Thanx for your time Joe in the first place! Could you please tell me how and when KICKSTART came to be, who's who in the band and where do you guys come from?

We've been playing together in various bands since 1993, but when in 1999 RoundnRound split, there remained only 3 people: myself, Marco and Mike.  We decided to restart from the beginning, founding a power trio. We trusted only ourselves. I always say: It's better to be the Three Musketeers than being five acquaintances.

So that's how we decided to kickstart again our musical career!

The other two guys in the band are Marco, bass player and second singer (in our new CD he sings Touch the Sky), and Mike,  drummer, percussionist and backing vocalist!

We all come from Milano, Italy! 

What makes you driven acting like a singer/guitar player in a Rock band?

When I was 9 years old I started playing classical guitar for fun with friends, and at 11 I began listening to Aerosmith and Kiss. At 13 I decided to be a rock guitarist and I bought my first electric guitar with

my brother, then I started playing with Mike (we were already friends!). In 93 at school I met Marco and we decided to found our first true rock band!

My idol was Joe Perry from Aerosmith, so I lived for years (when I was teen) acting like him! Then growing up I enlarged my view on all hard rock, blues, metal, etc.  I even always liked to sing, so when in 99 the singer of our former band RoundnRound left the band, we decided that I was the new singer I think the result is not so bad!

Any other ambitions besides playing with your band?

I am also a comics scriptwriter, so I hope to have a good career with that. And even one day I hope to do a solo album where I will put all the songs I cannot play with KickStart for theyre not compatible with KickStarts sound you know: acoustic ballads, celtic or country-style acoustic songs I write a lot of music, not only hard rock songs!

Through the years, you guys passed through many line-up and monicker changes. A few words about that please.

You know, when you're teen you have not always clear ideas about your future and whats right to do. We played with lots of talented musicians (first of all singer Marco Andrini and guitarist Brandon Fung), but sometimes they didn't know for sure if that was their right way so we wasted a lot of time!

Thats why in 99 we were sick of that situation and we decided not to search for other singers and to found a new and definitive band. That meant that we had even to change our monicker, and we decided to use the name of our new song Kickstart. Its the name of a funny character we invented for that song its the caricature of TV films characters: Renegade, Walker Texas Ranger, Steven Seagal a man who thinks to be The Justice and kills everybody in the film!

Tell me about the band named ROUND n ROUND if you like. I suppose this was your first band?  Was it the same style of music as you do with Kickstart, whats the difference between both bands?

This was not our first band, but its been the most important before KickStart. We played a lot of years together, we had a lot of fun. The style was similar to that KickStart style, but less original. We wanted to be the new Aerosmith!

So when we decided to become a trio we had to rearrange every song, throw away some songs a write some new.

Actually, how would you like to discribe both bands way of playing?

You know, being a trio is more difficult than being a five-men band, first of all for the arrangements, but with a trio you can get less mess and more solidity of sound!

Could you name bands/musicians that influence you and Kickstart? Who are some of your favourite bands?

Me and Mikes favourite band is Aerosmith, and Marcos fave is Iron Maiden. But we like so many bands, from hard rock, metal, rock & roll, blues, etc. that are too many to name all! Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, ZZ Top, Pride & Glory, Slashs Snakepit, Rush, Rage, Symphony X, Wine Spirit too many! Lately, I'm listening to The Darkness and Jet!

Who's the songwriter in the band and tell me about the lyrics please.

We all write the songs. I am the one who writes more songs in the band but we all compose!

The lyrics often concern fun, sex, energy, freedom, will of living and carpe diem philosophy! But some lyrics talk about more serious matters, always seen from the inside, told by somebody whos living that matter, without giving a final opinion. For example Timewarp talks about war: from prehistoric age to future, war has always existed and it will always exist. It's a man whos fighting to tell us that story, a man who doesnt feel no hero, he has just to kill somebody else not to be killed. Gotta Get Out talks about a story I've read on newspapers: a killer with a 9-years-old-child mind who has been set to capital punishment something like killing a 9 years old child!

Another branch of arguments is telling stories: Kickstart talks about that character we invented whos the caricature of American TV films; Devils Lonely Nite talks about the Devil falling in love for the first time.

While listening to KickStart, Im almost sure that you guys are really Hard Rock minded. How does it feels to play in a band with a typical old school Rock sound?

