Singer-songwriter Bruno Rocco released his latest single ‘Blood Money’ in November 2021. The third official single of his upcoming record ‘Hard Times’ due later this year, it follows his deep-rooted Classic Rock and Blues Rock influences, and further explores the gritty realism from his 2015 debut EP ‘Lonely Rider’ that led to Bruno Rocco performing all over Benelux and the area, and seeing wide support from the local media in the Netherlands. His latest music is recorded and produced at Roland van Steijn’s studio Art of Sound in Nieuwveen.
A creative artist and composer by nature, Bruno Rocco is a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, and sets out to explore real-life stories, experiences and interactions in his music. Emotional and thought-provoking, ‘Blood Money’ is dedicated to the troubled souls that end up pursuing drug-related businesses, wasting their lives chasing money at all costs. Heeding his own advice after a bar brawl from an unnamed relative, described as an Al Pacino type wise guy who loved to fight, as well as learning from experience as a young man who has been in the midst of a neighbours shootout, resulting in a 12-year sentence in one of them and death of one man, Bruno’s depiction of forethought in hindsight is outstanding. Backed by sleek guitar riffs and his trademark sorrowful voice, the single carries the dominant dark themes of Bruno Rocco’s ambitious upcoming record, firmly set to carve his name on the international Rock scene.
Hi Bruno, how are you doing? Hello, Thank you for this interview. I don’t know where to start. I was pretty excited about my new single “Blood Money" from my “Hard Times” album that was released on November 26th. But my father passed away two days later so I'm writing this now while my tears are falling. I've written a song on my new album called “Empty House", it’s written for my grandfather. I went through the same journey again for my father.
Tell us everything about your new single ‘Blood Money’? In my younger years I often hung out in my neighbourhood and a lot of guys I knew were involved in all sorts of things, some ended up in jail for shootings and others for brawls. The song is made up of several stories and it looks like a true story that has yet to be filmed!
So these are the stories the song “Blood Money” is about. One of my friends then who lived one street from mine, he was a street boy who loved gangster rap music and we always talked about rap music. That was a time when NWA, Ice-T, Ice Cube, Eric B and Rakim ruled! I remember 20 years ago his family was harassed by some street guys, he went to the police a few times who didn’t do much to solve the problem, so one day when he was driving, he saw them and chased them and they got out of cars and started firing and bullets flying everywhere. One person was injured, one got killed and the boy I knew went to jail for 12 years!
I remember in the mid 90’s a relative was a bouncer who later become the owner of the club, and one saturday night I was there with my girlfriend and this man wanted to come into the club but he refused to take off his jacket, so he asked him nicely a few times and suddenly he lunged and took his gun at the same time my relative grabbed it and lifted him up and threw him through the door then against the wall and got his gun which went off and a bullet that hit the ceiling and luckily no one was hurt. He was thrown out and never came back, later it turned out he was a dreaded fighter who actually wanted to take out my relative to impress.
Some of the characters had incredible charisma in real life, they would fit in a movie like Heat or Carlito's way. But the less nice thing is that at the end those kinds of people always ended up without money or end up in prison and many of them were making the same mistakes over and over.
When did you start writing music? I started to write music when I was sixteen but somehow I stopped after 2 years because It didn’t feel right, and I started writing again when I was 25.
Really liked the video. Share with us the concept behind it. Well I had a basic idea of what the video should look like, so I talked it over with my friend and director Denis Majstorovic from Majstrovideo.com and I thought it was very important that the message came across well. And he said it looks like an idea he had previously done with a friend of his who is a kickboxer, he did it for a short promo film he used once for a brawl where you could see his fights on his body. We discussed and tried several ideas, one was that what is happening on my body right now would be happening behind me, but it didn’t work. So at the end we used my upper body also and we built it up with full screen parts and lyrics to make it more powerful.
Who are your musical icons? Bruce Springsteen is definitely the most important one for me, but I admire Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Van Morrison also and all the old blues legends like Buddy Guy and BB King.
What was the first album you purchased? My first album was Springsteen's “Born in the USA" . My father bought it around Christmas time 1985. It changed my life forever. I've played it everyday on my walkman and I would close my eyes and dream and never stop dreaming after that.
Which artists are you listening to right now? It depends on my mood but lately it's Chris Stapleton and John Mayer. And also some Croatian artists like Oliver Dragojevic.
How would you describe your sound in 3 words? Dark, cinematic and realistic.
What does the new year hold for you? Hopefully I will start performing and continuing working further on new music
