Interview with Zeman

A talk with Bologna’s oi! band Zeman

In 2025, Bologna-based Oi! band Zeman celebrate ten years of activity. On 17 March, they released their new album, Ancor Non M’Abbandona. Following their previous full-length records, Attitudine Offensiva and Sunday Boys, as well as a split with Coru & Figau, the new release features 11 fresh tracks and is available on vinyl. It’s a co-production between Hellnation, Tough Ain’t Enough, Relax-O-Matic Vibrator, and Rusty Knife. To mark the occasion, we caught up with the band.

• Radio Punk: Hello there, and welcome to our zine! Although we’ve known each other for years, we’ve never had the chance to interview you as Zeman – though you lot have already been featured here with other projects like Cesoia and C4. Let’s start from the beginning: tell us the story of Zeman.

Zeman: It’s mostly a story of getting through, one way or another – hoping your liver holds up, surviving monotonous, underpaid jobs, scraping by in rented rooms, staying on your feet for the last drink, the last pointless scrap at five in the morning. Music had little to do with it. Especially in the beginning.

We were relentless. Sleeping two or three to a room, with no money to even get into bars or pubs, so we’d buy Lidl whisky for seven euros and drink at home on Via della Liberazione, playing cards. We’d get through at least two bottles of awful bourbon a week, but rarely straight – it was undrinkable. We’d cut it with Coke or just ice. The rest of our money went on canned beer and vodka stuffed under our jackets.

Bologna was different then – an open-air eatery, a playground for cash-flush Americans and Germans. Kebab prices have doubled since. Mauro was living in a student housing shoebox, and I was paying just over a hundred euros for a 1-bedroom flat that turned into a 2-bedroom flat whenever a mate needed a place to crash. Temporary contracts came and went like cockroaches on the floor.

We used to go to nights run by collectives, but only to nick booze and cause chaos. The autonomists kicked me out of their parties in Via Zamboni more than once – we were too working-class for the bourgeois offspring sent to Bologna for their political holiday in the cradle of ’77 [The so-called ‘movement of 1977’ was a spontaneist, mostly student-based ultraleft movement in Italy, reaching its peak in 1977, with Bologna as one of its strongholds – Translator]

I come from a working-class neighbourhood of twenty thousand blokes who do manual labour, warehouse work, or drink away what’s left in dimly lit social clubs – between addiction treatment centre queues for methadone and bottles of Ichnusa beer at eight in the morning.

The line-up has changed over time – Gaber was on bass until he moved to Barcelona, Norby played drums before heading back to where he came from, though he still plays with us, and Vinc from Gruppo Erotico Barletta was on guitar, but living far away makes it tough to piece everything together.

But we keep going – what else would we do? Spend Saturday nights in pizzerias or binge-watch TV series on the sofa, ordering junk food? Fighting is the only thing that keeps us alive. An uneven fight against fate. And since none of us has won the lottery, we’ve got no choice but to keep going.

The only thing I own is a Moto Guzzi V7, 750cc, made in Mandello del Lario, bought on instalments with my dad’s pension as collateral. The exhaust sounds like a distorted bass hammering against a snare drum. It goes from 0 to 100 in five seconds flat – like our new songs ‘Bardana’ and ‘Disciplina’.

• Radio Punk: Let’s talk about the new record. What do you feel you’ve brought to your discography with this album compared to the previous ones? What subject matter do you tackle?

Zeman: Lately, we’ve been hearing too much soft stuff – melodic guitars and polished vocals pandering to the audience, clean punk rock being passed off as Oi! or whatever. That’s not what we want. With this album, we’ve aimed for the sound of 1980s Italy – Nabat, raw, hard, uncompromising, lo-fi recordings that spit out pain and venom. We drew inspiration from recent French, Spanish, Catalan, and Basque releases like Beton Arme, Squelette, Brux, Aresi, Ultra Razzia, Rixe, and Reconquesta.

We entrusted the mixing and post-production to Alex from IENA. We wanted a record that captured what we lived and felt – drums pounding like a hammer on a metal bench, solos scraping at a garage door, vocals reverberating from beneath a stadium underpass. All that mattered was that it sounded real and raw, stripped back, sometimes dissonant – like a machine gun, like a Futurist poem. Zang Tumb Tumb.

As for the themes, we’ve tried to step away from the typical rhetoric of old, which now feels distant to us. ‘Bardana’ is about a crime in 19th-century Sardinia, where bands of armed horsemen raided the homes of the wealthy, killing everyone in their path. ‘Incorruttibile’ is about Robespierre, one of history’s greatest revolutionaries. Then there’s the nocturnal atmosphere of ‘Rasoi’, Sunday mornings heading to the stadium, the wake-ups, and our city in ‘Aspettando solo un goal’ and ‘Una vita intera’. The most identity-driven tracks like ‘Teste Rasate’ and ‘Ancor Non M’Abbandona’ tell our origins – we came from nothing, immigrants, and no one ever gave us anything (the album title comes from a line in Dante’s Inferno). ‘Fenomeno’ is about people who think they’re someone special, mostly online – it’s easier today: two posed photos, a bit of nonsense, and you’re set. Finally, ‘No One Likes Us’, our rework of the track by The Business, adapted to the streets of San Donato and our own terraces. Better Millwall than West Ham.

• Radio Punk: Can you tell us about the team behind the sound, artwork, photos, and the labels that helped release the album? We’re not just looking for a list of names – give us some behind-the-scenes insight.

Zeman: After ten years, we can confidently say that we all contributed fairly equally to the music on this record – riffs, melodies, rhythms, and sounds. We recorded in our bunker, Il Vecchio Son, at Sonhouse Studio with sound engineer Grug. The gang vocals session was legendary – there were at least ten of us, polishing off a bottle of whisky and a couple of crates of beer. The chants you hear at the end of the songs were all spontaneous – we actually had to cut some bits because things got out of hand. As mentioned earlier, Alex from IENA took care of the mixing. We wanted a raw, obsessive, clanking, anti-commercial sound – something that stands apart from most of today’s Italian releases. The mastering was done at a studio in Florence recommended by Alex.

The artwork was created by Tommy, a long-time mate. The photos and video for the album’s release were done by Camilla, who was incredibly patient, considering that we’re not exactly natural-born models, don’t look great in photos, and have no idea what to do in front of a camera. Before the full album, we recorded a promo and sent it to labels we respect, mostly French, Spanish, and Basque, alongside Hellnation – the indestructible hub of quality Oi! In the end, the record was co-produced by Tough Ain’t Enough (Spain), Rusty Knife, and Relax-O-Matic Vibrator (from Marseille, where we’ve played before), and, of course, Roberto from Hellnation.

• Radio Punk: Your bio and flyers say you’re from Bologna, but none of you are actually from here. What’s your relationship with Bologna and its stadium? What are the hangout spots for the kids, aside from the ‘Bar dei Ragazzi’ [a bar in the San Donato immortalised in a Zeman song on the previous album – Translator]?

Zeman: It’s all about the red and blue, basically. Those are the colours of my hometown, Sassari, the city where we formed, and of Cagliari, which I hate, but Mauro and Norby support, even though Vinc’s Barletta team has the colours red and white – but that’s another story.

The first time we ever rehearsed was at Vecchio Son in Bologna – the rehearsal space that Steno from Nabat runs. Steno had never seen us before, nobody had, and that’s where we chose our band name and wrote songs like ‘No Fair Play’, ‘Attitudine Offensiva’, and ‘Disciplina’. So, what else are we supposed to put in our biography, if not Bologna? Besides, we’re not Lega [Italian far-right party] supporters – the whole Jus Sanguinis thing [‘right of blood’ = nationality determined by descent] is a thing of the past, like something spouted by Calderoli [Roberto Calderoli, an Italian far-right politician known for his racist remarks – Translator].

The places we hang out at, and have always hung out at, are basically the ones where you spend less. I’ve never been into political gathering spots, those trendy places where people chat – it’s just not my thing. The national average beer consumption in Sardinia is the highest in Italy, on par with Munich, and I’m not about to spend eight euros on a pint or some overpriced craft beer. So, you’ll often find us in San Donato: Bar dei Ragazzi, Sardocinese, Bar Kantelli, and Bar Texas.

As for Oi!, we should mention Bologna City Rockers, the Sottotetto venue, and what used to be the Skeggia – a place run by Bologna’s Forever Ultras. It was all about long nights, ultras scarves, Campari and gin, all crammed between the bar and the wall, with stage diving from the door. But now they say they’re rebuilding the stadium, with parking lots, fast food joints, and balloons for kids. We’ll patiently wait for another venue, and if there isn’t one… well, we’ll figure something out. We even wrote a book about the Skeggia – me and the guys from Bologna City Rockers: skinheads, punks, and hooligans. It’s a true self-production, all done by us, no profit, no booking.

• Radio Punk: You’re a band that’s openly skinhead and anti-fascist, and you make that clear in the lyrics of this album, such as in ‘Nemico’. What struggles are closest to your hearts, and in general, what’s your take on the current geopolitical situation?

Zeman: With this album, we didn’t feel the need to repeat that we’re an anti-fascist band. We’ve been playing for over ten years, and people already know where we stand, so we focused on expressing other aspects of our lives. We’ve been involved in many anti-fascist struggles in the city, from street demonstrations to scuffles outside gigs, kicking Nazis out or stopping them from getting in. That’s what matters to me – being real, all the way.
That said, there’s one song we felt compelled to write in light of recent international events and ongoing wars: ‘Nemico’ [enemy]. Why? Because the democratic West has already decided who the new enemies of the established order, common morals, and civilisation are. It’s a holy war against anyone who doesn’t conform. The enemy is the Palestinian, the enemy is the Russian, and we, who have long memories and have studied history, know you can never trust the Americans.

• Radio Punk: Since the album is a collaboration between Italian, French, and Spanish labels, do you have plans for a European tour or something similar? And in general, what’s in store for Zeman in the future?

Zeman: There will be a promotional tour, starting with dates in Italy and Sardinia, and possibly later expanding to Europe. But don’t expect a three-week tour in France and Spain – we all work during the week, and we’re only free on Sundays and, when we’re lucky, Saturdays. As for the bands that do big tours in South America, the US, Poland, and so on… What kind of jobs do they have?

• Radio Punk: Ten years of playing is no small feat, especially since you’ve always stayed active in the truest sense of the word. You’ve seen and been through a lot. Do you think the skinhead scene in Bologna and Italy has changed over the years? What do you like about it, and what would you like to improve? After this philosophical question, we’ll thank you, say goodbye, and raise a toast to you. Oi!

Zeman: Everything changes, nothing stays the same. Panta rei. The scene is no different. The average age has definitely gone up, especially at live shows – you don’t see many young bands anymore, and that’s the case across Italy. In France, Spain, and Euskadi, though, the scene seems livelier. In Bologna, there’s still some movement, I think. Bands like Oltre La Linea, who are a bunch of solid lads from nearby Porretta. We won’t mention Cesoia, or else people will say we’re biased. Then there are all the bands we’re always happy to share a stage with: Nabat, Diario di Bordo, Zona Popolare, Rude, and Ghetto 84.

A lot of it comes down to venues. There aren’t many self-managed spaces left, so more shows are happening in clubs. This isn’t bad in some ways, like for the acoustics, organisation, and beer in glass bottles. But I think we lose some spontaneity, opposition, anger, avant-garde spirit, and contrast. Oi! needs vitality, people who come from nothing, from the provinces and outskirts. Eight-euro tickets, nine-euro drinks, six-hundred-euro rents for a studio flat – these things take away the magic.

We’re still the invincible ranks with black flames on our lapels [a reference to ‘Fiamme nere’, a marching song of Arditi del Popolo, Italy’s first paramilitary anti-fascist organisation, founded by ex-WWI combatants in 1921 – Translator]. I hope a new generation of kids will rise up – stealing wristbands to sneak into gigs, grabbing bottles from behind the bar, and getting kicked out, just like we did. Who knows, maybe they’ll make music that challenges our certainties, waking us from the suffocating numbness of gig photos, likes, shares, and petty arguments on social media. We’re trying to resist. And if you don’t like it, well, No one likes us, we don’t care.

Translation by Matt Zurowski
Credit photo: Cami Cristo