Throughout the history of western culture, the art of the Italian peninsula looms large. From the Romans to the Renaissance, from Vivaldi to Visconti, Italians have always been ahead of the pack. In one cultural field, however, Italy has struggled to export: rock music. That seems about to change. The Turin-based punk-funk band Disco Drive received 8/10 in the NME for their second album, Things to Do Today — the first time in living memory an Italian guitar band had won critical praise in the British music press. Back in a country that is happy to import indie rock, but often reluctant to embrace its own practitioners, it was a momentous occasion. “We went on a show on Italian MTV, and that was the first question,” laughs Disco Drive’s singer and guitarist, Alessio Natalizia. “ ‘How do you feel about getting 8/10 in NME? Did it change your life?’ ”

Disco Drive’s music is experimental, exciting and supremely easy to dance to. They believe rock sounds best when sung in English, and make no bones about the desire to take their music outside their homeland. “There is a big issue in Italy, within the major-label system — if you don’t sing in Italian, you won’t get big,” explains their drummer, Jacopo Borazzo. “The mentality in the system is, ‘If you want to do this, you have to do that. Sing in Italian.’ ”

Despite their refusal to do so, Disco Drive still have the domestic clout to play to about 1,000 people a night. The rock scene in Italy is potentially lucrative, but Disco Drive are just one of an increasing number of bands there with global ambitions. They recently made their ninth visit to Britain, while Settlefish and Cut, both from Bologna, completed their fifth and first tours respectively earlier this year, playing to small but enthusiastic crowds across the UK.

“There’s still a surprise factor,” admits Settlefish’s lead singer, the half-Canadian Jonathan Clancy. “ ‘You’re Italian? You play rock music?’ People tend to think Italy is a Third World country with regards to music, but bands that are big in the UK are also big in Italy. We’ve seen every band we ever wanted to see in Bologna since we were 15.”

Settlefish certainly sound as if they’ve enjoyed a rich musical education: their brand of rock is a catchy combination of Fugazi attack and Pavement melodies. They believe Italian rock’s lack of international success has more to do with bands’ willingness to take the easy route than with outside prejudices. “Automatically, bands in Italy get good money from playing at home, so they tend to stay,” Clancy says. “We started playing France and went to America and England. If you’re willing to get 100 bucks and sleep on the floor, you can get a show anywhere.”

Ferruccio Quercetti, guitarist and front man for the ferocious rock’n’rollers Cut, believes that, as well as the bands themselves, the Italian music industry should take the blame for preventing past generations of artists from competing with the English-speaking mainstream and underground. “Italy is a strange country,” he says. “It’s so close to itself. It has its own music and show business. The problem is that it’s been hard to get Italian bands to an international audience, because there’s no structure. The labels aren’t used to getting bands distributed abroad. There are lots of good bands that lived and died in Italy without anybody noticing outside. Settlefish and Disco Drive are starting to tour abroad consistently, and that’s helping a lot.”

Disco Drive, Settlefish and Cut have all sprung out of the Italian indie underground, singing in English and ready to take on the rest of the world. The Bergamo-based band Verdena have a different problem. Signed to Universal, they’re one of Italy’s biggest rock acts, regularly playing to audiences of 3,000. Now they’re preparing to export their extravagantly loud brand of stoner-rock to Britain. They completed their first full UK tour in early June and are planning their first English-language release. “We’ve always written in English,” says the singer/guitarist Alberto Ferrari. “The Italian lyrics come at the end, and making them fit an English rhythm is really tough. We only want to improve our art, but we’ll never conquer the UK.”

Ferrari is being prematurely modest. There is much musical potential in this untapped corner of the rock world — although critical approval in the English-speaking world may come with some unexpected hitches. “Italians like music from outside,” laughs Disco Drive’s Natalizia, “but we’re not proud of our own stuff. People in Italy can be really jealous. After our good review, I got a text message that just said, ‘The NME is dead to me now.’ ”

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