We know you as an important musician and producer for Frontiers Records of course, but how did you end up in Hardline as well in 2011?
I was a fan of Hardline and Frontiers and it was actually one of the first things what I have done with the label, because they heard what I was doing and they thought somehow it would work with Johnny, so I got to give kudos to them for realizing that before anybody else. They put us in touch and they sent Johnny the songs that I had written for Hardline and then fast forward to ‘here we are’.

Indeed, now we are talking about Johnny and an Italian band…
Yeah true. It is my fault (laughs).

You were contacted for the third reunion of Hardline…
Yes. At that time we had to decide ‘where do we want to bring the band live?’ And make it efficient, also logistical-wise. I just suggested: ‘maybe we just keep it European’, since all the offers were coming from Europe and at that time, when Johnny contacted me, the band was only Johnny. He did not have anybody else and he was open to find some musicians. That’s how we went from America to Italy.

I see that the guitarist Luca Princiotta happens to be the newest one, since 2023. What happened to the former guitarist?
Mario (Percudani – Vera) simply wanted to leave. He had personal issues and it was heartbreaking, because Mario and I had been friends and we have been playing together for years. He was really a perfect fit for the band, but he needed to leave and at that point I was like okay, so we got to find someone equal or better. I was working with Luca on a Jorn record and on Sandstorm. I thought ‘mmm he would be perfect for Hardline’ and then I simply asked him. Thank God he said yes. We could not have found a better guitar player and songwriter and also personality-wise. We could not find any better than Luca. He is so good. He is incredible. What a musician!

Another thing that leaps to the eye is that you changed from Frontiers to Steamhammer. What is the story behind that?
Well, Hardline left Frontiers in 2023 and I left Frontiers in 2023 as well. It is not that we wanted to change label. We at some point, changed our management and Thomas, our new manager, suggested: ‘why don’t we talk to Steamhammer?’ because Johnny has been doing Axel Rudi Pell with Steamhammer for years. It took only a phone call and we are very happy about it. What a change! What an improvement on anything about the promotion, on the structure of the label, I am so happy with them… So this is my first record with Steamhammer. I have had records from anybody, from AFM to obviously Frontiers to Napalm to Nuclear Blast, but I have never been on Steamhammer. Now I can say that I have been with Steamhammer as well.

The new Hardline album ‘Shout’ should refer to the sound of the first album ‘Double Eclipse’. I know you were not in the band at that time, but how do you see that?
It came out naturally. I think every time that we write a new Hardline album, ‘Double Eclipse’ remains such an important record that we want to have a connection with it. It is part of the DNA of the band. It is like saying Deep Purple has the Hammond organ. It comes out natural, but obviously it is 40 years ago. Between ‘Double Eclipse’ and now there have been multiple records and 34 years, but now this is my fifth studio record with the band and now I think I know where the band shine and what makes it special and in my opinion, thanks to the synergy with Luca, we have been nailing that sort of magic even deeper and even better.

Let us zoom in to some of the songs. One of them happens to be a cover of Scorpions. It is from ‘Pure Instinct’ in 1996. What abut this choice?
Well it is not an obvious cover for a Scorpions track, because from the Scorpions, if you want to have a ballad, they have written so many beautiful, very successful ballads. ‘Still Loving You’ and ‘When The Smoke Is Going Down’… but, regarding that song, Johnny fell in love with it and he sent it to me. He said ‘can we make a cover?’ I said ‘yes and I think I can arrange it, so that we make it different  and making it sound like a Hardline song’, because a lot of people probably won’t know that it is a cover, unless they read the liner notes, but they will eventually fall in love with the song, because it is a great melody and I think we have made an arrangement that makes it cool and different but still paying  tribute to the great Scorpions. Make it our version, make it more ours, that was the challenge.

Now something dear to my heart… With singer Johnny you also share the love for animals and more specific with dogs. Can you tell a bit more about that?
I am vegan. I am an animal rights activist. So I am pro animals and obviously it is part of who I am and it is part of my life philosophy. Johnny is not vegan, but he has been flying rescue dogs, flying aeroplanes all his life for rescue dogs. We share the love for dogs and we lost our dogs almost at the same time. One day I sat down and I wrote the song ‘Glow’. It is like a discourse, like two souls talking. Johnny is the human and I sing the part of the dog on the other side. It is a discourse of the person who is still on earth questioning eternity and saying ‘where will I see you glow?’, ‘where will I see your soul glow?’ because now you are not physically with me anymore, but I feel you. Where can I see you shine as a new energy, as a new life? Where ever you are. That song is really, really important for us.

‘Candy Love’ should be inspired by the eighties. Back then you were still a child, but how can we see that? What is your remembrance of the eighties?
I was born in 1979, so I can say that I was there when a lot of our favourite bands beat it, like Europe or Toto or Bon Jovi and Dire Straits. Obviously it really shaped my taste a lot. I am in love with eighties music and what I remember was that I could feel this positive energy, it was in the air. If you think there hasn’t been an era with so many charity songs and songs that really wanted to change the world and give it back to people. If you think of Live Aid, ‘We Are The World’, stars… what I remember the most is that sort of energy. I remember going into the Amazon forest with Greenpeace and every member. I remember Bono Vox, fighting for the rights and I remember the artists are giving voice to causes. It was a great moment in time, very positive. There was a wind of hope that was blowing and you could see it in the music and then, with the fall of communist countries, it was really the epic ending of such an era, because it brought to the world what we needed. With very much more freedom and much more safety. I cannot say that about the last few weeks, but we live in a much better world because of those times. All the positive energy that we had at that time. It was very positive, it was very optimistic and you could really feel that people thought that they could change the world for real. It was a great time and music in the charts was positive.