Marco & The Freedivers blend the warm sound of Blues Rock with Modern Jazz. Original songs and instrumentals drift through fast swing ostinatos, free improvisations, psychedelic shuffles and lazy, melancholic 12 bar cycles. Their new songs reflect on the current re-evaluation and understanding of human life, and our relationship with nature, and a search for answers that are within us. Words and sounds concur in the hero’s journey; primordial resilient Blues, bursting anger of Rock, and freedom of Jazz.
Marco Piccioni is a Blues, Rock, and Jazz guitarist and singer based in London, UK. A graduate from Berklee College of Music, Marco Piccioni has worked in New York, Italy, and UK. As a solo artist, he has recorded three albums, Waterflight with his Quartet, Far with his Trio, and the latest, FREE, with Marco & The Freedivers. He has been part of the Modal Contemporary band Collocutor by Tamar Osborn, and worked with various top UK artists, including jazz diva Fiona Ross, songstress
Julia Biel, Fela Kuti’s keyboardist and Afrobeat pioneer Dele Sosimi, and Jazz star Cleveland Watkiss.
The name, Marco & The Freedivers, evolved from Marco Piccioni’s life as a freediver, the act of being underwater on a single breath, which leads to inner meditative stillness and awareness, connecting to the mystery of the ocean and her inhabitants. Marco Piccioni started freediving when he was young under the guidance of his father. Now, he trains and coaches freedivers of all levels.
Marco Piccioni travels regularly to explore and freedive in the ocean. As in with music, he can disappear in the depth of the blue(s) for a few minutes, to then re-emerge as re-born.
With FREE out now, we took some time to hear from Marco & The Freedivers. Read below to learn more about Marco & The Freedivers, the story behind FREE, and what’s to come.
FREE: https://marcopiccioni.bandcamp.com/album/free-2
Hi! Let’s start with how did the band’s name come about?
Hi! I’ve always been connected to water and the sea, and I have been freediving since young age. Around 2013 that calling became stronger, while I was an active musician in London. I found and joined a wonderful freediving club and began training, and a very transformative experience started. Freediving and every aspect around it can have have a deep impact on your life, physically, mentally and spiritually. Inspiration and music followed, and so the name of the band.
What city are you all from, and where are you all based now?
Chris and Jason are from London, where we’re all based. I’m from Turin, Italy, and moved to London in 2006.
How and when did the band form?
I formed the band around 2008, with Chris Nickolls on drums and Blendi Dhami on double bass, I met Chris at a Jazz gig and I met Blendi when he moved to London, he used to play with my former teacher and inspiration Julien Kasper in Boston. Jason Simpson joined the band for the project, FREE, more recently, I met him in the London Jazz circuit, and played with him in different formats and bands.
How would you all describe your band’s sound?
It’s highly influenced by late ’60s and ’70s Blues Rock and Rock ’n’ Roll, as well as Classic Blues and more Modern Jazz.
Who are some of your band’s main musical influences?
Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Julien Kasper, Keith Jarrett, Roger Waters, Wayne Shorter…
What’s one of the proudest moments of your group’s music career so far?
This is my third album and it feels like an important and “suffered” arrival, and turning point, I feel different after releasing it, I feel renewed, inspired to create new things and full of energy to play it live.
What would you all say are the greatest lessons that you’ve all learned so far?
I think that protecting and nourishing “your heart” and everything connected to it, is the most precious thing, and the greatest lesson that I’ve learnt so far. In life as in music it will lead to your truth, and a good life.
Now onto FREE. What inspired this album?
I’m inspired by the concept of freedom and how it has been challenged, betrayed and expressed in recent years. I’m inspired by humans that, in their solitude and humbleness, have been confronting the powers that trick and control us, people like Julian Assange and other great journalists that are censored, silenced or killed for telling the truth and reporting the lies and the crimes that particularly our Western governments are committing.
I’m inspired by athletes, and everyone that is curious to explore their physical and mental potential and the connection with nature and this reality and how we can tap into what we call “spirituality.”
I’m inspired by “normal” people, the ones not seen under the spotlight, the “real humans” that live, struggle, survive, and work for humanity and are connected to truth.
What is the overall theme of FREE?
It’s a contemplation and elaboration of a journey, through darkness and light.
What was the inspiration behind the cover artwork for FREE?
I wanted to use an image of free diving for the cover. During one of our trips in Greece, on the last day, we drifted with the current along an incredible riff and finished in the open sea where our boat picked us up, I was with my best friends and it was one of the best dives of my life; as we were swimming toward the boat at the end of our session I took that photo of Federico, and it fully encapsulates the spirit of that moment and the message of FREE.
What was the creative process like when making FREE?
I wrote most of the music and themes on my own, then met up with Bnann Infadel and wrote the lyrics, and then worked on the sonic aspects with my band.
How long did it take to complete FREE?
Too long…I recorded the band live first, then I spent time recording vocals and extra guitars at home, and then the mixing and mastering back and forth. It took about 4 years.
Is there a specific song on FREE that speaks to you all the most? If so, why?
I like “Stars of Summer,” the first song, to me it has all the elements of FREE, the sound, the energy, the rawness, the evocative lyrics and uplifting and freeing chorus. It’s inspired and dedicated to my girlfriend, and in general how that person that we love and loves us can become like the stars above, an infinite luminescence of beauty, even when everything seems in dark.
What message or messages do you all hope fans take away from FREE and your band’s music in general?
I hope they will feel or perceive the energy we tried to portray in FREE. And, I hope that they will be curious to come to see us performing live and be in that unique moment with us.
What’s next? Are you all working on any upcoming projects, or do you all have any upcoming shows that we should be on the lookout for?
We’re working on the live dates, and I started to write new music…
Where can we follow you all on social media?
https://www.instagram.com/marcoandthefreedivers
https://www.facebook.com/marcoandthefreedivers
https://www.tiktok.com/@marcogtrblue
https://www.youtube.com/@marcoandthefreedivers
Thank you all for the great interview; wish you all much continued success!
