Roberto Lazzaro, a whole life as a disc jockey and his experience in Bangkok

A great story behind him in the most cult places among the most famous discos in Italy and Europe, and then landing in Asia, in Thailand, where Roberto Lazzaro has been residing since 2015.

di Francesco Tortora
Domenica 27 Luglio 2025
Dal nostro corrispondente a Bangkok - 27 lug 2025 (Prima Pagina News)

A great story behind him in the most cult places among the most famous discos in Italy and Europe, and then landing in Asia, in Thailand, where Roberto Lazzaro has been residing since 2015.

 We meet this time a prominent figure in the artistic and cultural world representing the community of Italian expats (expatriates) in Thailand, Roberto Lazzaro, a disc-jockey with great experience in Italy and with an outstanding professional configuration also at the international level. We meet him in Bangkok, the Thai capital, dubbed “The City That Never Sleeps.”

He was born in Padua on August 16, 1952 but is from Abano Terme where he lived until 1990 then moved several times for work. From his first marriage to Loredana he had two sons Federico, 53, and Alessandro, 49, and from his second marriage to Pamela he had another son Jonathan.

 When did you start in what would later become your profession i.e. deejaying?

 I started in Milan in 1969 in a nightclub, and in those years the term (which was anyway for a long time Disc-Jockey, had not yet been cleared through customs) and when people referred to the DJ they usually said: who was in charge of the music or who is the artist.

I started therefore, right away. We could say, in my case, that “the job chose me,” a lightning-fast career, in a few years I had already worked in all the clubs in and around my city and was called upon to play at summer and winter seasons in the most important beach and winter tourist resorts such as Jesolo, Venice, Asiago, then Switzerland, Lugano, Ascona, Verbièr, Saint-Morritz, Monte Carlo and in the most fashionable cities. Immersed in ever-changing music, I made new musical experiences with avant-garde and techno music in Munich and Berlin.

I n 1978 I was invited by my Agency (the most famous in Italy “Agenzia Ballandi” to go to work in New York, London and Paris but at that time, a passport was needed and therefore my wife had to sign, who refused thinking of a marital estrangement, it also happened so for the opportunity thrown with the owner of one of the most beautiful clubs in the world at the time, “Le Stelle” in Lugano. He was a Korean billionaire named There who invited me to go and work for him in Japan and Korea where he had five nightclubs. Here were some changes that I did not make but produced others that were no less important but certainly economically important because I had refused a lot of money, these were still choices made for the family.

This profession has led you to experience many changes, both in the profession itself and in your professional life. Can you briefly tell us about some of them?

 It must be emphasized that the Disc-Jockey -over time- has become a status symbol, which, however, has lost the culture that those of the old guard had as an address for the public who came to dance. Then technology supplanted the real school, the so-called “gavetta,” and people were generated who produce music without feeling but above all taking away from the many music teachers, bands and real singers their profession in exchange for notes and music made by a computer and software.

 When did you decide to move permanently to Thailand, especially to its Capital, Bangkok?

 Since 2015 I have been living here in Thailand, for several years I was a scout to study cultural and culinary habits, then for music and to study the musical choices of the DJs present (I must say that the musical knowledge -as far as I am concerned- is very bad), some DJs buy vinyls for a fact of “imitation”, to Japanese connoisseurs and only house music or nu disco and some nu jazz but all forgetting 50 years of music, cradle of current music and from my scouting I could ascertain that none of the current DJs performing in Bangkok worked in a real disco.

 Today the Deejay profession has acquired its own dignity and definition of its configuration now all over the world.

You have experienced firsthand how much it has changed over time.

What would you recommend to those who want to embark on this same professional and existential adventure of yours today?

 To those who ask me for advice I say that I am not the right person to give any because I would be sinning in presumption of knowledge and because I don't have the specialty of a new generation kid who is able to create with a computer, and therefore I recommend that they ask some DJs their age.

I must say that for a long time no one has asked me how to become and what you need to know to become a disc-jockey.

Technology has spawned DJs and dreams, so what better destination to come and have fun than Bangkok. And so many became DJs during the long plane ride, and once they got off they offered themselves and started playing in the various bars and pools, but then the time to burn the playlists and their jigs began to lack content and musical knowledge, having no background, sticking to what they easily found on the net, until they slowly died out one by one due to lack of knowledge and ideas, so in the end very few are left and almost all oriented in the same musical direction: those who play house, those who scretcha believing that this element is important, those who play hip hop endlessly, those who continue to get help from their laptop's archive not knowing where to turn, and those who recently even start experimenting with AI, while I continue my research, almost every night I perform touching on countless musical genres without the audience realizing it.


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