Marco Zitelli aka Wrongonyou is a Roman singer-songwriter. He is one of the finalists of Ama San Remo, the contest in which he presented his latest single “Lezioni di volo” written and produced together with Adel Al Kassem and Riccardo Scirè.
In his musical career the artist has written many songs and has collaborated with many famous artists like Alessandro Gassman and Gigi Proietti. Wrongonyou started his journey with writing music in English, but then switched to his native language, Italian, which fits very well his music.
“Lezioni di volo” is a song about life and the experiences we have to face. With courage we can overcome even the most difficult challenges.
Why did you choose “Wrongonyou” as your stage name?
I wanted to give an indirect name to the project. I really like it when artists choose a sort of sentence and not just a name for their stage names. So I found out that “Wrongonyou” is grammatically incorrect in English, and that actually the correct version of this sentence would be “Wrong about you”. But I liked the fact that the meaning changes depending on who says it. In addition, I really liked how it sounded: the mix that the “w” and the “r” sounds create together.
“Shoulders” is one of your songs and it is also the main track of the movie “Il Premio” by Alessandro Gassman, for which you wrote the soundtrack. How was it working with artists such as Alessandro Gassman, Gigi Proietti and Rocco Papaleo?
I am very lucky and grateful for that beautiful experience. I learned a lot, I travelled around Europe for a month and a half to shoot the movie and then I wrote the soundtrack. When I wrote the soundtrack I thought about all the beautiful experiences I had. Actually I composed music after filming the movie. It was a 360 degrees experience, I met and got to know people I usually saw on TV. I worked with Alessandro Gassman and I will never stop thanking him for giving me this important opportunity and for allowing me to work with a great personality as Gigi Proietti. I will keep this memory forever. It was great to work with these artists because you can discover a lot of their “human” sides, like shyness that you would never attribute to them.
Wrongonyou says that he has deepened a lot his way of singing in Italian. Actually this passage from English to Italian has been a maturation in his artistic career. In reality, the singer says he never listened to Italian music but he grew up listening to U2, Bruce Springsteen or Ben Harper So he is constantly discovering new things about Italian music and as regards the lyrics he writes following a stream of ideas and “free words”.
Speaking of your latest single “Lezioni di volo”, you said that you travelled a lot but only “remaining still” you understood how to learn to fly. How did you come to this conclusion?
When I say “still” I mean that there was a period in which everything was paralyzed due to the situation and in that period, especially during the first lockdown, I understood many things. I saw that period as an opportunity to think and understand better my situation as an artist and also to figure out what I was looking for. I listened to my album “Milano parla piano” again, I saw everything in a better perspective, I studied singing in Italian, because since I came from English lyrics I had to find the same voice using my native language too, so I worked a lot on it. I also worked on my body: I lost almost 20 kilos. Fortunately I haven’t experienced writer’s block. On the contrary I have been very productive: I wrote the entire album during the months of lockdown, and now I’m finishing producing it. In the album there is also my single “Lezioni di volo”. The action of flying is something mental. At this moment I’m stuck here because it is forbidden to go anywhere, there are no concerts or anything so I learned to fly by myself. When I talk about how I learned to fly I refer to the mental, physical and also spiritual sides.
In conclusion, the artist presents the album cover in which two trapeze artists appear.
“The song is entitled “Lezioni di volo” so I was looking for a figure that represented the act of flying and at the same time the concept of trust so I thought of the trapeze artists. Actually when they launch themselves there is a moment when they are suspended in the void and they need someone to catch them, someone they can trust. So the main concept of the cover was the idea of seeking freedom but at the same time someone who catches you in the moment of need”.
Follow Marco Zitelli and his musical journey here.
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