68: Alvise Sforza Tarabochia

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

Alvise Sforza Tarabochia lectures in Italian Studies at the University of Kent. In this fascinating interview we discuss Alvise’s love of heavy metal, his degree in Philosophy from his native Italy and why the prospect of doing a PhD in Philosophy was not the right path for him.

We learn that Alvise grew up wanting to be a surgeon and that his mother is a retired academic in the history of medieval art and his father is a civil engineer. We talk about the change in academic culture and ask the big ‘what if?’ questions, and Alvise explains why he’s glad he didn’t become a medical doctor.

From childhood, Alvise remembers going fishing with his parents as well as skiing and playing in a band, and we talk about what happens when one ends up living someone else’s dream. He reveals how he ended up in a heavy metal band and the pleasure involved in that, and we talk about a film we have both seen, ‘Lords of Chaos’, about the founding myth of black metal.

We also discuss his interest in film, especially ‘Star Wars’, and we find out that ‘Spaceballs’ was the first film that Alvise watched at the cinema and how he has always enjoyed the Pink Panther cartoons. We move on to talk about 1980s gender binaries, and about the things that bring us together as well as issues around conformity.

Alvise speaks about the teachers who inspired him and in particular the wild Religious Studies teacher he once had, and how religion played a big part in his upbringing and how he parted ways with his Catholicism. We also talk about the Church of Satan in the United States and whether this can also be classified as a religion.

In the final part of the interview we learn why Alvise has always had a problem with the passing of time and why for him looking back is never a positive experience. He talks about whether he is happy with how his life has played out and why the most radical metal version of himself would be disappointed to see what he is doing now.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Alvise Sforza Tarabochia and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.