due Introduction

First blog entry (I’ve never even had a blog before), here we go!

My name is Simone Feroci, unusual name to hear here in the States, but pretty normal in Italy.

I was born in 1987 in a city called Parma, which is famous for parmesan cheese, Parma ham and very little else.

It’s been quite the journey here. I feel like I’ve been to hell and back again, through depression and dissociation of the self. At times I felt lost, all because of my past addiction to alcohol and substances. I guess I was trying to fill a void, coming from a life of traumas, and such self destructive endeavors were only giving me temporary relief.

So, how did someone like me, from a small town in Italy, managed to end up in the States and pursue a music career here? The answer was always the same, a constant throughout life: music itself.

I remember being a kid in school, and while my schoolmates would play soccer during recess, I would always either write or play music, bringing my guitar to school: kids can be mean sometimes, and it was not usual to hear such things as “you’re ridiculous”, or “you’re never gonna go anywhere with your passion for music”. Kids, am I right? It hurt to hear it back then, but to be honest, it hurt even more hearing it from work colleagues or (alleged) friends growing up. The “small town mentality” was always one that would consider being an artist a loss of time. I was always given the spiel: “you should quit music, secure yourself a good job and stick to it”.

They couldn’t be more wrong: if it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere. Music is what pushed me out of my comfort zone, made me move to a different city first, then a different nation, and finally, a different continent, America. This is where I live (and thrive) today. It might not be a big deal to anyone, but although I’m not famous and I still work a restaurant job apart from playing music, it is indeed a success story for me, considering I was jumping from a physically demanding job to another, back in the day. Matter of fact, at some stage I was working at a metal factory, and I would spend 12 hours operating brass drilling machines, and once home, I would spend the rest of the night taking brass shards out of my feet and legs.

In conclusion, at the age of 38, I realized that what other people say about what you should do is not relevant: know thyself and stay true to the nature of your core, and you will succeed: only you know what works best for you.