Who hasn’t heard of the celebrated band Winter Moods? Who hasn’t hummed Marigold or Everlasting or maybe My Neverland at some point in their life?
Well a couple of weeks back I interviewed the frontman of this legendary band Ivan Grech during my radio show Ghandi xi Nghid on Radju Malta. I confirmed that this band is magnetic. The closer you get to them the more intrigued you become. Somehow, they seem to have a smudge that keeps you hooked.
Winter Moods are not only a group of musicians who love their trade and are good at composing music – that as well.
Winter Moods don’t only transmit strong emotions, feelings and sentiments through their lyrics and music videos – that as well.
Winter Moods don’t only play out their heart in every tune they execute as if it’s the last song they will be performing – that as well.
Winter Moods don’t only congregate a group of musicians who are talented, fun, humble and grounded all in one – that as well.
The truth is that Winter Moods remain crowd pullers even though celebrating their ‘pearl’ anniversary.
Crowd pullers not only in terms of concerts, like the one that will be taking place at St Elmo in Valletta on the 13th June (live), whereby all proceeds are going to Puttinu Cares, which will most certainly be a massive success - but Winter Moods have something even more special that I wanted to put my finger on.
For that reason, I felt I needed to see where this band houses its talent, where it meets up and where it all starts before putting pen to music sheet.
I admit that I anticipated that after 30 years of Winter Moods I would be seeing one of those professional studios fully equipped with fancy computers, a decent control surface, digital work stations, snazzy and ostentatious microphones, condensers, reflection filters, monitor isolation pads, ostentatious head-phones and pop filters and decent acoustic treatment, studio monitors and one or two memorable pictures splashed on every wall of the studio as an aide memoire to celebrate so many accomplishments (the biggest probably being the crowds they wowed at the Fosos in 2010).
And it couldn’t have been more different than what I had envisaged.
Driving down the hill to Ghajn Dwieli, together with Karl my 18 year old son, who accompanied me, we finally found this dilapidated and derelict town house falling to bits, with all the paint peeling off, the door flaking to bits seemingly assaulted by wood eating moth and doorknobs hanging by a thread! And after knocking and ringing the bell like crazy (which probably doesn’t work anyway), Ivan, the lead vocalist and keyboardist welcomed us in.
With that infectious smile and welcoming pitch he asked us to walk through the house they practice at three or four times a week. Teasingly he asked whether we are immunized against tetanus because all the junk that had accumulated layers on layers of dirt. To tote up, this place had an eerie feeling and Ivan backs up this numbness half-jokingly stating that this dwelling is half-haunted!
Walking through this maze of rooms, well-ordered with confusion, where every dust particle seems to have found its own special place to settle, never before affronted by a broom, we walked into the rehearsal room.
It’s there that you get the ‘close encounter of the third kind’.
The room is dark with just three bulbs hanging from the ceiling that seem to lose power as soon as all the equipment is switched on! Being so phobic about cockroaches I had to ask them if the creepy crawlers find themselves around the place, but gently enough they reassured me that pest control does a good job with those ogres!
Wires and circuits were spilling from every corner.
At one end of the room, Etienne Robinich, the bands computer geek and keyboardist, was struggling with his laptop to get the right beat going but once, twice, three times, Karl Fenech, the drummer, with a broad smile was telling him it wasn’t right. In the mean time Melvin Caruana, the acoustic and electric guitarist, was careworn to find two chairs for Karl (my son) and myself - a most difficult endeavor indeed! Finally, Ivan managed to get us two wobbly chairs and we were asked to sit in-between snake cables and mic stands. They were confident that the chairs could take our weight for at least the hour we were there with typical Melvin laughing his head off. The longest serving member of the band, Joseph Rizzo, this extraordinary bassist, was more interested in telling me how he enjoys listening to me on radio and TV, rather than tell us about the great achievements of Winter Moods – what humility.
A truly incredible set of human beings. We come to watch and to listen and instead what they do is give all their attention to us.
