Giallo films have been a part of our beloved genre’s landscape for decades now and it’s safe to say that one of the reasons these films have endured is due to their remarkable musical scores. Italian progressive rock band Goblin, who worked on such classics as Dario Argento’s Suspiria, Deep Red, Profondo Russo, Tenebre, and George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, toured the US for the very first time last fall and is heading back to the States this spring for another incredible tour.
To celebrate their return, Daily Dead recently chatted with band member and iconic musician Maurizio Guarini about what fans can expect for this second tour. Guarini, who has been with Goblin off-and-on (mostly on though) over the last few decades in addition to working with other musicians on projects like The Beyond, City of the Living Dead and the original Patrick, also discussed his experiences collaborating on some of the greatest horror films of all time, his favorite score that he’s helped bring to life and much more.
Thank you so much for taking time to speak with me today, Maurizio. I missed the Goblin Tour this past fall so I’m really excited you guys will be coming back again in May.
Maurizio Guarini: Thank you so much! That tour was really special for us but we knew we had to come back again because we missed a lot of cities the first time so we’re going to make up for that this Spring. We’ll be heading to the South and a lot more great places that we can play music for all the great horror fans [laughs].
What kind of changes can fans expect for this new tour then? Any musical surprises in store for them?
Maurizio Guarini: Yes, there are some changes coming with this tour. Since December, the line-up has changed so now there’s myself as well as Agostino [Marangolo] and Fabio [Pignatelli], who are the original drums and bass player in Goblin, so this time we have more Goblin than we did before [laughs]. We’re still going to be doing a similar set list and we’re going to use videos again so it’s going to be a lot of the same, but a few little changes here and there. We also have a guest second keyboardist for this tour, Steve Moore from ZOMBI, which will make this truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for fans who come to see us perform.
We also have a beautiful new design for this tour’s t-shirt, which I just think is incredible, but that’s just a minimal change. A lot of fans ask us to play some of the lesser heard music which we don’t often do, but we may play something from Buio Omega this time which is one of the biggest requests we always get from the fans. It’s going to be great; I can’t wait to bring the fans the Goblin energy every evening and feel their energies in return.
You’ve collaborated with many of the greats and have also created some pretty amazing pieces of music all on your own throughout your career. Do you enjoy working independently more or is it more of a thrill creatively to collaborate with others?
Maurizio Guarini: The two are so different, really. You definitely get more freedom when you work on your own, but more freedom doesn’t always help. The biggest difference when you’re working on a movie is that you have to conform to the needs of the director and the story and so the biggest part of your job is capturing emotions sonically and then making that work with the director’s vision. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked with some of the very best directors and musicians throughout my career and I appreciate both sides of my career equally.
Do you have a favorite piece of music that you worked on in your career? Or is just too hard to choose after all these years because there are so many to choose from?
Maurizio Guarini: It’s so hard to choose. Probably Suspiria if I did have to choose just because that was such a special experience for me to work with Dario [Argento] on. That was one of those rare cases where we created music before he was finished with the film so we had a lot of freedom on Suspiria that we didn’t on other films. That may be why it is still so special to me.
There’s also another piece of music that a lot of people may not know of from this obscure little TV movie I did in Los Angeles in the early ‘80s called St. Helens, which was the first time I was able to work with a full symphonic orchestra. That was an incredible moment in my career and I think St. Helens has some of my best work in it actually. That was a lot of fun for me.
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To keep up with Goblin and learn more about their latest tour, visit:
Tour Dates:
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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