly the rest is quite natural, I never try to create a special look. It’s just the way it came together.
Did anyone do the Pablo Bozzi look for Halloween?
Actually yes! Haha…a few people sent me photos of them doing my look for Halloween which was really funny. This year I was playing Le Bon Air festival in Marseilles and Rinse France were covering it. They basically spotted two or three people that had blonde hair, a moustache and stuff and they just grabbed them all together, put me in the middle and posted a story saying, ‘Who’s the real Pablo Bozzi?!’ Haha…that was really funny.
Lastly we are named after the biggest-selling single of 2001. So we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
Oof….I should have checked this beforehand. There is that Christmas one? Haha…But actually that is not even my favourite one, it’s just the one that came to mind. I’m not going to say I’m the biggest Mariah Carey but my friends listen to her. During the week I do listen to modern Hip-Hop and other stuff. I really feel like you can always get inspiration from other types of music. But what can I say about Mariah Carey…? Oh wait, actually I have a playlist that features one of her songs but I can’t remember which one – it’s either ‘Fantasy’ or ‘Obsessed.’ I kind of like both of them. Haha…
Soft Crash’s album, My Last Everything, is out now
Mira Festival is 11-12 November. For more info see www.mirafestival.com
Main photo: Arthur Bdt
