Interview with 57100 – Leghorn punk rock

We met 57100, a punk rock band from Leghorn. This is what they told us. Enjoy reading!

Radio punk: Welcome to Radio Punk! Let’s begin straight away with some introductions! You have the floor.
57100: Hello everyone. We are 57100, a group of friends before anything else, and then a band; Matteo the “Cat” is the singer, Massi “ir Muzzi” is the guitarist together with Sasha “Sasà”, Gianluca “5” is the drummer and the latest addition to the family is Dani, the bassist.

RP: Could you tell us your story? Who decided to start the band?
57100: Between 1999 and 2000 the “Cat” and “Pare” (the first guitarist) were passionate about music to 360 degrees and, after playing the guitar in the “Venezia” district overnight, they decided to start a band that wasn’t the same old band to pick up girls, but to make people think… Self-taught and inexperienced, with the help of “Berte” on drums, “Selva” on bass and “Samu” on keyboards, in Enzino’s rehearsal room “Empire” (which doesn’t exist anymore), we started writing our first (now famous) tracks such as “Leghorn”, “Politici” (“Politicians”, translator’s note) and “Vigili” (“Policemen”, translator’s note).

RP: 57100, Leghorn postal code, why did you choose this name and what does Leghorn mean to you?
57100: It took us some time to name the band since we were torn between 57100 and 625 (the social security number of the people born in Leghorn ends with these numbers). The majority of us chose 57100 because the postal code was easier to understand. Leghorn means commitment and love for our land and roots, history and all the great figures such as Piero Ciampi and Modigliani…

RP: You wrote a song titled “5 Maggio” (May the 5th, translator’s note), an important date for A.S Livorno Calcio, which on that particular day in 2002 was promoted to the second division. You also played during its hundredth anniversary, what was it like?
57100: As a lot of people say, that’s our “5 Maggio”. It was titled “Non un passo indietro” (“Not a step back”, translator’s note), but then we used the promotion day as a title (which was, indeed, May the 5th just like Manzoni’s ode “Il Cinque Maggio”)… The hundredth anniversary was amazing, thousands of people (from all over Italy and Europe) in love with the amaranth red shirt and our beautiful city; being there playing songs that had been written 15 years before such as “Leghorn” was breathtaking.

RP: How would you describe the music scene in Leghorn?
57100: Wide, varied, full of ideas and desire to play. Bands have never lacked in Leghorn, some are born and die in just a few days, others resist over time…

RP: In the song “Figli di Dario” (Dario’s children, translator’s note), dedicated to Ilio “Dario” Barontini, you face an extremely important matter for us too, antifascism. Do you think the sacrifices of many partisans were “forgotten” by many, with the more and more widespread climate of hatred towards everything and everyone foreign and/or different?
57100: They weren’t “forgotten”. They were UNLEARNT, which is deeply different. In the last 25 years, no matter what colour the government was, attempts have been made to equalize the forces in the Liberation War, rather than underline the principle that Nazi-Fascism is a crime and not an ideology. The results are there for all to see. In our opinion, they try to soften people’s ability of self-determination by saying that victims and offenders are two sides of a coin. PD (the Democratic Party) itself wears the mask of antifascism just for electoral opportunism, but that part has already been taken… Many young people, those who are barely interested in politics and study History just to get a sufficient mark at school, think that April the 25th is the Anniversary of the Republic (!?!?)… Without memory, there’s no future, to revise is to shoot, those are the lyrics of “Figli di Dario”, and that’s what we believe in.

RP: Speaking about something softer, in a more and more “social” world, what’s your relationship with these means of communication like?
57100: We are adapting to them… To promote our music, the dates… Many years ago you got to know a band because a friend’s cousin copied a cassette which went all the way around the city; now it’s all easier but less beautiful, at least for us.

RP: What if we asked you a top 3 of the albums which influenced your musical journey the most?
57100: Beware (1980) Misfits – Combat Rock (1982) The Clash – Ramones (1976) Ramones.

RP: Are you writing some new tracks? Do you have any shows planned? In short, what’s ahead for 57100?
57100: We have a lot of new tracks, every time we open a drawer there’s a song. We’d like to make an actual CD with many tracks, in almost 20 years we’ve only made demos due to financial problems, the songs abound… We’re organising a punk festival with various bands of the Italian punk scene in September (Old Punk never die) with Traumatic Punk (a legendary punk band).

RP: Your logo t-shirts are a blast! Where can we buy them?
57100: Thank you, you can buy them by contacting us on our Facebook page (see, that’s the reason why you need social networks…hahahaha)

RP: Thank you guys for this chat. If you want to add any more information for our readers, you can do it!
57100: Thank you Radio Punk, we’d like to thank all those who followed 57100 during these (almost 20) years, but mostly those who support and “tolerate” us!!

Translation by Alessia Baraldo
Interview by Maria Ve