Band of the hour: Lucciano Pizzichini

Band of the hour: Lucciano Pizzichini
By Vanessa Garcia

Take a back seat Amadeus, because Lucchy's filling your shoes. Lucchy, short for Lucciano Pizzichini, came straight from Buenos Aires to Miami at 11 months, and now, at the tender age of seven, he's already been invited to play with the likes of Juanes and Santana, and is sponsored by Gibson Guitars. Ask him how he likes being famous and he responds: "Mucho!"

Full of joy and the energy, Lucchy is also precocious. His father taught him everything he knows, but he says he likes to play because "music is, well, quite frankly, an art." A musician himself, Adrian Pizzichini used to play with his band Kayak Man until he discovered that he and his son made a good team.

"We were in southwest Miami one day at a restaurant, after taking his mom to the dentist, and the restaurant had an empty stage, so we got onto the stage and started playing, and people loved it! People really loved it!" says Pizzichini. So they started playing on Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive, two street musicians gathering a crowd, until their act caught like wildfire and they started getting calls from TV and radio shows: PBS, Sabado Gigante, just to name a couple. And the calls keep coming.

Together, the father-and-son team practice two hours every day and dance around to classic rock tunes like Susy Q and I'm Free. Their band also consists of Lucchy's band, which also includes Sebastian Acosta (drums) and Sebastian de La Calle (bass).

Ask Lucchy what he wants to be when he grows up and he tells you: "A rock star." He already is. He also goes to elementary school and loves ice cream.