"I'm in a Band With an Italian Drummer" is an ironic/spoof rock song by Bruce Dickinson, first issued as the B-side of his 1996 single "Back from the Edge" (only on its 7-inch vinyl format) off his solo album Skunkworks, and subsequently released on the second disc of the 2001 The Best of Bruce Dickinson compilation album.
It was written by bassist Chris Dale, who was in Dickinson's short-lived backing band for that album, also named Skunkworks. The song's instrumentation features funny breaks with lots of deliberately off-beat electronic drum machine effects, each occurring immediately after the line "...and when he plays his drums it sounds like this". The lyrics, which (unusually for Dickinson) are composed of rapped verses and sung choruses, are an ironic portrait of the band's drummer Alessandro Elena, who is "really Italian" - as a line in the lyrics defines him - and feature most of the clichés commonly associated with the way Italians are perceived outside of Italy, in the Italians Do It Better style.
The song's end was spoken by the drummer in a Sicilian dialect (starting with a line in heavily inflected, "Italianized" English and then going straight into dialect) and features him complaining about his complete lack of understanding of what Dickinson is singing, all spiced up with "colourful" Italian and Sicilian dialect expressions.
Famous quotes containing the words band and/or italian:
“The band waked me with a serenade. How they improve! A fine band and what a life in a regiment! Their music is better than food and clothing to give spirit to the men.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Master of Trinity: Is he an Italian?
Harold Abrahams: Of Italian extraction, yes.
Master of Trinity: I see.
Harold Abrahams: But not all Italian.
Master of Trinity: I’m relieved to hear it.
Harold Abrahams: He’s half-Arab.”
—Colin Welland (b. 1934)