Giuseppe “Gastone” Porrello has long been a major player in the music scene. Now the son of Frankfurt is also one of the sons of Mannheim, whose album “Kompass” he played a key role in designing.
A story of its own could be told about the boat alone. It has been around for almost 90 years, and has seen all sorts of things and has not only sailed through shallow waters, mainly on the Main near Offenbach, where it was built in 1935 as a transport barge. At a time when Nazi Germany began to prepare for war. “This is really thick steel,” says Giuseppe Porrello, knocking on the inside of the wall. “I don’t know exactly what was being transported back then, but I assume it was coal.”
The boat hasn’t transported anything at all for a long time, at least not heavy goods; and even visually there is no longer any indication of its past or original function. Which is primarily thanks to Porrello. Today he continues to write the story of the boat and makes it part of his story. And that’s what this is supposed to be about.
The singer, songwriter and guitarist has long been known to everyone under the name Gastone. That’s the name of his band, with which he plays on stages in the region and far beyond. “We’ll be coming of age soon,” he says and laughs. He also has reason to be happy, because the Frankfurt native has been a permanent member of the Söhne Mannheims for a few years. In mid-September, the soul-pop-hip-hop collective returned with its seventh album “Kompass”. Giuseppe Porrello wrote or at least played a key role in nine of the 16 songs on it. The record was presented to the music world on his boat, which he converted into a studio houseboat and named “Josephine Baker”. The location could hardly be more suitable.
However: Porrello probably doesn’t need a compass on the former coal cutter, with which he could theoretically chug along the Main and Rhine to Mannheim. The “Josephine Baker” lies quietly at anchor on the Offenbach harbor island. The Frankfurt skyline looms in the distance, old shipyards, factories and new buildings in the nearby area give the place a harsh but graceful industrial charm. Once inside, it’s easy to forget you’re on the water. Only when a vehicle sails past and throws waves does it rock gently.
“The houseboat has just been finished and the studio is set up,” says Porrello. “Just in time for the presentation of the ‘Kompass’ album.” He sits down on the blue sofa that stands to the side in front of the mixing console and the platform with the mattresses and colorful blankets. The autumn sun shines in through large portholes, the interior is painted in a matt shiny petrol, two electric guitars hang on the wall, and there is even a small galley in the rear. “I’m really happy that we can now start recording here.”
Giuseppe “Gastone” Porrello has had a studio in Frankfurt’s Gallusviertel for 17 years, and some pieces and parts of “Kompass” were created there. Why is a second studio on the Main necessary? “A houseboat was a childhood dream of mine,” says the 46-year-old. When a friend happened to tell him about an artist who wanted to sell his houseboat in Offenbach, he didn’t hesitate for long. It was clear from the start that “a lot had to be done” to the dilapidated barge. “But I didn’t care,” says Porrello, “the main thing was the houseboat.” Sometimes fate plays a role. “Absolutely!”
He spent three years restoring the boat together with friends and family. “That’s why it took a little longer.” But he had a lot of time during the corona pandemic, when all concerts and festivals were canceled. “And I used this time.” With the help of his cousin, who is a metalworker, the low ship’s hull was milled and raised and the large round windows were installed. “I trained as a carpenter, so I can do a bit myself.” And not just with wood.
Because Giuseppe Porrello didn’t just fulfill his dream of owning a houseboat. For him, a dream that many others pursue in vain has come true: “After my training, I started making music straight away – and have been able to make a living from it ever since.” Of course, the music bug infected him much earlier. He was “infected” at the age of 14 when his father gave him tickets for the Frankfurt Music Fair with the words: “Go there, maybe it’s something for you.”
And that was it. “I wanted to be like the rockers there, with long hair, a leather jacket and an electric guitar.” Grandpa then gave him an acoustic guitar and he soon saved up the money for the electric version himself. At the age of 15, he founded his first band with a few people his own age, and their first gig was in a church in Bockenheim.
He can of course also remember his first record, it was an album by Alice Cooper. “It looked so scary.” And so for quite some time and in various formations it was more of a rock thing, sometimes a little more poppy, and there were always self-written songs in the repertoire. Through music, Porrello met the drummer Stefan Bender from Taunus in the late 90s, with whom he founded the band Gastone in 2006 – thus launching his career as a singer.
