Walter Marocchi was born in Milan on December 18th, 1976, but as a child in tender age he moves to Rho, a few distance from the city. During his childhood he spends most of his time reading and writing comics, watching T.V. and collecting steering-wheels he’ll drive on the sofa. Most significant passions he'll carry on during the following years are music and cinema.

According to chronicles his beginnings on guitar are set in his adolescence, but the truth is they have to be traced back to his childhood. That is when he’s pushed toward the instrument by a peculiar teacher, a professional clown who happens to be a guitar virtuoso. He is the one who puts the child, who’s more drum-oriented, on the road to the strings, showing him a new and most powerful way out for his feelings. Sadly, due to the fact he worked hidden by a thick coat of greasepaint, we don’t know neither the name nor the real face of this character. The picture here on the side is the only evidence he left.

While attending high-school he founds his first band, CAMM, with guitarist and guru Marcello Merlo.
His love for visual arts has not extinguished, and after getting his foreign language diploma he attends CFP, an academy for video and film-making techniques in Milan. He’s deeply fascinated by the job of film editor; a valid choice, even if professionally risky in those times. The first lesson at school is about the end of film editors in the time of digital technologies. Luckily, the majority of theories that preached the shrinking of the editor’s role will be proven wrong.

Between ’96 and ’97, after breaking up with CAMM, he enters a recording studio for the very first time. The result is Demotivazione, a demo-tape including four songs written and performed by Walter; material that mainly came out of the musical and personal experiences of the previous years.
After having played for a short time in an unplugged group he joins Anacondia. Together with vocalist Gabriele Ramilli, keyboard player Andrea Canonico and drummer Antonio Sergi (bass player Vincenzo Valerio will complete the line-up in 2000), Walter shifts the band’s musical scope from the former “synthetic rock” to an hard-edged, gritty progressive rock. Still today, more than fifteen years after their birth, the band is taking their constantly evolving sound on stage as well as on tape.

In 1998 he gets his diploma in editing techniques and approaches digital editing. It’s a full-time working experience, but worthy to know all there is to know about video production and post-production, as well as to acquire a discreet style as an editor. During his stay at the film production company Groucho Film he works on commercials, music videos, fiction and short films.
He steps into a studio again to record a rock version of the Star Wars trilogy soundtrack, but the project is too ambitious and will remain uncomplete. Only a few rough mixes have survived.

In 2000 WM gives life to Cerchio Zero, a rock cover-band including Carlo Massironi, Vincenzo Valerio and Antonio Gargano; to play live as much as possible is the aim of the band, along with the guitarist's desire to deepen and improve his blues vocabulary.
During its four years of existance, the band often enlivens “open stage” nights involving a good number of music pals.

Meanwhile the cutting job goes on, and in 2002 Walter becomes a free-lance. A choice that will put his eyes at work for well-known italian artists like Adriano Celentano, Jovanotti, Mercanti di Liquore, as well as for border-line musicians or beginners like Crummy Stuff, The Styles, Club 27, even Anacondia; not to mention the many works in advertising and documentary features.

The professional change affects also the music production: in The Bedroom Sessions, the album officially released by the Art Of Logging duo, he plays different instruments and appears as producer. It’s a side-project in which WM meets electronic music for the first time, a work that draws inspiration from the world of video post-production, but even from WM's moving from the provinces to the city of Milan. Looping, samples, effects, lo-fi equipment, and a rapper Macintosh: the album’s potential is so explosive that many labels are put under pressure not to publish it.

The next step is working on a wide-ranging musical project, that only a few years later will settle into Mala Hierba. Once again, entirely instrumental pieces, but more intensively tending to blend different styles, to take guitar on unusual, sometimes bewildering fields.
After recording some demos, WM works for one year in trio with Alberto Viganò playing 8-strings bass and argentinian percussionist Norberto Quillan, but the line-up splits because of the previous professional engagements of his new partners.

in 2005 Anacondia release their self-produced album Due Mondi, a collection of all the songs recorded by the group until then, which receives remarkable reviews from the press. Let it be known, it's out of stock now.

After facing events and line-up changes which could have shattered huge bands such as Earth, Wind & Fire and Jefferson Starship, in 2007 Mala Hierba consolidates into a quartet with pianist Fabrizio Mocata, bass player Carlo Ferrara and drummer Stefano Lazzari. Four different musical backgrounds which contribute to the sonic “impollinations” of the group, and what comes out is an unpredictable blend of jazz, rock, tango, ethno, and more; a crossbreed reaching his climax in the live act.

But dealing with jazz and tango doesn’t mean to shut the door on other musical genres, even to those stupidly considered as “minor”. In 2006 Walter records with “improvised” band A Different Porosity an EP named Walls; a trip to Punkland with professional painters Marco Testaferro and Stefano “Stukko” Casabianca as pals; a small size concept album whose lyrics refer to the uneasy world of whitewashing and painting.

In 2008, surprisingly, a new Art Of Logging album is released. Heavy Machinery is a remarkable step forward compared to its predecessor, with a more dance-oriented profile as well as references to big beat, house music, nu-jazz and even hip-hop.

In 2009, after two years passed cutting its teeth on stage for a hot meal, Mala Hierba publish their first album, entirely written, arranged and produced by WM: Impollinazioni shyly gets some attention by winning Premio Toast at M.E.I. (Italy's most important independent musical event) as Best Italian Instrumental Album, being recommended as well as one os best indie-rock new acts and getting a nomination at Progawards as Best Debut Album, evident proofs that critics, stunned by the record's diversity, are at their wits' end.

WM is currently living in a working-class district in Milan. He keeps dealing with film editing, and among his other occupations we may include scoring short films and ducumentaries, and collaborating with a few musical magazines.






















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