Luca Prodan

Largely unknown in Italy, Luca Prodan is a cult figure in Argentine culture.

Born in Rome and raised between London and Scotland, he landed in Argentina in 1980, where he founded the band Sumo, reshaped the country’s music scene, and died at just 34, on December 22, 1987.

Three of Sumo’s four albums rank among the top 100 Argentine records of all time, according to Rolling Stone.

Nearly four decades after his death, Sumo’s music still resonates—drawing around 700,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and racking up over 340 million streams in total. In 2006, the Argentine government honored him with a commemorative stamp. Two new projects are currently in the works, both exploring the legend of Luca Prodan: Time, Fate, Love, a feature film written by Argentine screenwriter Armando Bo and starring Peter Lanzani, and LP, a documentary by Italian director Luca Lancise. Rebel, cursed poet, radical outsider—Luca’s spirit still lives on, in his songs and on the walls of Argentine cities.

Ten days from now, on May 17, 2025, he would have turned 72.

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What were you looking for, Luca?

To Luca: light, sound, the poetry of rock—and of all outsiders.

I got to know Luca nearly twenty years after he died. Before that, we'd barely crossed paths. I had a vague idea he'd been the frontman of Sumo, an Argentine rock band from the '80s. I'd listened to a few tracks—just enough to pick up a bit of the language to find a few reference points that might help me not just live in Buenos Aires but belong there.

One day, for work, I met Roberto Pettinato, who played sax in Sumo. We met four or five times, always in the same place—a gas station café near his house. Pettinato was eccentric, moody, and self-involved. Always on. Always performing. A public figure through and through. Unpredictable, yet weirdly at home in the system. Funny, sometimes unbearable. Over-the-top, vain, flashy, loud.

At every meeting, without fail, Roberto—the narcissist—would bring up Luca out of the blue. No reason. No segue. He spoke about Luca like someone we both knew well—as if it was obvious I was in on the story. But I had no clue who he really was.Just passing mentions, inside jokes, nods to a missing presence—like Luca might walk in any minute, order an Americano in a cardboard cup, and sit down with us.

And it wasn't what he said that struck me—it was how he said it.

For a moment, he'd drop the act. His voice would soften, he'd stop performing for the imaginary crowd, and he'd let go of the video-star pose. His expression would shift—mellow, almost tender. A flicker of melancholy. His eyes would drift off. Then—just like that—he'd snap back into character and pick up the show where he left off. That's how I got curious. Thanks to Roberto Pettinato, I started looking for Luca.

I went back to Sumo's songs, to that voice—and realized: wait, he was Italian.An Italian fronting a rock band in Argentina? Huh. Then I started seeing him on the crumbling walls of Abasto, San Telmo, the Microcentro. Luca vibe, Luca not dead—next to that round face, bald head, and those glasses forever pushed up on his forehead.

A guy like that.

A strange guy.

An interesting guy, this Luca.

I went looking for traces of his restless life, burned through in just 34 years—most of them spent running. Here's what I found.

Luca Prodan's first life begins on the evening of May 16, 1953, at the Rome Opera House, when—during a variation of Čajkovskij —his mother, Cecilia Pollock, goes into labor.

She leaves the audience, is rushed to a clinic in Monteverde Vecchio, and the next day, Luca is born. What did your first cry sound like, Luca?

Dry, furious—like a snare drum hit?

Did you already know what you were going to become?

Did you already feel you didn't belong—to that place, that time?

The third of four children, Luca grew up in Rome in a well-off, international, sophisticated family. His father—an Italian with Central European roots—and his Scottish mother passed on elegance, restraint, and a certain sense of distance. At nine, he left the Institut Français. Too advanced? Too restless?

The second life begins in Elgin, Scotland, in 1962, at Gordonstoun School, where his parents sent him for a top-tier education. At Gordonstoun, Luca learned solitude—and met, alongside Prince Charles, a boy named Timmy McKern, who would one day save his life and bring him to Argentina. The school ran on strict codes: early wake-ups, freezing showers, military discipline, long marches through mud.

Is that how you build a man?

Or how do you break a boy?

