Distruggi La Bassa 2019: crew interview!

A chat with Distruggi La Bassa’s crew

It’s not the first time we interview our friends of the Distruggi La Bassa, staff, but this year, because of the incredible line up and Kina’s reunion, we felt the urge to ask some questions to the awesome collective from Ferrara.
Have a good read!

Radio Punk: Hi guys, welcome back to our webzine. Introduce yourselves to the few who don’t know you yet…
DLB Crew: Hey Radio Punk! The DLB collective was officially born 5 years ago.
In the crew there are various components and members from many different scenes.
There are people who already had experience in the organization of gigs, others jumped in later, many joined because of their dedication to the scene.
The need of a collective emerged after the festival’s first edition, when we realized that we were creating something big, something that would have needed more minds and arms to create the next edition. Luckily this year we have a great team!

RP: Are you aware of the fact that this edition is more than the word epic can define? What the hell were you thinking about? How does it feel to have such a badass lineup?
DLB Crew: We have no clue! Seriously, we gathered up a couple of times, sipping dozens of beers, squeezing our brains out trying to decide which bands to call.
Each of us had different contacts. After a couple of weeks we ended up with a sheet of paper full of band names that had accepted to play.
We were aware that something big was going to come out and we just went with the flow in this adventure.
The line-up result is the outcome of a year long work, full of decisions, mental breakdowns and confirmations.

RP: You’ve been working hard for years and you did wonderful things. Unfortunately not everybody realizes the burden of organization this fest requires and the amount of problems to resolve.
Explain what’s behind Distruggi La Bassa, how such a festival is organized, how you coordinate yourselves with other collectives in order to not have concerts on the same day, when are the first calls made to find the location and the bands. We want to know everything! It may be helpful for anyone who has just started organizing concerts and explain to the serial complainers how much work it takes to make everything go the right way…
DLB Crew: Actually it sometimes gets pretty frustrating. We all have jobs to attend and each of us has his own problems so being able to coordinate the meetings in order to see each other all together is very stressful. By this time when we’re organizing this year’s edition our minds are already on next year’s. There’s a shitload of paperwork to go through, hours of late night stands in order to finish the graphics in time for the printing or the posts to send out the day after. We spend hours on the phone, coordinating and contacting bands, technicians, sound systems, bar, sound engineers, backline, generators, logistics, food and much more… not to mention that on the spot there’s nothing but the physical place for the fest, so we need to make many spot inspections to have in mind the real situation.
Finally the festival itself wears out our energies most. Basically it’s a continuous flux that never leaves us but we have this great passion in common and that’s the best part.
For the last 2 years at the end of the festival we take the time to visit other festivals which we collaborate with sometimes through our net of contacts, sometimes because many of the organizers are great friends of ours, so the dates don’t overlap.

RP: #GretaTuborgTime: shall we make a big call to the people attending the festival, asking them to keep it clean and not to leave garbage on the location?
DLB Crew: The entire staff team will take cleaning turns, make your part and respect the place.
Another thing on this year’s agenda is that there will also be a person in charge of the festival’s care and all the volunteers/ organizers will be careful of the differentiation of the garbage.
All the people who are going to camp will be provided with a kit in order to keep the camping area clean, and we will ask everyone to respect the environment since we’ll be in a breathtaking natural landscape and because we believe in environmentalism.

RP: After all these years, what has changed in your collective? Which differences did you notice between now and when you started?
DLB Crew: Many things have changed, I’d say for the best, especially in regard of numbers. Although the sizes of DLB are three times the ones of the first editions, now that we are many and motivated, there’s less stress, more harmony and energies. The thing that makes me happier is seeing how many kids took small and big responsibilities upon themselves just for the best of the festival.

