Robert Grillo has been a friend of mine since almost one year, when he sent me a promo of his CD "Primordial Passage," released on Peacefrog Records last year under the name Underground Evolution. It immediately caught my attention because of its deepness and the world music elements he included - a combination I had not heard before.

One thing in particular impressed me when we first met. Although incredibly talented, he still remained absolutely low-key about his abilities and music, something you don't find too often in the music biz. But for me this is an important aspect, because it ultimately reflects in the music. Robert is not riding any commercial waves or trends. Instead, he fulfills his musical visions by combining jazz and soulful deep house with the music from less know countries out of Eastern Europe and Asia. This awareness and open-mindedness results in tracks that are challenging for the listener, and at the same time groundbreaking and years ahead of its time.

After asking if he would be interested in an interview for the UF site, he invited me to his beautiful apartment located on the westside of Chicago, where we ended up talking for almost two hours about music and life. During this talk I realized the kindness and deepness of his personality, and that's where he blessed me with a gorgeous track called "Surrender," which is finally released on his own record label Underground Evolution Records - a song that became the most requested RealAudio file on our sound page for almost 4 months.

For additional information including the latest news on his new album Sepia "City Of Strangers," check out Robert Grillo's Web site at:

http://www.corecomm.net/~rgrillo/

We here at UF wish Robert Grillo good luck and great success in the future, and we honestly hope that he will be around for a long time to share his musical visions with us underground music lovers!

DJ MG
July 2000

The following interview was conducted by DJ MG in May 2000:

How did you find the 'Underground Files' site?

I was looking for some online type of magazines I can send stuff to - I think I was just looking around, and then the UF site came up. It was probably a link somewhere...

Well, I was just wondering... You know, we don't do any promotions for the site. Anyway, how did you get involved with Peacefrog Records?

A friend of mine who referred me to Pete at Peacefrog was Anthony Nicholson here in Chicago. We've met recently, in maybe July [1999], through a mutual friend of mine. So he gave me a couple of names of people to contact. I had known of Peacefrog, but I never have really thought about it. There were a couple of labels we had contacted, but we made the deal with Peacefrog.

The music on your album is really different from what I normally listen to. How did you come up with this experimental world music type of sound?

Well, I don't know. I was looking for influences outside of the dance world along the time. Some of the people I have worked with come from a different background, and they bring with them musical traditions that are interesting and unusual, for example Grazyna Auguscik, the Polish singer. She has this strong and wild-ish style. She brings a lot of Eastern European-type of styles, Latin African and others. I mean, in one minute she can sound very Brazilian, in another minute she sounds Bulgarian. She is a tremendous, not just a singer, but also musician and composer. She has done some of the most amazing stuff.

You met her here in Chicago?

Yeah, I met her in a night club where she was playing one night, and we just started talking...

So was she open for the kind of music you wanted to do?

Yeah, and that's the reason why we work together! We both have this kind of experimental sensibility of music - we like to take traditional formats and then we like to experiment and try to come up with something new...

You used to live in Italy. I read that you started becoming more serious about music while you were there. Is that true?

Yeah, I guess you can say that I got my first experience with Blackstone Records in Italy. It's a small label. They were doing the type of stuff Irma Records was doing at the late 80's and early 90's, but their stuff is a little 'bit more edgy. I met a fair amount of people and Italian producers while I was in Italy. But I am not really looking upon that time as my best time in music. It was more like getting my feet wet and getting into making my own music.

Did you get into acid jazz while you lived there?

Yes, I guess. Italy has always been real receptive for jazz in general. So one day you will find a club where they spin a lot of dark house on the main floor, like from the MURK brothers. But then you also have a lounge where they play acid jazz. So there are a lot of places to go in Italy, and there's a great nightlife. I mean, they come out with all this commercial stuff, but at the same time you have a fair amount of underground producers.

One of my favorites is Alex Neri. He's part of Kamasutra, and he also has his own record label called Wildflower Records. I think he's one of the greatest producers of all time - in the way he incorporates different styles. He's always had a very soulful and very warm sound, and yet it's also kind of branched out into techno-ish sounds. He was ahead of his time. And Don Carlos is another producer from Italy I admire...

Yeah, I am totally into his music as well. Have you ever met Don?

No, I've never personally met him. I understand he got a family and everything, and he's an older guy. He's not a young guy; he's been doing it for a long time. He's pretty low key, you don't really hear or read about him in the press...

His saxophone play is incredible. You play sax as well?

Yes, I used to play saxophone. But I gave it up about 10 years ago, and never picked it up since.

So what instruments do you play?

