Vasco Rossi: A Life Beyond Limits

Years go by, Vasco Rossi remains. The reckless life, brought on stage just as he interprets it in private, has not scratched him. And millions of fans throughout Italy are preparing for the new tour that is a new series of sold-outs. And him, at 72 years old, has no intention of disappointing them. Yet, not everyone loves him, he says. "I have also been very hated. By the moralists, by the right-thinkers," he explains in an interview with Corriere della Sera, "They spat on me in the street. I was the drug addict. The scapegoat of the early 80s. The direct responsible for the spread of drugs because, according to them, my songs pushed the use of drugs." Gabriella Sturani, Vasco Rossi's son: "You left in 10 days, I was not ready. You taught me love." Yes, drugs, a curse he had to deal with several times. "I could stay three days without sleeping, thanks to amphetamines. Then I realized that amphetamines are dangerous. I experimented with my psyche, I entered my mind, I made a journey inside my consciousness. I tried almost all drugs, except heroin. Putting heroin on the same level as marijuana is criminal, because this way kids are convinced that they are equivalent, and if the dealer doesn't have one, then you can buy the other..." he said. The death of the father that changed him. The father was a fundamental figure for Vasco Rossi. "He returned from the concentration camp weighing 35 kilos. His name was Giovanni Carlo and he was a truck driver. He died of exhaustion at 56 years old, while maneuvering among the silos of the port of Trieste. I went to pick him up and something inside me changed. Dad was a fighter, he had said no to the Nazis. A strength entered me that I did not have before, and that merged with the melancholy, the joy, the love for music of my mother. And I said to myself: no more joking around. Here I play everything. I risk my life." Jail. In 1984 Vasco Rossi was arrested in a disco in Bologna for possession of cocaine. "Five days of isolation. Endless days, very long minutes. It never passed. I tried to sleep, I woke up thinking I had a bad dream; finally, I realized it was all true. Then another 17 days in jail. Only De André came to visit me, with Dori. Pannella sent a telegram. It was the opportunity to reset myself." Vasco and love. Like every tormented poet, Vasco Rossi owes many of his works to his sweet halves. "The first love? Paola, a feminist who had set out to destroy me, and she succeeded. I was the guilty of ten thousand years of patriarchy... After her, and before Laura, my wife, it was just sex. All the songs in which I'm angry with women were inspired by Paola; I should give her the copyright. Albachiara, instead, is inspired by Giovanna, a girl "I saw arriving in Zocca with the bus. Years later I found her in a disco and told her, but she didn't believe it: 'You say that to all because you want to sleep with them!'. So I wrote 'A Song for You'." Laura, his wife, is his greatest love: "I tried twice to send her away. The first time I found her seven hours later, outside the recording studio; she hadn't moved from there. The second time I found her outside the house, sitting on the suitcase. I thought the police would come to arrest me again; and I took her back. The truth is that I loved her from the first moment I saw her. A overwhelming passion." The children. Vasco Rossi has three children: Lorenzo, Davide, and Luca. The latter, born from the love with his wife Laura. The others, recognized late with the DNA test. Lorenzo (son of Gabri, who died a few days ago) and Davide were born a month apart in 1986. "I recognized Davide after the DNA test and paid 5 million a month for maintenance. I vented to lawyer Gatti, who comforted me: 'It's a miracle, Mr. Rossi, if you knew the effort I made...'." The second test, that for Lorenzo, he did pushed by Gabriella. "She called me and told me that the boy cared." Death according to Vasco. "The afterlife does not exist," says Vasco confidently, "It's all here and now. I have always been a materialist. But now physicists think that matter is just a set of vibrations, and that consciousness comes before matter. This is true immortality." Yet in the end he thinks about it: "I would like to die on stage," he says.