It is amazing how 30 years of success, of popularity, of art that has made so many people dream and connect with emotions they still practice in this little room plastered with so much chaos. The biting wit is that the moment they start playing, even in all that pandemonium, the music is congenial and striking. They never stop short from attributing the success to all those that made part of this experience above all, Steve Caruana Smith (Serp) who went to a better place.
These people have awed so many fans and the same was happening to us - conjurers of emotions. Their rehearsal space is so representative of whom they are. They have never shunned away from their humble and unassuming roots. They have sung with local and international stars and they remain inconspicuous, unpretentious and down-to-earth. They have supported philanthropic events whenever Puttinu Cares, Marigold Foundation and Special Olympics, amongst other, call out for them.
Beautiful, what a great place to implant talent. This is a band that has its lineage in the idiosyncratic City of Senglea in the south of Malta more often than not regrettably notorious for the dark rather than the exquisiteness of its communities. A neighbourhood mix of prettiness, history, culture and controversy.
Going down memory lane, I remember how years ago when I worked as a teacher at the Fortini Boys Secondary School in Vittoriosa we used to service students from all the three cities. Led by our fantastic Heads of School, Mr Emanuel Chetcuti and trailed by Mr Horace Caruana, school was a community, a place to be and to share, not only to learn algebra, geometry and literature but to be taught to live, to think and to be.
I must say I’ve never felt so important to students, so close to them as I did when I taught at Fortini. I was fascinated at how each of the three cities had a character and a distinct personality.
The children from Senglea were no exception. They had their particularities.
They were passionate, tough and strong kids who loved their city but at the same time found themselves having to defend themselves from the way people perceived them. They do have a go at each other but when the push comes to shove (even literally) they team up like crazy. The space they have been brought up in many ways is small and restricted. But on the other hand, they go down at the Ponta and feel that the world is at their feet and enjoy life and deal with pain and fight for their own.
One anecdote I cannot take discount is the following.
I remember this hard-hitting little boy in tears telling me, his eyeballs filling up like two small aquariums, that they had gone to a football tournament some days earlier and were not allowed to play with the other kids, because the other teachers were saying that the Senglea boys always craft trouble. And the fulfilling prophecy stepped-in and they lashed out not at the ball but at their opponents. He told me, ‘if teachers say that all we do is come to blows, at least we wanted to fight and win!’ This spirit intermingled with the anger of labelling has captivated so many people from Senglea. And I feel that this flare is packed within the soul of this band, this group of musicians who are mystically engaged with each other and who want their music to create a platform where people feel included and equal and have the same chances whatever the roots, whatever their ancestry. Their music is there to break the mould that people have constructed around their city and that is why saying they are from Isla is so important to them.
They claim that ‘we are a family before we are a band’, an amazing statement, because this vibe merges their soul.
And that is one of the reasons why their music is so much more than a melody because their tunes are packed with narratives. And the personality of this group of people, this coagulate that brings them in sync is momentous. This band gained so much popularity in Malta not only because of the good marketing and the watchful packaging but because they talk about pain and about buoyancy and at the same time they convey a message that everything might not be fine but optimism will take ‘you’ through.
Let’s face it, society owes it to the artists.
We owe it to them because they keep us in-tune with our emotions. Artists pass on messages that we might be afraid to face. They are the people who invest so much feeling to convey hope when there is only despair, desire when hope is lost.
But the prettiest observation I got as I talked with this band is that they don’t want to have fans but friends.
When you see this band playing, every narrative behind each single facial expression is simply magical (probably taking from grandfather Crist Van Bern).
‘If after all the ills, life is just a bridge to everlasting… Faith is always a way – it is always a way, to heal’ – Everlasting by Winter Moods (February 2014)
Winter Moods, ‘thanks for sharing these emotions, see you, hear you and ‘live you’ next Saturday 13th June at St Elmo, all for a good cause, fine for the self and virtuous for Puttinu Cares’.
Karl and myself left the yellow façade which accommodates this eminent band. We spent the rest of the evening and many days after talking about the greatness of modesty.