For Los Fastidios, touring in the UK is like coming home.

The Verona-based ska punks, who recently celebrated 30 years on the road, were inspired by the UK’s two-tone movement.

“All the music we like was born in the UK,” says founder and frontman Enrico. “Every town we play in, there is a story about music. For us, it’s fantastic to play in towns like Coventry where bands started.”

“Pauline Black is my hero,” smiles singer Elisa Dixan, who brought a new energy to the band when she joined in 2018. “I love her music, her style, her attitude and on stage The Selecter are an amazing live band. She is a strong black woman and it wasn’t easy for her at that time.”

This spirit is captured by their powerful song Beverley paying homage to a black fan of ska music who showed the way for other women.

With her charismatic smile and encouragement, Elisa pulls women fans onto the stage to sing along. “Hey Rude girl, don't care if they don’t understand, stay yourself, walk on, make me feel alright, don't cry, give a smile.”

This love for their audience, this desire to build a family, is a hallmark of the band. “You are Los Fastidios,” they say at their gigs.

“The attitude of the two-tone scene is important,” says Enrico. “It showed my generation that music can unite and break a lot of barriers. For the first time they try to connect black and white people.”

“It’s more than music,” agrees Elisa. “It’s a movement, it’s a lifestyle.”

It’s a lifestyle Los Fastidios have adopted and updated. 

“We’re very lucky,” Elisa continues, “because we can go on stage anywhere in the world and spread our messages and values, like anti-racism, anti-sexism, against homophobia, transphobia, for animal liberation, for human rights.”

“At the end of the ’70s, beginning of the ’80s, racism was a really big problem in the world,” says Enrico. “Today the far right is doing the same for gender prejudice, which is why we fly the rainbow flag at our gigs.

“The young generation today is growing up with open minds, which is why fascists are opening to new ideas. When they talk about homosexual weddings or involve immigrants in their party, it is not true. It is a joke because they know the future doesn’t belong to them.

“But we are just musicians. We are not politicians. I decided to give my life to music because, for me, music is fun, first of all, but at the same time is an excellent way to spread our messages.”

The band’s best known for their football anthem Antifa Hooligans which is played at clubs around the world, most famously during half time at Hamburg hipster club FC St Pauli.

But beyond this they have an impressive back catalogue of 18 albums and singalong singles such as Take a Stand (“Everybody side by side and stick together, everybody shouting loud ‘We’re anti-racist’”) and Skankin’ Town.

A Los Fastidios gig is high energy and fun, alongside the serious messages, and guaranteed to get even the most hesitant dancing and singing along.

But wearing their politics on their sleeves has, Enrico believes, held them back, especially in their home country.

“Italy is the country of culture, but it is the culture of the past,” he says. “Today, if you want to be in a band, you have to be a business but we want to remain independent. 

“We thought of moving the band to Berlin because in Germany, the artist, the music is really respected. We have a lot of fans and support in Germany. But we decided ‘No’ because leaving Verona would be to lose. Verona is one of the most fascist, racist towns in Italy, so it was important for us that we are here.”

Enrico founded KOB Records in 1998, an independent label exclusively devoted to punk, oi! and ska sounds, promoting street music which is often ignored by the mainstream music industry. Other bands on the label share Los Fastidios’s anti-fascist and anti-racist values, celebrated every year with the one-day Kobfest festival in Verona.

“If you live in Verona it is not nice because every day you have to fight against the right wing,” Elisa says. “But at the same time it’s a reason more to fight every day. In one part it is sad, but in the other part you feel stronger. It is important we hold Kobfest here in this city, to be visible.”

Have things got worse under new right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni?

Elisa shakes her head. “Nothing changes, even though the government has changed. It was terrible before Meloni and it’s terrible now.”

And in a view that has parallels in the UK, Enrico adds: “Sometimes it is better to have a right-wing government because you know where they stand and you can criticise them.

“To have a left-wing government can be difficult because maybe they are doing the same thing as the right-wing.”

Like many activists in England, Los Fastidios have stepped away from party politics, preferring instead to engage on a community level, focusing on supporting refugees when they arrive in Verona. People arriving on boats across the Mediterranean have found friendship, work and homes in the city thanks to the support of Los Fastidios and other local organisations.

“Everywhere in Europe people don’t trust politicians,” states Enrico. “The people who vote is 50 per cent, sometimes less. It means the right wing won the election but not that the country is right wing.

“For example, in France’s elections this year, when there was a risk the right wing would get into power, it was a calling to people. They went to vote. The right were sure to win but then ‘Boom, fuck off’, they lost.”

Los Fastidios are a hard-working band – more than 100 gigs this year already – and their dynamic live shows re-energise and reconnect people disillusioned by Establishment politics.

Elisa says: “People say to us they want us to play in their town because they need us.”

“If you don’t work in a positive way, we are finished,” concludes Enrico. “I am a dreamer. For me it’s important to follow my dream. If you don’t have dreams in your life, then what do you do? Nothing.”

Don’t do nothing. See Los Fastidios and let their passion reset your politics.

Los Fastidios are on tour in the UK in November and next year. For more information see: losfastidios.net