Goblin - Biography
Goblin was an Italian progressive rock band that gained notoriety not so much by releasing albums and touring in their own right, but by producing a whole series of unsettling soundtracks, mostly for the films of Italian director Dario Argento. In doing so, they have become as influential as many of their early 70's progressive rock brethren.
The band that would become Goblin was formed in 1972 from veterans of other Italian progressive rock bands. Guitarist Massimo Morante came from the band Era di Acquario, keyboardist Claudio Simonetti and drummer Walter Martino came from Ritratto Di Dorian Gray, and bassist Fabio Pignatelli played in the band Rivelazioni. The four, at the time heavily influenced by many of the bands in the British progressive rock movement, including Gentle Giant, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Genesis and Yes, recorded a series of demos under the group name Oliver. After completing the demos, members of the band took a trip to London to see if they could shop their demo around and establish some contacts. Fortunately, the band bumped into famed Yes producer Eddie Offord, and after listening to their material, encouraged the band to move to England to further their career. The band, minus Martino, moved to England for a time and gained drummer Carlo Bordini and an English lead vocalist named Clive Haynes. Oliver rehearsed for many months and returned to London to find Offord, but by this time he was on tour with Yes in America. The band booked performances and shopped their demos around to other labels, but after months of trying, were getting nowhere. Discouraged and running out of money, the group returned to Italy.
Once back home, on the strength of their demos, the band was signed to the Italian label Cinevox. Vocalist Haynes didn't accompany the group back to Italy, and was replaced by Tony Tartarini. Sessions were completed for a debut album to be called Cherry Five (1975 Cinevox), and though the group still called themselves Oliver, the label mixed things up somehow and basically renamed the group Cherry Five. After the sessions, drummer Bordini was replaced by his predecessor Walter Martino. Though the album did not sell well at all, the group's label, Cinevox,a label active in mainly in soundtrack publishing, kept the band busy performing and arranging other musicians' compositions for various soundtrack projects. This gave the band a view into how soundtracks were produced and the various techniques that went into the process.
One person who did take notice of their debut album was director Dario Argento, and after feeling frustrated with the work composer Giorgio Gaslini was doing on the soundtrack for his film Profondo Rosso, contacted the band about adapting some of Gaslini's music into a harder-edged, progressive sound. The band ended up keeping a small portion of Gaslini's jazz-derived music, but also completely composed and redid the remainder of the score in their own progressive rock style. In keeping with Argento's style of horror film and to distance themselves from their less-than successful debut, the band renamed themselves Goblin. Upon release, the film became a huge hit in Europe and garnered cult followings around the rest of the world. The soundtrack album sold over one million copies, and stayed 52 weeks in the Italian charts. The soundtrack made the band almost instant stars in their native Italy. Most Italian bands were popular only in their home country, and it was very rare indeed for an Italian group to score any kind of international hit. Just as the band were to start a tour to capitalize on their unexpected success, both Tartini and Martino quit the band. Tartini started his own band, Libra, and Martino was replaced by drummer Agostino Marangolo, another veteran of the Italian progressive rock scene.
After touring, the quartet set about recording a non-soundtrack follow-up album to Profondo Rosso and released the album Roller (Cinevox) in 1976. The album, though it did have a lot of the elements the group had used on it's soundtrack work, was more of a straighter progressive rock record, and the band expanded during recording to include another member, keyboardist Maurizio Guarini. Goblin was not altogether happy with the way the album came out and felt the label wasn't pushing the record well enough, and the resulting discord in the group almost caused the band to break apart. Dario Argento heard of the problems the band was having, and urged them to stay together so they could work on the music for a new film he was starting work on. Argento so believed in the importance of Goblin's music to his film, that he had the band complete the score first and shot the film only after hearing their music. The completed music and film, titled Suspiria (Cinevox), was released in 1977 and was not only another hit for both Goblin and Argento, but the soundtrack went on to be considered the high-point in Goblin's career. It also cemented the bond between the band and director. During the next few years, Goblin went on to compose the soundtracks to over a dozen films for other directors as well as for Argento, including Via Della Droga (1977 Cinevox), Patrick (1978 Cinevox), Amo Non Amo (1979 Cinevox), Squadra Anti-Gangsters (1979 Cinevox), Buio Omega (1980 Cinevox), Contamination (1981 Cinevox), Notturno (1982 King Japan), Tenebre (1982 King Japan), and Phenomena (1984 King Japan) to name just a few. The band also recorded another non-soundtrack prog-rock record, 1978's Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark (Cinevox), a concept album sung in Italian about a young boy's search for meaning in life with the help of a philosopher insect named Mark.
Though the band continued to crank out soundtracks, the band's next big collaboration with Argento was on the soundtrack to the sequel he was making to George Romero's cult classic zombie film Night Of The Living Dead, titled Dawn Of The Dead, [titled Zombi in Italy] (1978 Cinevox). One of the band's heavier rocking works, the soundtrack album appeared in two different incarnations, one the American version that included only some of Goblin's music along with an orchestral score, the other the Italian version that featured all of Goblin's work on the film. The album and the film were both successes around the world and more people than ever were aware of Goblin as a force in soundtrack composition. Despite all the praise the group received, guitarist Morante left the group abruptly after the release of the album to focus on a solo career, and the group carried on for a time before adding guitarist Carlos Pennisi to their line-up. Goblin continued their scoring work, but after a few more scores were completed, keyboardist, (and the person generally regarded as the leader), Simonetti left the group to concentrate on a soundtrack career of his own. The bassist Pignatelli took over direction of the group after Simonetti's departure, and convinced keyboardist Guarini to return to the group, but without two of the band's most prominent members, Goblin found that commissions for soundtrack work were more difficult to secure. Goblin limped along with more line-up changes, and by the time the band produced another studio non-soundtrack album, Volo (Cinevox) in 1982, both Pennisi and Marangolo were gone. Dario Argento again stepped in and tried to convince the original line-up to re-form and produce a soundtrack for him. Morante, Simonetti and Pignatelli got together without the participation of Marangolo to produce the heavily electronic score to Argento's 1982 film Tenebre (Cinevox), but split up again after completing the soundtrack. Goblin carried on off-and-on through the early 80's with Pignatelli, Guarini and Marangolo's saxophonist brother Antonio as members, but eventually faded away.
Nothing more was heard from the group until 2000, when Dario Argento convinced the original line-up of the band to once again re-form and score his new film Non ho sonno [Sleepless](2002 Cinevox). The reformation delighted the group's fans, but was short lived and the band broke up officially soon after. In 2005, after an official biography of the band was published by author Giovanni Aloisio and the official Goblin website was launched, there were rumors that the original band would reform. The album BackToTheGoblin 2005 was released in 2006 on the independent label BackToTheFudda and was made available exclusively through the Goblin website. Rather than having the original line-up, the band consisted of Fabio Pignatelli, Agostino Marangolo, Massimo Morante and Maurizio Guarini.