Sadness, Love and Friendship with For The First Time

For The First Time 1
The pseudonym of Italian musician Roberto D’aiello, For The First Time is a project started in May 2015. Roberto is an acoustic guitarist and singer, and has headlined around Europe.

Starting with a need to express his deep feelings and overwhelming thoughts, he wrote phrases and sentences, turning them into thoughtful and honest songs, with the result that which is clearly a very personal and intimate project. We were intrigued to find out more about this artist.

For The First Time 2

EP: ‘For The First Time’ is an interesting name. What is that all about?

RD: Everything started when so many things in my life were kind of falling apart and after some bad months I started to find a way to overcome the feeling of senselessness. Then I found music as a therapy: I started to write songs and that made me feel better. All the negative things and feelings were turned into the music that had a positive impact into my life. And something like that happened “For The First Time” in my life.

EP: You’re from Italy – tell us a bit about yourself, where are you from, what’s your background?

RD: I am 27 years old and I come from the centre of Italy. I’ve attended Art School since I was 15 and this year I am graduating from Sculpture department. Nevertheless I always considered myself more as a musician. Everything started when I was three years old and my mum bought me a kid’s drum. I was so into it that I wouldn’t give up on it even though all my neighbours hated me. After some years I started play a real drum. Later with my older brother and my grandpa I was practicing playing all kinds of guitars including a bass one. As it usually happens when you can play some instruments, I met the people with the same interests and set up the bands. The most important was one punk rock band where I played the drums and one grunge duo with my friend Francesca where I also played the drums.

EP: Tell us something about your music – how long have you been writing, how long have you been performing, where have you performed?

RD: My solo music project was born in the end of May last year when I wrote my first song. It was after a really bad breakup. After that I kept writing more and more songs and recorded an EP in September before going for Erasmus to Slovakia. Because my project has only been around for less than a year, I haven’t have many performances so far. I played for the first time in September, in Italy, then in January I had two concerts, one in Slovakia and one in Italy again. I recently got inspired while in Slovakia, and since December I’ve written 4 new songs and started preparing my new EP.

EP: Where do you see yourself in one year’s time? In 5 years’ time?

RD: Actually it is hard to say because everything is changing so fast that sometimes it is impossible to make any plans. But for now I think in one year I would like live in another European country for a while. I will probably do an internship at the contemporary centre in Berlin and I will try to spread my music there by giving concerts and so on. And I have a big dream that in five years I will be travelling around the world, performing in concert.

EP: Talk us through your album. Is it a concept album, or do you feel each song can stand alone?

RD: Every song on my album is about love, some are about the good side of it, but most are about that bad side, like being heart-broken and devastated by the breakup. As I said before, my bad life experiences were a trigger to start writing my music. Nevertheless I think it is still possible to listen to one song without knowing the whole content.

EP: What’s the Italian music scene like?

RD: This is a really hard question for me to answer because I have grown up on American and British indie, alternative and rock music. That makes me to look up to foreign bands more than Italian ones. The Italian music scene is a bit different from the world music scene, mostly because of the language and for the musicians it is hard to be popular abroad.

EP: Where can we find your music? Where can we see you perform?

RD: You can find my music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud and some videos on YouTube. I keep searching for new concerts for the next month, so stay tuned for the news.

For The First Time -  I Don't (Wanna Be)

About the author

Lisa has been writing for over 20 years, starting as the entertainment editor on her university newspaper. Since then she's written for Popwrapped, Maximum Pop, Celebmix, and ListenOnRepeat.

Lisa loves all good music, with particular fondness for Jedward and David Bowie. She's interviewed Edward Grimes (Jedward), Kevin Godley, Trevor Horn, Paul Young, Peter Cox (Go West), Brendan B Brown (Wheatus), Bruce Foxton (The Jam), among many many more. Lisa is also available for freelance writing - please email lisa@essentiallypop.com

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