I play keyboards, I write the lyrics and the music, and I come up with the basic groove, like the percussion, trax and bass parts - different parts. And then I bring in session people to lay down different solos or different parts of the track, and put it all together. The only thing that I don't do is the final mastering and the final cueing of percussion and stuff like that. I leave this up to a studio...

Do you have your own studio?

Yeah, I do all my pre-productions here at my home workstation. Sometimes we'll take it to a studio and digitally transfer it to my harddrive where I can working on, so there's no loss of quality.

So how has been the feedback on your Peacefrog LP so far?

The feedback has been incredible... I wasn't really sure if people were gonna pick up on what the message is and the messages that I was trying to convey with the music...

What kind of message?

Well, I'm trying to use certain things that I think people are familiar with, certain musical elements that I think people can connect with you know to dance. But then I also bring in other elements that are kind of foreign to dance, or to house music. Somehow this bridges a gap between those people that are into world music and jazz, and the people that are strictly into urban music - my goal is to bridge this gap between the two, electronic music and acoustic music! Electronic and Acoustic can complement each other in certain ways, so that's my intention.

Why did you choose all the Eastern influences in your music?

Because I think they're so overlooked! There's a great deal of stuff taking African music which to me is very beautiful and wonderful. But I think you have to go even further and really explore the music of different countries in the East: the Gypsy music, the Bulgarian music, and boy, India! There's another area, the music of Indian! It's amazing how vast and diverse it is. When you really get deep into that you realize that these people have a music tradition as rhythmic and passionate as the Africans or Latinos. And you're like "Why isn't this stuff being used?" So I'm into trying to find this kind of stuff that hasn't been explored yet...

So how did you start with this? Did you buy CDs from those countries?

Yeah, partly I started reading and listening to this stuff that has been there. And also from musicians! I learned a lot from the people I record with, like Grazyna. There's is so much to learn from her. In general, I'd say that if you're interested you can learn a lot about music, and so I learned also from people reading books about music.

But it must also have struck a chord when you heard the actual music, right?

Yes, there is a certain spirituality and there's a certain passion that comes across in the music. It really speaks from the heart; the music, the singing, the playing. Anything that have that feel to it definitely treat me, wherever it comes from.

So will you start doing stuff with Indians?

Yeah, actually I'm looking for more Indian musicians right now. Chicago has a big Indian community, but they're totally separate. It's not like going to Canada. We went to Toronto lately, and then we stopped at this cafe where a black poetry night was on, and there were all kinds of folks reading, a couple of Indian people, Asians, and so on. In Chicago, everybody lives in their own community, there's very little interaction. That's a big problem as far as trying to do music that is new term...

Yeah, America is difficult for that. How about London? Is London a good place to learn about Indian music? I mean there's Talvin Singh...

or Nitin Sawhney! I think he's one of the most interesting artists...

But is he Indian? I thought he's from Australia.

Well, I'm not sure. I love his voice and the type of elements he brings together. I thought maybe he's Indian because some of the vocals and some of the instrumentation sounds Indian. He has a pretty good Web site too. I discovered him from the World Groove's compilation on Quango Records, and that one track he had on there is called "Migration." I really like his stuff. Talvin Singh is interesting too, but he's more electronic.

Has there been a project of Indian house music yet?

I honestly don't know. I heard a lot of drum'n'bass, like Asian Dub Foundation. I don't know.

That would be something to think about! Do you like jungle music?

You know, for a long time I was slow to pick up on it. I knew there was a lot going on in drum'n'bass, but I was really slow to pick up on it. And then things like the 4Hero album [on Talkin Loud Records - a drum'n'bass milestone] came out. It came to a point where it was really close to the fusion like of the seventies, from completely electronic trashing, violent almost sounding, all the way to the other directions of almost jazz fusion, a little bit faster though. And then it also turned into the direction of more ambient sounding. It kind of matured, and it's not gonna disappear. It's kind of a form of fusion, that's how I see it. Some of it I like, it's really interesting music.

OK, let's go back to your music. Do you do your own promotion?

Up to now I have, but I'm looking to turn it over to somebody because I'm finding that it's not possible to work on new material and try to promote something that's already out there.

You also do all kinds of other stuff...

Yeah, I like the variety of different work, because you know I would like to do music full-time. But music is a creative energy that doesn't flow 100% all the time so I like to have something else. I do design work, and I also do Italian-English translations when I have the time for it. You have to look for this stuff though. Right now I'm working at an advertisement company, which is a lot of fun.

Could you survive by only doing music?

I feel like I'm getting there. I would love to have music as the main source of my income. Right now it's about half...

Well, hopefully it will be 100% soon! Thank you Robert for this interview!

Thank you!