Vanadium

Originating from Milan, the five-piece outfit Vanadium counted among Italy's earliest heavy metal successes. They issued multiple well-received LPs in the first half of the 1980s, only to be overtaken later by an ever-shifting national scene. In the latter phase of their run, a creatively diminished Vanadium endured open mockery from the subsequent wave of more aggressive Italian metal acts, most of which overlooked the older band's trailblazing work amid daunting obstacles.

Guitarist Steve Tessarin launched Vanadium in 1979. Alongside vocalist Pino Scotto, organist Ruggero Zanolini, bassist Fortu Sacca, and drummer Americo William Costantino, the group forged an energetic hard-rock style rooted in 1970s keyboard-driven heavy metal acts such as Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Rainbow. Following precedent set by Led Zeppelin and Iron Butterfly, the musicians selected a name drawn from a heavy metal on the periodic table, yet remained unaware that vanadium is actually a soft, malleable substance often employed in tool production, a detail later cited by detractors as proof of the band's inherent ineptitude. Early on, however, Vanadium would likely have embraced any notice that spotlighted their solitary struggle to establish heavy metal inside Italy's pop-dominated music environment. Persistent performances in neighborhood venues finally yielded results when independent Durium Records issued the 1981 single "We Want Live Rock & Roll," backed with a track simply titled "Heavy Metal." Impressed by the band's potential, the label extended a multi-album contract. Because Tessarin had meanwhile entered military service, Scotto and Zanolini recruited substitute guitarist Claudio Acquini for the sessions that produced Vanadium's raw yet creditable 1982 debut, Metal Rock, which also introduced the robust new rhythm section of bassist Domenico "Mimmo" Prantera and drummer Lio Mascheroni.

Tessarin's return to the lineup later that year unleashed uninterrupted momentum. The band advanced steadily across two stronger releases: 1983's A Race with the Devil and 1984's Game Over. These LPs cemented Vanadium's status as Italy's leading heavy metal act of the period, while the latter reportedly moved over 50,000 copies despite a market still governed by state-aligned corporations uninterested in the genre and a haphazard club network that supplied scant live opportunities. The 1985 "live" album Live on Streets of Danger, another milestone for Italian heavy metal, captured the group's most familiar material augmented by obviously studio-enhanced crowd sounds. Even so, the record earned consistent support from the recently debuted MTV-style outlet Video Music and its weekly heavy metal program Heavy con Kleever, where Vanadium essentially served as the house band. By the mid-1980s, heavy metal had achieved worldwide reach, positioning Vanadium to harvest larger gains from their groundwork with the 1986 release of Born to Fight, an album that continued the artistic direction of its predecessors and gave no sign of the sharp downturn ahead.

That downturn arrived with the ill-conceived 1987 studio effort Corruption of Innocence, whose cover portrayed the musicians in glam-metal attire and sent disaffected listeners toward younger, harsher Italian extreme metal bands such as Bulldozer and Extrema, even though the music itself displayed only marginally more commercial leanings. Durium Records' subsequent bankruptcy delivered another blow. When Vanadium reconvened to record and issue their sixth album, Seventh Heaven, on independent Green Line Records in 1989, they had fully embraced a polished pop-metal sound bordering on AOR, thereby alienating their original audience. After a decade together, the musicians chose to disband. They reunited briefly for 1995's Nel Cuore del Caos, their sole Italian-language album, yet the record failed to recapture earlier metal intensity and prompted permanent retirement. Pino Scotto stayed active through the 1990s with five solo albums and occasional television hosting duties, then formed Fire Trails in 2002, issued a Vanadium tribute album, and followed with 2005's Third Moon of original material. Meanwhile, Vanadium's legacy has gradually resurfaced from obscurity, restoring recognition for the band's pivotal part in establishing Italian heavy metal internationally.