ANDY THOMMEN: Remembering Paolo "Scandy" Scandella

Paolo "Scandy" Scandella died in his home in southern Switzerland on December 7th, 2012 of heart disease. Scandy was mainly known for being the mastermind and bass player of the Swiss prog project Shakary. With this band he published 'Alya' (2CD), in 2000; a concept album based on lyrics by Sandor Kwiatkowski, a Swiss multimedia artist known for his cover art works for Clepsydra. Among the musicians that played on that album, we have to name Lele Hofmann on guitars and Aluisio Maggini on vocals, both former Clepsydra members. The drums seat was assigned to Walter Calloni (Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM).

In 2002 Scandy released the second album 'The Last Summer'. This album features almost the same musicians, with the exception of the vocals; the credits for those go to a certain Michael Branzino.  This, however, was just an alias for Scandy as he didn't want people to know that he did the vocal tracks by himself.

In 2006 a double album was released, again with re-recordings of a selection of songs from the first two albums. This time on vocals we'll hear Noel McCalla (known as long-time lead voice of Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and for his unforgettable vocal tracks on Mike Rutherford's Smallcreeps Day). Another highlight is the presence of Steve Rothery (Marillion) and Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) performing a guitar solo on the same track. This was not planned, but happened because Scandy sent the wrong song material to Steve.

When Scandy left us in 2012, he was working on new songs with enough new material for another double album.

In the beginning of the nineties, Scandy released two albums with his first progressive rock band Changes ('Images to Remember' in 1990 and 'The Growing Number' in 1994). The drummer of this band happened to be Luigi Pedruzzi, founding member of Zenit.

Scandy was also the live sound engineer of Clepsydra, from the early concerts in 1991 until 1997, and he also took care of Zenit's live sound from 1998 to 2008.

During the first decade of the new century, Scandy played bass in a local Toto tribute band, and acted as lead singer in a Rammstein tribute band.

An unknown gem was his lead in the production of 'Old Dream', a Clepsydra track for an Italian prog compilation that has never been released elsewhere. This was entirely recorded and mixed by Scandy.

Music was his life. He left more than 10,000 albums at his home, and he was always recording ideas, fingering on mixing desk, live or in studios. He was always commenting, reviewing and criticising everything he was listening to, be it a released record or a demo. Shades of grey did not enter into his opinions; if he thought your demo was shit, he told you so.

There are so many other things that Paolo did that I have forgotten. He was a friend. You could call him at any time and ask for help, he was there. I am writing this because I don't want to forget any more of what he achieved, and I want others to remember the multitude of things he did and left for us.

Thank you Scandy, I know you had so much more to give.

We miss you.