The origins

Composer, guitarrist and keyboard player: Pasquale Petrossi was born in Milan in 1958. He has been fascinated by music since his childhood and he studied singing till he was 14 years old but it was in 1971 that he learned to play guitar as autodidact. Soon fascinated by the 12 strings guitar he developed a really personal and particular technique distinguishing himself for sonority and athmospheres. He played in different rock bands in 1973 and in 1974 and then he founded his own first band called "The Time Machine" in 1975. His brothers Alberto (harmonic and acoustic guitar) and Maurizio (electric guitar and drums) were playing in this band. "The Time Machine" played in several local festivals in Milan during 1975. In 1976 "The Time Machine" became the "Divieto di Sosta" and Diego Pasini (drums) took Maurizio's place when he left the band.
Fernando Signoretto (keyboards) and Mattia Giorgetti (electric guitar) joined the band. During the year 1977 Pasquale Petrossi founded with his brother Alberto the "Collettivo di iniziativa Musicale". Mattia Giorgetti immediately joined the band .
At that time Pasquale Petrossi decided to get a nick-name and he became "Banana Joker".

Banana Joker succeeded in founding a new group "Emisfero Boreale" (for additional informations surf the site www.emisferoboreale.com). He had thought about it for a long time before realizing it !
"Emisfero Boreale" and "Collettivo di Iniziativa Musicale" had two indipendent but parallel lives.
At the same moment Pepè Petrossi and Mattia Giorgetti joined the Emisfero Boreale; the band became one of the most important and popular Milan underground band for all the period from the year 1979 to 1990.
A lot of musicians collaborated with this trio. The band were doing the typical seventies jazz-rock and early eighties symphonic rock, taking part in different shows and festivals in the North Italy.

Subsequently Banana Joker studied piano at the "Piccolo Conservatorio di Milano" and he studied percussions. Banana Joker had been the main composer of all the production of the "Emisfero Boreale" and he had been playing acoustic and electric guitars, percussions and keyboards since when the group was founded, 15 years before. The group broke up in 1993.