Discovering Andrea Pizzo and The Purple Mice

Monday already, and ready to enter into this new week on the perfect note thanks to our band of the day The Purple Mice.

The outstanding band consists of husband and wife Andrea Pizzo (lead vocal and composer) and Raffaella Turbino (songwriter, visual creative), Riccardo Morello (keyboard and melody lines), and Roberto Tiranti (multi-instrumentalist and arrangements). Their latest delivery “Potatoes On Mars” is the result of a great team effort.

The genre-blending opus between soft-rock, pop and experimental touches is a great musical journey through art and imagination. You will hear creativity, authenticity, and memorable lyricism.

It was only right to have a conversation with them about the creative process:

Who are you?

Andrea Pizzo was born in Albenga (SV) in 1977.
He likes watching science-fiction movies but his greatest passion is music. He loves singing. He graduated in physics from University of Genova and he works as a software engineer.
He is the music composer and the voice of The Purple Mice’s songs.

Raffaella Turbino was born in Chiavari (GE) in 1977. She loves reading, writing, drawing and handmade creations. She graduated in Humanities from University of Genova and works as a teacher.
She writes the lyrics and create drawings and paintings making
songs’ videos.

Andrea and Raffaella are married and live in Genova with their daughter Maria Elena, who also helps to make real their artistic projects.

Riccardo Morello lives in Genova where he works as a composer and vocal coach. He’s involved in many musical projects, and he’s the singer of Il
Segno del Comando, a band with a jazz-rock-prog-dark-soundtrack approach that started in Genova in 1995.
He composes melodies and plays keyboard for The Purpe Mice’s songs.

Roberto Tiranti is a professional artist since many years with a lot of experiences and a great music career. He’s the lead singer and bassist of Heavy/Power Italian Metal band Labyrinth. On his repertory there are many cooperation with many other band, like Ken Hensley & Live Fire, Wonderworld, Mangala Vallis, New Trolls and many more. He has also released a solo album, Sapere Aspettare and singed on some Film and Theatre Operas Soundtracks (Excalibur III – The Origins, I dieci comandamenti).
He plays all the instruments and makes musical arrangements of all The Purple Mice’s songs.

How did you start to make music and how would you describe your sound?

The Purple Mice is a group of different artists who started to work together in a musical project around Andrea Pizzo’s voice and his idea to create a concept album about the Universe and some human deepest dreams.
Our music can be framed in indie progressive rock, in classic space rock with ambient elements. The influences are as follows: Queen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jeff Buckley, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis, …. If you need more infos https://andreapizzo1977.wixsite.com/purplemice/media

What is your creative process?

In our first work we focused on a theme that was dear to all of us: science fiction and the role of man in the cosmos. We consider our songs as chapters of a book which is our record “Potatoes On Mars”. Each chapter is a part of the story we want to tell. I worked on the lyrics with my wife and on the music with my friends Roberto and Riccardo.

Can you tell us more about your latest release?

The lyrics of the songs are all written by Raffaella Turbino and Andrea Pizzo, except Among the Stars and Go Fishing in the Ocean Of Enceladus which see the intervention together with Riccardo Morello.
The music is by Andrea Pizzo, Riccardo Morello and Roberto Tiranti.
All the instruments are played by Roberto Tiranti, except the piano in Jupiter and The Galilean Moons played by Riccardo Morello, the kalimba and the hang pan by Andrea Pizzo, the theremin in Go fishing in the Ocean of Enceladus played by Stefano Bertoli.
All the songs are sung by Andrea Pizzo except Go fishing in the Ocean of Enceladus which sees the participation of Riccardo Morello, Roberto Tiranti and Antonella Suella, as space soprano.
The choirs in the disc are by Andrea Pizzo and Roberto Tiranti.
The recited part of Jupiter and the Galilean Moons is by Raffaella Turbino, that of Pale Blue Dot is by Maria Elena Pizzo.

The album develops on several levels:

a) space: we start from the Earth and describe the exploration of the planets of the solar system and then imagine the journey to the Galaxy and the Universe

b) time: the journey through time of man is imagined starting from the birth of scientific thought up to a distant future in which humanity will have “divine” capabilities

c) following the Kardashev scale, which describes the evolution of a civilization as a function of the technological level

What can we expect from you in the future?

We are working on a new album on the relationship between man and technology. We hope to release a new single already in the spring 🙂