I have to say, when I first heard that Michael Imperioli had a rock n’ roll band, I was in disbelief. I wasn’t familiar with Michael Imperioli the artist, only the characters he’s played on TV and in film, like Christopher Moltisante, of course. It has come to light recently through social media however, that Imperioli’s interests and talents extend far beyond his acting. Imperioli is an actor, yes, but he is also an activist, a meditative guru, and evidently, a songwriter and musician. As a lover of all things musical, it took a while for me to give it a shot. Whenever I hear about an actor playing music, I think about Bruce Willis trying to play the harmonica, or Johnny Depp trying to play guitar, or Willam Shatner….well, you know. Needless to say, I was floored when I popped on the latest record from Imperioli’s band, Zopa, and it was really fucking good. Recorded some time ago, but released just last year on Mt. Crushmore Records, “La Dolce Vita” features Imperioli singing and playing guitar, as well as bassist/producer Elijah Amitin and drummer Olmo Tighe. Last week, the group along with Habibi and 2C-B sold out Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, delivering a night of raucous, rock ‘n roll fun. I sat down with Michael, Elijah, and Olmo to discuss the band’s origins, influences and favorite members of Monty Python.
John: What are your thoughts coming out of Saturday night’s performance at Baby’s All Right?
Michael: It was great, a good New York night. We were really excited to play with the other two bands, who were amazing. We were in good form; everything was really fun.
John: How did rock n roll enter your lives? How did you start playing music?
Michael: I started playing guitar in 1986 when I was 20…I bought a nylon string classical guitar because it was the cheapest thing in the store. I bought a little pickup and would plug it into the amp and make weird sounds with it, that’s how I started playing guitar.
I played in a no-wave band that was called Black Angus…we never recorded anything besides some demo’s, played a few shows…that band lasted a few years and then around 1990 I sang with a band who eventually became Wild Carnations…we recorded a few demos and I had to leave that band because I got busy making movies at the time…I was replaced by a woman who played with The Feelies, Brenda Sauter, they’re still making music and they’re really good… we did some cool stuff together.
Olmo: My brother was a guitar player and he went on tour when he was like 17. He was always listening to the blues and Hendrix, and that’s what got me into music.
Elijah: Olmo and I started playing together in high school and we kind of learned our instruments together. My introduction to rock n roll specifically? Aerosmith. My brother was also a [Led] Zeppelin fanatic.
John: So, how did Zopa come together?
Michael: In 2006, we started Zopa and we played a lot of shows in Europe and in the US for about seven years. Then I left New York and lived on the West Coast for almost eight years. We didn’t really play again until like 2019. I started doing some spoken word stuff, reading from a novel that I wrote and I had Elijah and Olmo accompany me at different times. Then when I moved back to New York this year, we started playing as a band again.
We started with a different name, La Dolce Vita, but I got sick of it. Zopa is much more fitting, it feels right. Zopa is Tibetan for “patience.” I practice Buddhism, and when you become a Buddhist in Tibetan tradition you get a name. Zopa is my middle name.
Olmo: My brother, Michael and myself were in a movie when I was 8 years old. They ran into each other years later at a party and he asked what I was doing. My brother told him I played drums. He came by and left a note for me where I worked. Elijah came back from college and we got together. This was early 2006.
John: Can you give us some insight into Zopa’s recent reformation?
Michael: We did two shows at the Mercury Lounge [a club in Manhattan] in the middle of August. We performed this new song we wrote, and the crowd seemed to like it. So I said, “let’s record it.” I’ve always wanted to work with [producer] John Agnello, I never met him before. We had a lot of mutual friends and he’d just done such great work with Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile…I sent him the demo and he really liked it. He was free and we went in the studio for two days and recorded it. It’s almost done.
I feel like this year coming back, we’ve touched on a sound that I’ve always wanted to get with the band. I’m a little more confident in my guitar playing, making the sounds I want to make with the guitar and figuring out how to make those sounds. I’m very excited by what we’re doing.
I’ll be honest, we’ve been really lucky because I feel like we’ve been embraced by the indie rock scene in New York, particularly, and in other places…The bands we’ve been playing with have been really open, accepting and generous. Sometimes it can be a little off-putting…I come with a lot of baggage as an actor. People don’t know my history and that I’ve been doing this…some people think “it’s just a celebrity who just wants to try something new and has picked up a guitar,” but I feel like a lot of the bands and the audience are getting what we’re doing.
