Gadan, a quartet based in northern Italy, will bring Irish traditional music with a rock attitude to Jim Thorpe’s Mauch Chunk Opera House, located on West Broadway, on Oct. 27.

The act, currently in the midst of its first U.S. tour, formed in 2021, with its members mainly coming from Milan and Turin.

“Gadan” comes from “a word in our dialect, meaning ‘silly lads,” said Lorenzo Testa, who plays mandolin, guitar and tenor banjo, and also provides vocals. “No one knows what it means and it has a sort of Scottish-Gaelic flavor We love that.”

The area from which Gadan comes, Testa added, “especially the Piedmont region in Italy and the area next to France, has a strong Celtic influence, so there’s more in common that we even thought.” Retracing back the roots of traditional music, he said, “can tell the stories of people moving across the world, bringing a part of themselves wherever they went.”

Testa describes Gadan’s music as a “good balance between Celtic and Appalachian music, but with a refreshing new attitude and a modern sound. We have traditional instruments, but also a powerful and energetic rhythmic session. We’re trying to bring a rock attitude into the trad scene, making it appealing also to a new and young audience.”

As a youth, Testa started playing rock music. “Of course, when playing the guitar at 13, you just dream of becoming a rock star one day. Turning into a full-time musician has been a gradual process during the years.“

In Italy, Testa said, “the usual question is, ‘Yeah, OK, you’re a musician, but what’s your real job?’ So the only way was to do that step by step, forming a band and starting to play around, struggling to find a proper balance between music and everything else; girlfriend, friends, family and so on. Not easy at all.”

After years in the rock scene, Testa started playing tenor banjo and then “fell in love with traditional music when in Ireland back in the 2000s, trying now to bring my ‘rock attitude’ into the trad scene.”

Aside from Testa, Gadan consists of: Andrea Verga, mandolin, claw hammer banjo and vocals; Jacopo Ventura, guitar, bouzouki and vocals; and Joan Gatti, fiddle. All members have musical projects outside of Gadan.

“That’s how we met,” Testa said. “Sharing the stage at European festivals or playing together at sessions.”

Testa, who tours all year long with Celtic rock band Uncle Bard & The Dirty Bastards, noted that Verga “is mainly into old-time and Appalachian music. He’s one of the best claw hammer banjo players I’ve ever seen, despite the young age.

“Then we have Joan,” Testa continued, “currently living in Norway to study and learn Scandinavian traditional music, and Jacopo, who spent more than 20 years in the Italian and balfolk European scene.”

Gadan - which has performed at the Dublin Irish Festival in Dublin, Ohio, and Italian festivals such as Celtic Wave and Montelago Celtic Festival - had received offers for U.S. Irish/folk festivals in August, though members were already on tour with their other bands.

“Working with our European and U.S. booking agencies, we tried to arrange a first tour in the clubs for October to start spreading our music,” Testa said, “with the goal to be back in summer 2023 for the festivals. It’s the right time to do that and a first ‘taste’ of the U.S. for Gadan.”

Next month, Gadan’s self-titled six-track EP will hit digital and streaming outlets. The EP, physically available at the act’s gigs, features “Shady Grove” - currently on streaming outlets - along with “Joan’s Polka,” “Bedlam Boys,” “The Turning Tide,” “Go, Move, Shift” and “Limestone Rock.” Gadan plans to record a full album in mid-2023.

Gadan produced the first EP, though “we already have a few producers and labels interested in a future album,” Testa said. “We write our own stuff, but we also love to collect and rearrange tunes and songs from the past, exploring the connection between emigrant people from Ireland and Italy to the U.S.”

As for Gadan’s upcoming concert in Jim Thorpe, the audience “can expect a lively and up-tempo show, some mighty fun cause that’s the main reason we play music,” Testa said. “And then, well, there are two banjos on the same stage. What more can you ask for?”