“If the museum isn’t built in the building where my grandfather lived and married, it shouldn’t bear my name.” So in 2022 Steven Tyler, the front man of Aerosmith, had informed the Municipality of Cotronei, which had just approved the project for the creation of a rock museum named after him, that the location could not be changed. But despite this, the Administration had decided to change location without, in the end, doing anything about it. Now that never-born museum is one of the events that led the Crotone Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the current mayor, Antonio Ammirati, the former mayor Nicola Belcastro and some municipal managers for ideological and material forgery. An investigation started from a complaint presented following the warning that the singer made through the “Steven Tyler Cultural Association” founded in Cotronei, a municipality in the Sila area of Crotone, where Giovanni Tallarico, grandfather of Steven Tallarico known throughout the world as Steven Tyler, was born in 1800.
Giovanni Tallarico was a musician, he played the mandolin, and like many Italians he emigrated to America at the beginning of the 1900s where he made his fortune. Steven Tyler has always recognized his Italian origins and on 26 July 2013 he went to Cotronei where he was welcomed by relatives who remained in Calabria, also Giovanni Tallarico’s great-grandchildren. On that occasion he was given some scores written by his grandfather which the Aerosmith singer immediately played on the piano. During the visit, the idea of a museum named after him was presented to the rock star. «The idea – explains the lawyer Nino Grassi, cousin of the artist and president of the Steven Tyler association – was to create it in the Bevilacqua palace in the historic center of the town. It had been the house where my grandfather had lived and married before emigrating. An idea that Steven had approved by even signing the project.” However, after obtaining funding of 1.3 million from the Calabria Region, the administration changed its mind. The mayor at the time, Belcastro, together with the manager of the technical office proposed to the Region to move the location to a nearby area. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, however, they falsely certified that the expropriation proposal had not been accepted. The current administration, headed by Mayor Ammirati, has completed the move and for this reason in April 2022 the association had warned the Municipality to use Tyler’s name. The Prosecutor’s Office investigated Ammirati and the new manager of the technical office, believing that in order not to lose the funding, they falsely certified that the delays were due to external factors, while the investigation established that the Municipality had not acquired the landscape authorization from the Superintendence.
«The investigation – explains Grassi – follows the complaint that we presented to the Carabinieri in 2022 in which we asked to shed light on the decision to move the location from the building to another place. A relocation that in our opinion had no reason. I don’t know if Steven Tyler is aware of what is happening, but I will try to contact him in the next few days to explain the latest developments. Our idea, which Steven also liked, was to create the museum in the ancient palace to unite the roots and the present of the history of the Tallarico family. Instead, a soulless reinforced concrete structure was created.”