He was a gin-swilling Scottish-Italian heroin addict who set Argentina’s music scene ablaze – baffling the junta, who would arrest his audiences. As a biopic looms, we look at the fast life and early death of the frontman still worshipped today
In 1980, a tall, thin man landed in Buenos Aires airport, at the height of Argentina’s military dictatorship. His name was Luca Prodan, a Scottish-Italian rocker, and he had just finished the last of his methadone on the flight over. His arrival would soon send shockwaves through Argentina when he started a band called Sumo, acquainted the country with post-punk, and became a national legend who lives on, his music still earning hundreds of millions of streams. “When I saw Sumo in 1982,” says Prodan’s younger brother Andrea, “I thought, ‘This is more than just a band. This is like the Velvet Underground.’”
But, despite Prodan’s strong ties to Europe and his high esteem in Argentina, he is barely known outside of the country. That looks set to change – thanks to a forthcoming biopic called Time Fate Love, produced by Birdman co-writer Armando Bo. “Luca changed music history,” Bo says. “Here, he’s a god.”
