met Roberta Sammarelli

In 1996, after various bass players coming and going, met Roberta Sammarelli (bassist), who at the time was playing guitar for a female punk group in Bergamo, the Porno Nuns, who Alberto knew for some time. The same year, they recorded and released their first demo Froll sound , with lyrics almost entirely in English with influences by Nirvana . The group initially decided to call themselves “Verbena,” the name of a plant (Alberto yells it in Nella schiuma , a song from their second demo tape), but changed to Verdena after finding out a group in the United States already had that name. The band was often called the “Italian Nirvana,” which continues to be given to them to this day.