RP: You gave the first announcement of Kina’s reunion. How does it feel to be the ones that will bring back the legendary band on stage?
DLB Crew: With no doubt it’s a great honour, there’s not much to say.
It’s a great honour to bring such a band to our home giving the opportunity to see the band play to those who never had the chance to.
It’s the work of a couple of years that ends with one of our dreams coming true, there are no words to say how much this band has influenced our scene and in some cases our lives, we are very grateful and we are excited to see them at Distruggi La Bassa.
We think that this moment is the highest peak we have ever reached as a collective.

RP: I bet you guys have seen pretty much anything during these years’ festivals: what’s the funniest and the most absurd story you have to tell?
DLB Crew: I really don’t know which could be the most absurd thing we’ve come across. The whole DLB experience is just a continuous sketch of absurd people. The best thing for us is to meet at the end of the day to tell each other the most incredible things we’ve experienced during the fest.
If I had to choose which is the most absurd thing I saw in these years it would probably be when last year, at the end of the festival, a guy jumped head-front in the lake. We stood there expecting him to be stuck with his head in the sand but instead he just jumped out of the water, got in his van and greeted us saying: “See you next year!”.
The funniest story that also filled us with pride would probably be when a family with two very young kids that lived nearby the fest’s location came by to see what was going on since they had never seen so many cars parked along the road.
We saw one of the kids dancing with the punks and the parents having a great time, we gave them a couple of the festival’s shirts and thanked them for the compliments they made.
That’s when we realized we had done something great.

RP: Inevitable question for an interview. What are your future plans, what’s DLB’S future?
DLB Crew: DLB’S future is to remain DLB. The intent is to get better but to maintain our roots.

RP: In these years Distruggi la Bassa has become an example for DIY festivals, built from below with strenght and determination. How important to you is the DIY dimension and putting political, social and cultural content other than music, since these aspects are adding up in your editions?
DLB Crew: The DIY dimension is itself the essence of the festival, made by people with passion for people with passion. We won’t hide the fact that we often slip, make valuation errors or encounter problems that need to be solved quickly. But it also often happens that people from the crowd spontaneously come to help us.
It’s probably plain sense of belonging, as if the crowd felt at home and had the interest in everything going the right way. This is one of the things that make us proud.
About the poltics, we believe that the values of antifascism, antisexism, antiracism, diy, solidarity and sharing emerge on their own when we open the gates.
The cultural aspect is fundamental to us and we will continue to keep it in mind in the future.
As we said before, we care about the dimension of a self-organized festival.
This year we tried to fill up Distruggi la Bassa with not only musical contents but also things like a serigraphy workshop where you will be able to print your own festival shirt, the showing of documentaries (in this case Kina’s “SE HO VINTO SE HO PERSO”). We also opened up to the independent publishings with the presentation of books during different days in one of the most amazing places of our territory.
We’re sure that this will always be a completely Diy festival because this is its nature. We absolutely don’t want to become a pre-packaged product and we’ll always try to take the side of our people, improving ourselves each year and offering more fun without craving any kind of glory.

RP: We read an announcement where you said you need volunteers. This is a good moment to repeat the call to arms, step up you dirty punx!
DLB Crew: It’s true, we made an announcement and we had good feedback. We would like to thank everybody that will be helping us in these days!

RP: Every year we hope the mosquitoes won’t show up, is there any chance this year we won’t be invaded by these ever-growing animals that are reaching pig sizes?
DLB Crew: The mosquito has by now become our totem animal. Anyway the owner of the location has assured us that he’s taking care of the pest control and it’s working pretty well.

RP: Try convincing those who are reluctant to come. Have fun!
DLB Crew: Come on and show up! You won’t regret it.

RP: The interview has come to an end. Thank you again for the wonderful experiences you give to us with your live shows and thanks for the chat. Anything left to say to our readers?
DLB Crew: we invite you guys to stay tuned and follow us on the event’s page ‘cause important infos and timings are going to come out soon. Also remember to ALWAYS follow Radio Punk because these guys really deserve it. See you at Distruggi la Bassa 2019!

Translation by Dende