A Working Guitarist In Italy’s Hardest-Hit Coronavirus City Talks Life Under Lockdown

Buck Curran didn’t plan to end up in Bergamo. An experimental guitarist from Maine who performed for years with the drone-folk outfit Arborea, he found himself in the mid 2010s spending increasingly large stretches of time on the road in Europe, where his meditative music seemed to connect particularly well with listeners. After Arborea played its final European tour in 2015, he decided to stay on in Switzerland for a while, using it as a home base for solo tours across the continent. He landed in Bergamo on one such trip through Northern Italy, and fell in love with the woman who’d organized his show.

Now, the two are married, with one young child and another one on the way. And for the last several weeks, Bergamo, in the Lombardy region, has been at the center of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, with overrun hospitals, and 2,635 or more cases—the most of any city in Italy, the country with the most significant outbreak outside of China. On March 9, the Italian government instituted a nationwide lockdown, mandating the closures of nearly all commercial spaces and restricting public gatherings, the same sorts of measures now being put in place locally in Los Angeles and New York City. According to Curran, he and other citizens of Bergamo are forbidden to leave the city, and even face restrictions against going outside.

For Curran and his wife, who is also a musician as well as a teacher, the outbreak means more than a drastic change in lifestyle. Performing locally and across Europe is Curran’s primary source of income; under the lockdown, he is effectively prohibited from earning money. Restrictions on movement also leave him feeling isolated from family and friends outside of Bergamo, including two children in America from a previous marriage. “Actually being trapped here is a really heavy thing,” he told Pitchfork in a phone interview about life as a working musician at the heart of the pandemic. “I’m just thinking about those guys so much.”

Speaking from his home under quarantine, Curran also discussed how coronavirus could affect European touring musicians long-term, and how spontaneous creativity and long-distance collaboration are helping him stay sane as he awaits a return to relative normalcy. The following interview, which took place on Friday, March 13, has been edited for length and clarity.

Pitchfork: What has daily life in Bergamo been like for you recently?

Buck Curran: This Monday [March 9], we went into extreme, draconian lockdown. No stores outside of pharmacies, grocery stores, and newsstands—where you can recharge your phone plan—are open. You can actually be fined up to €200 if you’re walking around the street without a good reason, like you’re going to a friend’s house, but you don’t actually need to be there. If you do have to go somewhere, they’re setting up an ordinance where you must absolutely stand at least three feet away from everybody else. It’s crazy, but it makes sense.

I have a few side projects, and we’ve been getting together at a friend’s rehearsal space just outside the border of Bergamo. Now we can’t even practice there, because we’re not allowed to cross the city line, even though it’s 15 minutes away by car. If you do something like that, it’s not just fines, they’re actually threatening jail cells.

Yesterday, we had 50 new emergency cases in our hospital. They only have so many ventilators in these hospitals, and they’re literally making life-and-death decisions right now. The mother of a friend of my wife just died from complications of this. It’s just crazy, because it’s all around you.

It’s crazy to hear from my friends in Maine, because a couple of them think this is all media hype. I’m living in the second-hardest-hit area in the world. But, because I spent most of my life living in America, I can understand that. You always hear these stories about this or that happening, and it’s so far away, it’s in Syria, or it’s somewhere else. But in this case, I’m right in the middle of it, instead of somewhere in America, very far away.

What was it like living as a full-time touring musician in Bergamo before the virus hit? How often were you on the road?

Living in Bergamo is very convenient for me, because I can get around Italy and Europe as a solo artist without a car, just riding the train or bus with my guitar. I don’t have a lot of overhead expenses: I don’t have car insurance, I produce and engineer my own records. It’s just a matter of trying to keep doing music full-time, and being smart about how I do things.

Even without the virus, December and early January are usually dead. So I haven’t been in full tour mode since October and November. I played Germany, Switzerland, England, and then toured around Italy. But now, nothing. I’d also been hard at work on my next album. I just got the masters back, and had been trying to figure out when that was going to be released. I feel so bad for so many people who released their album right now. It’s like, fuck. You can’t tour behind it.

So even though I’ve been sitting on this record for a year, I’m pushing it back to the fall, at least. I can’t do anything now. I can’t even play a local gig. It’s kind of scary for me, because I’m literally one of those musicians, ever since the days of touring with Arborea, where I’ve just been living week-to-week for the last 10 years.

If you’re living week-to-week and haven’t toured since November, are you worried about being able to make rent, or eat?

Well, I’ve been very concerned about that. Fortunately, right now, from the touring, I had a little bit saved up. I do some other things, which helps my income. I sell paintings through a local gallery for about €400 or €500 each, and I’ve sold six in the last seven months. I teach some guitar, but now that’s shot too. I just started teaching this guy locally, and we did three lessons, but that stopped three weeks ago when things started going downhill here.

Adele, my wife, is also a musician, but since late October she’s also been a teacher, so she has her income from teaching. But three weeks ago, they shut down the schools. Starting this week, she’s been able to teach online courses with her high school students for a couple hours each day, so she’s not totally unemployed. But it’s pretty fucking scary. Until the city quarantine is lifted and I can start playing shows again, we will definitely have to rely solely on her little bit of income to survive. Thank god for the ability to teach online. Honestly, I’m trying to not even think about next week. I’m more focused on trying not to get sick, and trying to keep from going crazy.

How do you keep from going crazy? Have you been playing a lot of guitar to pass the time?

I don’t usually make music when I’m stressed out. I can write a million songs when I’m in a good mood, but over half of my stuff will still have a melancholy feel to it—it’s like the blues, it makes me feel good. But I’m having a hard time even wanting to pick up the guitar in the last couple of days.

Then suddenly, the other day, I picked up the guitar. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old son here, and Adele’s pregnant, we’re expecting another child in August. I have tons of guitars and stuff, and we got a beautiful piano last year, and my son really loves banging around the instruments. He’s really fascinated with my electric guitar. I was randomly playing guitar with him, and while he was sitting there I wrote this thing, which I think I’m going to develop into a recording. So at least I have one thing to keep my mind occupied with.

I’ve talked with Will [Sol] of Prana Crafter, who lives in Washington, and was on a tribute compilation to Jack Rose that I organized, about collaborating on something. I just shared a little snippet of the main theme of this new piece I’m talking about on Instagram as I was coming up with it, and he dug it. I was like, hey, I’ll record it, and leave space for you to improvise. I just also got a hold of my friend who is a percussionist in Milano, who plays Middle Eastern frame drum and stuff like that, and asked him if he would put some percussion on it also. So we might do a long-distance West Coast and Northern Italian collaboration. Just trying to stay creative.

When do you think or hope you’ll be able to return to some level of normalcy and start gigging again?

At this point, I honestly don’t know. It could be months. I’m really scared about that. I’m also trying to think of other ways to make money, like doing online lessons. Maybe doing some more recording collaborations and releases. It’s always good to have other things to fall back on besides music, but unfortunately I haven’t really lived my life like that. I used to have that stability when I worked for a luthier in Maine, but I sold all my guitar-making tools when I first became a full-time touring musician. If I had my tools, and I had some wood stashed, I could build guitars right now. It would be perfect. But I’m screwed, I don’t have that either.

I’m definitely going to change some things. I think it’s essential. I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but I think the reality is that there are so many things going on now, like these viruses, and the climate crisis, and everything, and I think everybody on this planet needs to start being aware, and being proactive, with everything we do.

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork