Dade on RIDER: “We wanted to get people into cinemas to listen to a record while watching a film”

I’ve lost count of how many years I’ve known Dade, but I think it’s been more than twenty by now. When I was a teenager, I would literally follow him around Italy when he was playing with Linea 77. I’d stand right at the front, pressed against the barrier, and inevitably come home covered in bruises and with no voice left. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

Then I grew up, Linea 77 changed and eventually came to a stop, but somehow I always kept following Dade and his projects.

Over the years, the creativity of Davide Pavanello, aka Dade, has continuously evolved and expanded: musician, songwriter, producer, artist, composer. As early as 2006, when Il Tappeto Dava Un Tono All’Ambiente came out under the name Anti Anti — effectively a producer album at a time when that label wasn’t really common yet — it was already obvious from a mile away that his artistic side was impossible to contain within a single definition.

Over time, his relationship with images and cinema became increasingly central. His collaboration with Margherita Vicario eventually led to Gloria!, whose soundtrack earned the two of them the 2025 David di Donatello Award for Best Composer.

But perhaps it is with RIDER that all of these different paths finally meet at the same point.

Written, directed and composed together with Roan Johnson, RIDER was born out of the idea of erasing the boundary between cinema and music. It is not simply a film accompanied by a soundtrack: in many cases, the songs came before the images and directly contributed to the writing of the screenplay. A “film you can listen to and a record you can watch”, where rap, electronic music, ballads, words and images coexist within the same narrative.

The soundtrack is already out, and RIDER is now in Italian cinemas.

We met Dade on a sunny afternoon in Milan, at the offices of his management, to talk about how the project came to life, his move from production to directing, a Milan crossed at night, music, images and artificial intelligence. And, inevitably, about that need to keep creating while having fun, which seems to have remained untouched after all these years.

How are you? How’s this period treating you?

Good! I’ve been a bit under the weather for three weeks, but I’m finally getting better and running around like crazy again. I’m doing really well. I have this new child, this project, and I’m taking it around with me. I’m still understanding it now too, after years of working on it and trying to make it happen.

When did RIDER start? How did the project begin?

I actually went back through the WhatsApp chat between me and Roan to find the very first spark: it was May 20, 2021. The very first spark, mind you. After that, it was a good four years of work. Four years during which this project died more than once and then came back to life.

It started with me and Roan, when we met. He had always written screenplays and wanted to write songs. I told him: “I’m fucking tired of writing songs, I want to make a film!”. So we said: let’s make something together that’s half and half. And that’s how it started.

How did you and Roan turn songs into a narrative? And why did your first producer album end up becoming a film too?

First of all, I don’t consider this my first producer album. My first producer album — even though the term didn’t really exist yet — was something I did back in 2006 under the pseudonym Anti Anti, when I invited a bunch of artists to be on a record that I then produced.

Over the years people kept telling me: “Dade, as a producer you need to start thinking about making your own producer album”. And I always answered: “Guys, that sounds like the most boring thing in the world to me. I’ll do it if I find the right idea, otherwise I won’t”.

When we found this idea, the first thing we said was: “We need to get people into cinemas to listen to a record while watching a film.” That was the biggest challenge.

We started with the hardest part, which was the song that eventually ended up in the middle of the film and became its turning point: a very narrative song that we made together with Axos. From there, we realised it could actually work, so we started building the story and thinking about the characters. For every character we came up with, I would immediately associate them with a singer, very often someone from my personal circle — friends and artists I had already worked with. Margherita, Levante, Ensi, Johnny Marsiglia: they’re all friends, people I’d already done things with. I wasn’t looking through the charts trying to find a name that could generate more hype. Slowly, we built the whole thing and, after writing eight songs, we actually started writing the screenplay. We wanted to make a short film, an hour and fifteen, an hour and twenty at most, with a lot of music but also a lot of cinema. And that’s it. We did it.

How did your creative process change when you moved from being a producer and artist into directing?

Actually, my way of thinking about and writing music hasn’t changed. I’ve always been a very eclectic producer, someone who tries never to repeat himself and, above all, tries not to use the clichés of modern music.

I’ve never been one of those producers who’s good at making “the hits that are working right now”. I don’t know how to explain it — I just can’t fucking do it! Maybe I could, but I’m not interested, and when I’m not interested in something, I don’t do it.

I’ve always had a very cinematic approach. Marghe used to tell me that too: “Dade, you need to make films, because when you close your eyes, you can see your songs”. My music has always had something cinematic inside it, so in the end the transition came very naturally.

The strange part was writing the first lyrics. We would go to these rappers, these absolute masters of rhyme, and say: “Listen, you need to describe this scene: he’s on a bike, he’s going over there, but wait, it’s sunset, it’s raining…”.

We would basically give them a catalogue of images of what we had in our heads and they would turn those images into rhymes. It was fucking magical, incredible. It made me appreciate the world of rap even more, and especially rap storytelling, which I’ve always loved.

So did the cast mainly come from you?

Mostly, yes. Almost all of them are singers who became actors. In some cases, though, we obviously had to cast actors and then make them sing. That’s where Roan came in.

He was the one who found the lead, Lorenzo Aloi, for example. He introduced us and I told him: “Look, it’s great that he’s an amazing actor, but he also has to be able to sing, otherwise we’re back to square one”.

Lorenzo came into the studio, started rapping for the first time and I went: “Fuck, you’re really good! So it’s you. That’s it”.

Kaze, on the other hand, already sits right between the two worlds, because she’s both an actress and a singer, so I never had any doubts about her.

And then there was Claudio Santamaria, who told us: “You two are insane, you’ve come up with an incredible idea. I’m in. I’ll give you one afternoon, but I’m in!”. He came and, among other things, did the only song that was performed live directly on set. He did it for real, live. I took my hat off and said: “Respect”.

You can really feel Milan throughout the film. What kind of Milan did you want to portray?

We wanted to portray what I think is the only Italian city that’s on the same level as London, Berlin and the other major European cities, where certain dynamics are already part of the city’s DNA.

Even something as basic as calling a rider and having a pack of cigarettes delivered to you within five minutes is something that has been part of life in Milan for a long time.

And here you can really feel the duality between the outskirts and the city centre: on one side, the poorer part of the city, the people who bust their asses from morning to night just to put food on the table, like our protagonist Sami, who works as a rider because he has to, not because he enjoys it; on the other, Giorgio Colombo, who represents the wealthy Milanese guy who made it and is quite rightly enjoying the good life in his beautiful apartment in the city centre.

Bringing those two worlds together on New Year’s Eve could create a great clash. That’s why we chose Milan.

You could actually tell this story anywhere, but Milan has a different flavour.

If you had to choose one single image that truly represents RIDER, both as a film and as a record, what would it be?

The one I chose for the vinyl cover.

The two of them, after going through all these adventures and ordeals, finally managing to love each other, but with the threat of these guns being pointed at them. What we called “a robbery in paradise”. It’s also the image behind Prima e ultima volta, which comes at the end and is the only real love song we have. In a way, it sums up everything that happens in the film.

Basically, they’re trying to give in to this feeling of love they have for each other, even though they only met the night before. That kind of love at first sight that sometimes happens. But in the situation they’re in, it’s very hard to actually let themselves follow it.

In a project so closely tied to authorship, what is your relationship with AI applied to music and images? Do you see it more as a creative tool, or as something that challenges the role of the author?

Personally, I’m still very conflicted about it.

In RIDER — and I can put this in writing, actually I had to put it in writing in the contracts I signed — no form of AI was used whatsoever. Not in the music, not in the VFX, not in the screenplay. Nothing. Everything was written by hand on old pieces of paper.

When it comes to my personal life, though, obviously I’ve already confronted this topic, I’m confronting it now and I’m trying to understand it, just like everyone else.

What scares me is how fast it is. Even I find myself thinking: “Holy fuck, this is something I can’t even control”.

What bothers me a bit about AI is that it’s so well prepared that it ends up changing my original idea. And that’s exactly what completely freaks me out.

I have a precise idea, I know what I want, I talk to it about it and then it transforms it. Sometimes even for the better! And I’m like: “Fuck, but no, that wasn’t my idea! Fuck off, I’m never asking you for advice again”.

So I use it for practical things, very practical things: lists, annoying shit that needs sorting out, all that kind of stuff. But creatively? Zero.

With music I’ve messed around with it, like everyone else, just for fun. But I have never released anything made with AI. Not even the sound of a snare drum. Zero. Absolutely nothing.

I don’t enjoy it. Mainly because I’m not the one doing it. Otherwise, sorry, what am I doing this for?

I do this job because I have fun doing it. It’s the biggest form of fun I have. If it does it for me, it takes the fun away. So what do I need it for?

That said, it’s an incredible tool for younger generations. I’m fifty now, I’m already two-thirds of the way through my life if I’m lucky, so honestly I don’t feel like wasting time on something that, yes, helps me, but at the same time transforms my ideas.

I’d rather get it wrong, but do what feels right to me.

RED•EYE WORLD