He had already written a few songs, “but for a long time I only sang at home for myself”. He sang his first songs for Gastone on the computer as a test. And when he listened to the result, he thought: ‘Wow, that doesn’t sound so bad.’ He was and is not alone with this thought. Porrello’s smoky, sonorous voice exudes a pull, especially in combination with his mostly German texts, whose palette oscillates between poetry and satire, from everyday madness to world-weariness. It’s not without reason that he also writes lyrics for others, such as the musician Chima, singer-songwriter Fee or ex-No Angel Nadja Benaissa.
Hardly a week goes by when Gastone doesn’t perform somewhere in the Rhine-Main area or other corners of Hesse. Sometimes there are three musicians, sometimes five, sometimes seven. In addition to guitar and drums, you can hear bass, trumpet and trombone, and also mandolin. The music is “a bit like blues, just with a different rhythm.” His penchant for folk and folklore also shines through, not only when he garnishes his own pieces with covers and classics, preferably from Italy, his parents’ homeland. He describes the typical Gastone style as “spaghetti polka” or “spaghetti ska”, or “pasta for the ears”. “It wasn’t that pronounced at the beginning; on our album ‘Better World’ from 2010 there were more pop songs and only two that went in the folk direction.”
Especially live, the music “always sounds somehow different”. Anyone who has ever experienced a Gastone concert knows that almost every gig is suitable for a party and can blow the socks off of all generations. Children rage in front of the stage, older revolutionary souls revel when Porrello sings “Bella ciao”.
Family means a lot to the father of two. The mother came to Germany from Sardinia, the father from Sicily. “I feel completely like a Frankfurter with Sardinian-Sicilian roots.” Porrello is less concerned about the fact that he has now ended up in Offenbach with his houseboat. And the Rhine and Neckar are not that far away either. His contact with the Sons of Mannheim came about through the musician Rolf Stahlhofen, who himself once belonged to the always multicultural formation founded in 1995, whose most prominent member Xavier Naidoo left in 2017 after a reunion tour and various conspiracies.
“From 2019 onwards, I often played in support of the Söhne with my solo program,” reports Porrello. Shortly afterwards, Corona swept around the world and, together with the personnel changes, “it was uncertain for a long time what would happen to the sons.” Two years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, the band finally decided to make a new album with him. “So it was clear that there would be a new start.” And the son of Frankfurt would become a son of Mannheim.
“I was interested in writing the songs for ‘Kompass’,” says Porrello. “Each of us ticks differently, we all come from different musical styles. Finding something that everyone liked was a challenge.” He mastered it, and it shouldn’t be difficult for Gastone fans to figure out which nine of the 16 titles came from him – and which can partly be understood as a compass in a figurative sense. For example, the piece “Morality”, which criticizes indifference in the face of hunger, poverty and environmental destruction. Or the single “Mut”, with which he wants to convey hope in times of war and crises. “Everything will be okay – we will weather this storm,” goes the refrain. Or “Forgetting,” a personal love song that Porrello wrote for his father, who suffered from dementia at an early age. According to the press office, there are plans to release a video before Christmas. The album is also scheduled to be released on December 8th as a double vinyl LP with four new bonus tracks.
The band currently has ten sons, with singer Karim Amun also joining in 2019. And for the first time, a sister, the singer Clara Louise, is involved in “Main Prize”. Speaking of mixing: two bands in parallel, does it always work so smoothly? “They don’t get in each other’s way because Gastone is something completely different than the sons of Mannheim,” says Porrello. “And I just need variety.”
Up on the deck of the houseboat he plays a few bars on the guitar. It’s easy to imagine how concerts and sessions take place here in summer in front of a cozy river backdrop. Meanwhile, the past should not be forgotten either. “The boat dates from the Nazi era,” says Porrello. “We wanted to create an alternative to this.” One that is already evident in the name: “Josephine Baker fought against the Nazis, in the Resistance and even as a pilot in the French Air Force.” But first she was a dancer and singer. And in this spirit the story of the boat will now be continued.
#Father #spaghetti #polka