Its not something weve been searching for, we just play the way we like and we try to find the sound we like the most! And if that reminds old school Rock sound that means that this is the kind of sound we like, and not that were trying to copy somebody I dont think our sound is old, I always say that we play the 2000 R&R: based on old RocknRoll but open-minded to present and future!

What's your opinion on the nowadays abominations of Metal such as Black, Death or Thrash or nowadays Heavy Metal bands. Do you respect these sort of Metal genres or not?

I always respect every kind of music which seems to be honest. It can be rock, blues, metal, pop, country, celtic or every other kind of music. It has just to be made with passion and sincerity, and not with commercial targets or to look cool in some ways. You know, its more difficult to find something honest in Sugababes than in underground R&R or metal bands, but even in metal you can find a false attitude. I like a lot of heavy metal bands and some thrash metal bands. I dont like so much Death Metal, but I don't find it so wrong.

How did you manage to open for the mighty Paul DiAnno and Darren Whartons Dare? Please do tell about the whole experience.

It's been really funny! The opportunity to be the supporters of these bands was given us by Cathouse, the greatest Italian R&R project (concerts, festivals, magazine, webzine, etc.). You can find them on www.cathouse.it

Paul is known as a dangerous man, but I met him just as a really kind man!

His fans liked really much our show, they headbanged all the time and sang the choruses of our songs and it was the first time they heard them!

There happened some problems, because in the middle of our concert the electricity went away, so Mike kept on playing the drums improvising an unamplified drum solo it's been hard to keep the audiences attention but we got it, even giving the kids some beer! When electricity came back we went on with our show and everything ended well.

By the way, hows the music scene in Italy? I know many Italian Metal bands but the missing of some originality is a fact to me, until the day a package included the KickStart CD reached my postal address. Pretty original and old school influenced, so  different from many other European bands. How are the reactions so far?

Italian scene is not yet well-known in other countries but I can assure you that here you can find a lot of r&r bands kickin asses!

Every zone of Italy has his different r&r scene (Milano, Torino, Padova, Firenze, Bergamo). In Italy theres a really strong rock&roll scene! Hard Rock, glam, punk-rocknroll, garage, street all you can desire! Theres more bands and quality than the Scandinavian r&r scene!

Your very first full length album entitled Fuel. Tell the Metal To Infinity readers the most important things about that album please. Introduce your own album Joe!

It features 7 original songs and 1 cover, the on-the-road classic Born to be Wild, plus a rom-track including some extracts of live performances at Transilvania Live and Indians Saloon, in Milano.

Its a mix of hard rock, rock & roll, prog, street, metal and many other influences! A new way to Rock and Roll!

The song Pump was even included in the compilation of of Rock Hard Italia magazine.

It's recorded in a rehearsal room through a 4 track Minidisc recorder and mixed on a Macintosh PC and the results are just awesome. An explanation please.

Yknow, making a high quality sound album with a low budget its really difficult. You can go in a good recording studio, but in 2 days you will never get what you want. So we thought it should be better for us to use our own equipment, saving some money but spending really much time. We worked hard on it with our sound engineer Max Di Stefano for almost one year! So that's the result: could you even imagine it's not recorded in a professional recording studio?

We could do this because of our experience: we've been playing in a band since we were just kids!

For all those who want to buy the album, an address please where they can purchase it!

Simply go to www.kick-start.it in the CD page. Here youll find every info ya need. You can even send an Email to info@kick-start.it , theyll send ya those infos.

Which goals do you want to reach with KICKSTART in the future or is it just playing for fun and to hell with the future and see what time will bring?

Sure, we play for fun, but not only for that. I was born to write songs and make them known to the world, and even to play them behind thousands of people! We're searching for a deal, so hope well find it! If a seventies-minded band as The Darkness could do it why shouldn't we do it too? Now is the time for rock & roll!

OK brother, that's all for now and thanx once again!Is there something you want to say before leaving?

Everybody go to www.kick-start.it ! You'll find every info you want about KickStart: bios, songs, etc. Download the songs from the DOWNLOAD page, I hope you'll like it and buy the CD and make your friends know our music!

OPEN YOUR MIND FOR THE NEW WAVE OF ROCK and ROLL!!

Thank you to Metal to Infinity.