At 26-years-old, the Berlin-based Italian musician Fil Bo Riva has truly hit his stride with this compelling indie anthem ‘Go Rilla’, which burst through our speakers alongside an announcement of new tour dates for 2019 and a nomination for Best Singer/Songwriter  at Music Moves Europe Talent Awards (the new EU prize for popular and contemporary music.)

‘Go Rilla’ dynamically combines a diad of indie-pop and indie-rock influences, using addictively energetic guitars and an intelligent hook line which escalates into a powerful bridge that’ll have even the most stoic on listeners moving along to the bright rhythms delivered by Fil and his band.

Speaking about the background behind this kinetic new single, Fil Bo Riva tells us that:

“I first came up with the idea to the song in Manchester in 2016 while supporting Joan As Polic

e Woman through Europe that winter. It was raining outside and I was in the bathroom just before soundcheck… somehow I started staring at this poster of the club we were playing called Gorilla Club. I don’t know why but I just got a flash inspiration, took my phone out and immediately started singing the chorus melody and words. Everything else developed some time after when I found other lyrics I had written down after a dream… most of these words suited what I had in mind and so it just ended up being what it is now: a song about unbridled passion and the rapturous idea of escaping the real world.”

Born and raised in Rome, Fil decamped to Dublin for his school years and later relocated to Berlin in 2012. His first EP release, If You’re Right, It’s Alright (2016) gave this musician the platform to make a name for himself all over Europe by touring in support of Matt Corby, Aurora, Milky Chance and Joan As Police Woman, as well as selling out first headline shows around the continent. Riva has now seen three sold-out tours as well as numerous national and international festival shows on the back of his debut EP and is presenting his songs with his band in a breathtaking manner.

In between concerts, festivals and impressions made, Fil Bo Riva is constantly drawn back to Berlin to continue work on his debut with producer Robert Stephenson. In that sense, the time up to this point was a time of kaleidoscopic experiences and differing priorities: life in the fast lane on the one hand – being on tour with all it’s impressions, new cities, faces and peers, giving autographs for the first time and the realization that there are hundreds and even thousands of fans chanting along to your songs. On the other hand, there is this total isolation from the world. In the seclusion of the studio, absolutely focused on the process of the album. Digging deep within himself and truly forgetting everything around him, being alone with nothing but his music. Nothing else matters. An intense and plentiful process which the artist takes great pleasure in and which finally lets these songs evolve into their final state step by step. As opposed to the EP, where Fil Bo Riva actually recorded finished songs, here he allows all the experiences and influences to be dragged right off stage to the studio to be further moulded and nurtured with the band and producer.

“If the EP was a photograph of an idea, what we are trying to create with the album is an actual movie. I’m not trying to sound romantic but it’s like accumulating different pictures and feelings… and in the end we all worship the album format, that’s why we wanted to take enough time to shape it properly and it’s finally done now.“

With this first lead-single, Fil Bo Riva proves the anticipation to his album to be correct. ‘Go Rilla’ follows the keenly convincing first proof-of-life ‘Head Sonata (Love Control)’, the dedicatedly and passionately flirting ‘Blindmaker’, and the raw and folky ‘Time Is Your Gun’. This latest addition is a song that combines the diversity of FBR’s songwriting; balanced between the raw and powerful versus the intimate, precise and playful. ‘Go Rilla’ is another song that leaves the listener anxiously awaiting the album and singing along to this precise indie anthem.