There's no fun in Italy being Fik
To become a modern Freak Antoni, Fik fused street music, jam sessions, and conservatory training to create the Karneval of Love, that is, the parade of bodily self-determination.
Federico Ficarra is Fik, a musician born and raised in Padua. "In life, I deal with music almost three hundred and sixty degrees," he says. "I'm a concert performer and arranger. I compose music and lyrics, I'm a street artist, I teach privately both individually and in groups, and I organize events and jams." To train, he moved to Berlin, where he immersed himself in the world of street music and jam sessions, jazz, and bodily self-determination, eventually forming his band: Fik y las Flores Molestas (with whom he has just released a new album, Primavera). Their pieces contain jazz and blues influences, mixed with the freak style typical of the founder, a modern Freak Antoni.
During our chat, he mainly talks about one event, the Karneval of Love. It is "a parade whose main content is the self-determination of bodies, also understood as the liberated artistic expression universally inherent in the human being." The Karneval of Love was born in Germany in 2013 and it wasn't easy to bring it to Italy. "The Lega mayor Bitonci in Padua immediately banned the event from the streets. But in general, there were doubts even from artist associations, migrant associations, and women's rights groups. They thought that anti-prohibitionist content, body-painted bodies, and songs about ethical non-monogamy could disturb children and families. So the festival was held a bit in secret." But Fik's next project is to resume the Karneval parades, "which today seem more urgent and relevant than ever." We met him to hear how a freak parade and a jazz band coexist.
What was your academic path?
I picked up the classical guitar when I was 8 years old and studied with Louis Valencia, a teacher from Ecuador. In high school, after listening to Scar Tissue by RHCP, I switched to electric guitar and then to jazz to prepare for the jazz conservatory entrance exams in Graz, the toughest in Europe. Realizing how serious it was (there were heroic stories of people studying for 72 hours straight, musical hikikomori), I went to Berlin and continued my studies as a self-taught musician, absorbing everything I could, performing in clubs, busking on the streets, and frequenting jam session environments. Finally, after returning to Italy for surgery and to recover from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), I graduated in jazz guitar at the Conservatory of Padua, particularly with guitar teacher Daniele Santimone and piano teacher Marcello Tonolo. Here I had privately obtained the Theory and Solfeggio License and had previously graduated as a Recording Room Technician, a diploma that was not very practical and very theoretical, where I mainly learned music informatics, studied classical piano, and Ear Training.
Where did you meet the rest of the band?
The first formation of the band was improvised as sometimes happens with jazz ensembles, on the occasion of the concert held at the Insomnia Night-Club in Berlin as the first official edition of the Karneval of Love festival in 2013.
Afterwards, we continued to spread this effervescence in that and other clubs like Kit Kat Klub, Brunnen70, Kiki Sol, in parks and on the streets always as a marching band. Many musicians participated in these editions of the Karneval of Love, especially amateurs, the main target of the festival. Then we managed to bring the event to Italy as well. The first edition in Italy took place at the former Mame, now Parco della Musica in Padua, where I met Amedeo Schiavon, the drummer of the first stable nucleus in Italy, and as bassist I chose Alberto 'Bebo' Pretto, a former conservatory classmate.
How would you define your music?
The music I compose and that we then arrange, play live, and record in the studio is hard to define, there are too many reference genres: jazz, swing, blues, funky, grunge, samba, pop, rock, hard rock, metal, surf, rock’n’roll, disco music, ambient, cinematic, minimal, jungle, reggae, dubstep... lately I've been inspired by rap and hip hop. Hard to target and brand! I like to call it hard jazz hip pop fusion!
What is Primavera about?
My latest work was born mainly from the need to express and sublimate a pain that could only find expression in music. There are various autobiographical references as happens in blues music (the one I am most attached to) or in rap. But also many themes concerning anti-racism, anti-fascism, social justice, anti-ableism, ecology, anti-nationalism, anti-militarism, and pacifism.
Besides the Karneval of Love, what are your concerts like?
I have a couple of anecdotes to tell in particular. I remember a venue in Berlin, not a Club nor a Night-Club, just a simple place in Wedding where I was singing and playing guitar for the songs of Pissin’around accompanied by my saxophonist colleague Milo Lombardi. At a certain point, people started undressing like in the song Gianna by Rino Gaetano, a dancer friend climbed onto a table dancing and spinning her bra: chaos broke out, many people stripped down to their underwear and a spontaneous parade started up and down the two floors of the venue.
The same thing happened at one of my solo concerts in Padua. A parade with wigs and Mexican sombreros spontaneously started while I was singing Besame Mucho around the venue mariachi-style, even stopping inside the bathroom. The audience had invited me several times to take off my shirt, which I did without hesitation. After all, it was hot. In Berlin, the venue manager enthusiastically joined the parade; in Padua, I never played in that venue again.
Future projects?
To compose and record new music, new songs also in English and Spanish, to record blues, rock, and jazz classics in live concerts, to revisit old high school compositions for solo guitar and make an album out of them. I would like to resume studying classical music and other piano pieces and start a Free jam session (without covers or stylistic constraints) in Padua and surroundings. Above all, I want to resume organizing the parades of the Karneval of Love festival, which today seems more urgent and relevant than ever. At the moment I am arranging the brass section for a small parade at a freak wedding that will be very special.