Family correspondence is rare and formal. Affection seems to be an abstract concept. Luca begins to feel that the "elsewhere" is not a place but a direction. And he runs. In 1970, he left Scotland. He disappears for months and sells a rifle to fund a solo trip across Europe. He's wanted by Interpol. He reappears in Rome. They arrest him. He falls in love with Virna Lisi. He appears in Fellini's Roma and starts his military service. Then he runs again.

Luca's third life is in London, where he arrives in the mid-'70s still in his uniform. He works in a Virgin Records store at Marble Arch. He listens to music. Sells music. Steals music: one stolen record for every ten sold—this is called ethics. Fired. Rehired. Fired again. He discovers that music is not just something you listen to; it's urgency. He forms the New Clear Heads, writes songs, and plays. He breathes punk, reggae, and post-punk. Loves Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Lucio Battisti. He collects vinyls.

Voices, sounds, pains. He uses Heroin. Calls it brown sugar, loves it, sings about it. Moves between squalor, poetry, rage, and silence. In 1979, his sister Claudia commits suicide, and Luca breaks. He tries to destroy himself. An overdose almost kills him. Almost.He's not meant to die anonymously. He's still destined to become a legend.

It's time to run again.

In March 1980, Luca arrives in Argentina to begin his fourth life. The promised land, the refuge, the country that doesn't yet know Heroin. He settles in Hurlingham, the green, dusty outskirts of Buenos Aires, at his friend Timmy McKern's place. There's an empty pool, a guitar, and a few records. His body is worn, but his mind is sharp. Too sharp. Luca walks through the city, observes, listens, immerses himself, and soaks up Buenos Aires. He meets people: musicians, teenagers, and future companions on the road. Argentina is holding its breath under the dictatorship. At night, they sing softly. They drink a lot. They laugh loudly. They're searching for a way. Sumo begins like this: in a house, with a tape, with a voice. Luca doesn't seek fame. He's looking for a sound, an urgency. He finds it. And he shouts it out. A raspy voice, a gritty sound, drunken English, post-punk screams, and a Rastafarian spirit. Reggae, funk, irony, poetry, contempt. No one sings like him. No one looks like him. Sumo are a breath of fresh air in the stale and suffocating landscape of Argentine music. No, they're more than that; they're a bomb, a revolution, and a mockery. The military watches. They repress. They even arrest the audience. But they can't stop the current.

Luca doesn't care and lives between Hurlingham and Buenos Aires. He plays, writes, drinks, smokes, disappears, reappears. He doesn't forget his platonic love for Virna Lisi – ageless beauty with a sense of duty – and he tells her, "I love you," dedicating to her TV Caliente, a trippy, surreal, ironic piece.

Between 1983 and 1987, Sumo release four albums. Three will make it onto the list of the top 100 most important Argentine albums of all time. Luca doesn't seem to notice. Or doesn't care. He smiles, then runs away for the last time.What were you running from, Luca?

From your destiny as a privileged heir to a cultured, wealthy, cosmopolitan, and somewhat snobbish family?

From the strict and exclusive Scottish boarding school, they sent you to?

From the Italian police who were after you for draft evasion?

From yourself, your ghosts, a pain too great to find comfort?

What were you looking for in Rome, London, Córdoba, Hurlingham, Buenos Aires?

What kind of angry, vast, tender universe were you hiding behind that disheveled appearance, your aggressive and biting manner, that bottle of gin you were always clutching like it was your Linus blanket?

Luca, outside the box: born Roman, raised in English, sanctified in Argentina.

Luca, who, in the midst of the Falklands War, doesn't care and sings in English.

Luca who, in his lyrics, mocks Argentine high society, praises self-destructive rebellion, and quotes Rubén Darío.

Luca and the endless torment from the suicide of his sister Claudia.

Luca, who sings Heroin, the only true love no woman's love could ever compare to.

Luca, tano cabrón, who writes Mañana en el Abasto, the most porteño song in the history of Argentine rock.Heartbreaking, devastating, poetic urban anthem.

Luca, famous and idolized, owns nothing.

With borrowed clothes and a liver wrecked by gin, Luca dies and becomes a legend at dawn on December 22, 1987, at Calle Alsina 451.

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LUCA PRODAN - L'IDIOT DIGITAL