I Grandi Successi Originali

One of the most popular bands in Italy at the beginning of the 70's, not only among rock fans because of their long collaboration with singer Lucio Battisti who took them to the newly formed Numero Uno label producing their first album.

Dies irae, housed in a nice psych-inspired sleeve, introduced the typical Formula 3 sound, based on the guitar/organ interplay (the band used no bass, the bass parts being played by keyboard player Lorenzi), with the nice lead voice of drummer Cicco.

Their sound was a blend of pop, prog and hard rock influences, that brought them to be the most important rock band before the Banco/PFM years. On the album are noteworthy the nice title track with a dark atmosphere (Dies Irae had originally been released on single in 1967 by Samurai, a group that included keyboardist Gabriele Lorenzi along with Area's Paolo Tofani), a cover of the Left Banke's Walk away Renee and one of their most important tracks and an Italian rock classic, Questo folle sentimento.

Second album, simply entitled Formula 3, was entirely based on songs by Lucio Battisti with lyrics from his co-writer Mogol and contained two more classics, Eppur mi son scordato di te and the long Nessuno nessuno, also released as a single in shortened form. The rest of the album was on a minor level, and the group was too tied to the Battisti-Mogol production, but they were very successful and there is no one in Italy that still nowadays doesn't know some of their songs.

In the third album, Sognando e risognando from 1972, the band included some original compositions, along with the usual Mogol-Battisti tracks, and the result is probably their best work ever. The best track here was a 10:30 minutes long version of the title track (a song already recorded by Lucio Battisti), but even the Aeternum suite is noteworthy.

In the same year Formula Tre played the 'Festival Internacional da Cancao 1972', an international pop festival in Brazil.

Fourth and last album, La grande casa, saw the group's split from Lucio Battisti's production and compositions, the album being produced by lyric writer Mogol with original music by Alberto Radius. This is usually considered their lesser album, with large use of acoustic guitar and very different from the previous one.

The band kept playing as Lucio Battisti's backing band but Formula 3 officially ceased to exist since late 1973.

Gabriele Lorenzi and Alberto Radius joined the short-lived supergroup Il Volo while Tony Cicco started a solo career with the name of Cico.

Radius, already an appreciated sessionman since the 60's, also released many solo albums starting with the now rare Radius in 1972, and up to the early 80's.

The band reformed in 1990 with the same line-up and releasing three new albums among which King Kong, that also included reworkings of the old songs.

A new album has been released in 2002, La folle corsa, containing once again re-recordings of the band's old hits with new keyboardist Maurizio Metalli replacing Lorenzi. Metalli has been replaced by Ciro Di Bitonto for 2006-07 concerts.