Elijah: Michael’s social media is a big factor in how we get our music out, in a way we didn’t quite have access to 7 years ago. We never really had any kind of online presence up until this year.
Michael: I just got Instagram two years ago. Before Instagram, when we started playing shows, it was hard to get people to them and a lot of times it was just people who were into “The Sopranos.” But through Instagram, I connected with my audience in a way where they really got to know who I am, my musical tastes and history… and now those people are coming to the shows. It’s people who get what we’re trying to do and enjoy the music.
John: Can you give us some insight into Zopa’s songwriting process?
Michael: Sometimes it’s hard to separate who’s writing what, because even if I bring in some lyrics, they get informed by what the other guys are doing. I’m not a singer-songwriter with a rhythm section. This is a band and I get inspired by what Elijah and Olmo do. It’s very much a unit and there’s a lot of intuitive and almost telepathic stuff between us. It’s very special, for sure.
Elijah: Michael is very open to whatever ideas we want to try.
Olmo: It seems like the songs are coming to us a little faster now. We’ve only been back a few months and we have a bunch of new ones. Each song seems to have its own little atmosphere.
John: What does Zopa have cooking up currently?
Michael: We hope to release the new single in January with a video that my wife Victoria is making with a great cinematographer, Lisa Rinzler. We have two other new songs we played on Saturday. The last song we played when we brought up our friend Rachel, that was the first time we ever played that one, it’s pretty brand new.
Sonically, I think our sound is different now than it was before we went on hiatus, and it’s a little bit more atmospheric. Before, our music was more on the punk/post-punk side, and we still have some of that edge, but now it’s moving into a more “shoe-gazey” direction, if you will.
John: What are some of your biggest influences?
Michael: Dinosaur Jr. has always been a big influence, J Mascis is like the greatest guitar player, and I don’t go anywhere near that, but there’s something in what he does that inspires me. The way they work as a trio…the way that three very distinct musicians making this one thing really inspires me. My Bloody Valentine is one of my favorite bands ever; Bardo Pond I really admire. There’s a lot of musicians from the past, I can go on and on about Suicide, and Lou Reed, and Patti Smith, and the New York Dolls, and the Smiths…Galaxy 500 was a huge influence as well.
Olmo: I’ve been going back to Elmore James and old blues stuff. I love punk, The Clash is amazing. Slint is a great group!
Elijah: We always go back to Velvet Underground.
John: Who’s your favorite member of Monty Python?
Michael: Terry Gilliam is one of the best filmmakers in history. “Brazil.”
Olmo: That’s a very difficult question…John “Cheese.” [Referring to John Cleese]
Elijah: I’m going to go with Eric Idle…it’s all about the Rutles.
What’s your favorite horror flick?
Michael: Rosemary’s Baby.
Elijah: Rosemary’s Baby.
Olmo: Rosemary’s Baby.
John: You guys ever get any “Visiting Day” jokes?
Michael: Almost every day on Instagram!
John: It seems more and more nowadays, we see that artists are multifaceted, often showcasing a diverse array of talent. Could you speak a little bit to that, being multifaceted artists yourself?
Michael: I’ve always been a writer, I’ve always been a musician, I started directing and producing theater in my early twenties…this is what I’ve always done.
I come from the arts scene in New York in the early 80’s, when the punk and post-punk scene was very much full of multi-disciplined artists doing stuff. John Lurie and Richard Edson were in Lounge Lizards and Sonic Youth, they acted in Jim Jarmusch’s film, and Jim Jarmusch was also a musician…Basquiat the painter was in a rock band with Vincent Gallo, who was also a painter who went on to be an actor and a director.
Performance art kind of came out of punk rock and experimental theater, and there’s lots and lots of cross pollination in that community. I was inspired by those artists. That’s where I started, that’s the kind of the scene I came out of. It wasn’t like an intentional thing, that I needed to branch out, it’s just what I was passionate about.
I’m just who I am and I’m not trying to compete with anybody. It’s just what I do and what I love. If people like it, that’s fine. If they don’t, I really don’t give a fuck.
“La Dolce Vita” is available via Mt. Crushmore Records
I play, I write, I play, I write...
