He had already outlined some incursions into Latin American music on other albums, but maintaining certain ‘rockism’ and never with the depth and commitment of ‘Pending accounts’an album in which Bunbury sings to real life, at the foot on wall … Against the maelstrom, to the courage to listen carefully, to love and also to the art of writing songs, almost always with a fraternal celebration wrap that invites you to sing with a bottle in one hand and the shoulder of a friend in the other.
Although he has surely made a rest album, slow, because it was what he wanted, I don’t know if he has some declaration of intentions.
This album is born from a personal need, an intuition, a passion, and an approach to a series of music that arises from an individual reflection, totally oblivious to the context. For me, it is a long time since it is complicated to see me inside a music scene. It seems to me that it makes no sense to try, at certain moments of your career, attach to the fashions that come and go. first because as an old dog, somehow I know that fashions have that problem, that they happen. Incorporating yourself into certain movements can be artificial, you can even see you as an intruder and make you feel out of pot. I have not made the album as opposed to that, but because it was the one I wanted to do. I have already looked out to Latin music at other times of my career, but this time I have done it from another perspective. In ‘Licencia Cantinas’ it was a rock group making Latin music, there is electric guitar with distortion, a lot of battery, synthesizers … in this album of folklore musicians, who know their instrumentation with wisdom and sensitivity.
The combination of poetic and popular language has always been present in his career, but in this album he especially shines. Perhaps the sound approach has raided the terrain in that sense?
It is likely. As you say, the musical context may have pushed me in that direction. He has pressed me, or forced so that this balance was more measured. I have not wanted to deny the fact that they are songs, as José Alfredo said, “so that the people sing them.” But I wanted the form, the words, the content had their literary weight.
In ‘to get here’ he sings: «when everything collapses, something new grows in you. Deliver me tied to survive ». A brilliant way to summarize his career in a few words.
Thank you for the “brilliant”, and yes, that is the intention. It is a bit a ‘my way’ in terms of the content of the letter. It is a way of thanking what has lived, to extol the obstacle and the victories, and to accept that everything is part of the road, of the struggle to get here.
Should we value the obstacle more?
I value it greatly, and not only that, but I keep it in the memory with special affection. There are times that someone tells me about a concert that went very well, but I am unable to remember it. And yet, I perfectly remember the concert that was a resounding failure, and I almost keep it proud, as saying “that failure was mine and only mine” (laughs).
It is rigorous to ask for the musicians who accompany him on the album. His relationship with Jorge Rebenaque (piano, accordion and keyboards) dates back twenty years, and with Ramón Gacías (drums, co -production) even more. But what about Chilean Sebastián Aracena (guitars and rope instruments), and Mexicans Luri Molina (double bass) and Johnny Molina (percussions)? How did you meet them?
I met Sebas for the first time in a performance by Mon Laferte. He is a guitar teacher, one of those people touched by the hand of God, with a gift outside this world. Ramón, who has been living in Mexico for several years, sent me a Luri video playing in a jazz club, and I immediately thought “with this uncle I have to record something.” Johnny was looking for musicians for recording, I found him talking with different artists who recommended it to me. I have had good percussionists, but never with the exaggerated precision he has. It is a monster to which a USB was embedded in the head with all the information of Latin music from 1890 to the present day. He knows absolutely everything.
Will it try to participate in any of the fifteen concerts of the tour?
I would love to do something with them, more specific. I hope the moment is given.
His tour band will be the street hurricane, which already accompanied him in previous Latin incursions. Has it been premeditated or a planet alignment? I think I already knew that I would turn with them before profile this album …
It has been a alignment of planets totally, yes. The idea arose from another idea, when I was preparing the ‘trip to nowhere’ Box-set. Due to circumstances, the slowdown of the times, I went to record this album, and the initial project to give a few concerts on the occasion of the box-set has gathered with ‘pending accounts’.
It will only give fifteen concerts, and other artists are also reducing their tours. Maybe I don’t have much sense to give ninety or one hundred concerts?
It makes sense when you think that when I left home, as nowhere. But I am personally very happy with things I want to do at home, how to compose and write, and the tours take a long time. This could give to make an industry analysis. I do not know to what extent, when you have been twenty years of career or more, continue doing eighty concerts in Spain can become something annihilating. And I don’t know how strategically makes sense. From the international point of view, giving only fifteen concerts is very complicated, because I am going to leave out a lot of countries.
You will have received many pleas to expand a little.
Yes, yes, even places where tickets have already been exhausted, asking me to repeat. Yesterday, talking to the Wizink, they told me that I should have taken another date. The same in Bogotá … but the door is closed.
From a time to this part, an artist who takes documentary, an artist who talks about his depression for the extreme exhaustion of the tours. Have you wanted to squeeze too much the chicken of the golden eggs?
There was a time in which artists were very scared with the mantra that records are no longer sold, that you have to go to the road to live from music. It is a phrase made like many that are around the industry. “Now the single, not the records”, “the physical format has died”, “Without social networks you are nobody”, “rock has died”, “now the collaborations are taken” … All those phrases made have an important base of lies, and normally they are released by people who do not know the reality, or who intends to get all the artists in the same jacket. Now, when I say that I have made a Latin album, there are those who have been saying “Well, you will have done a reggaeton, right?”
Did anyone really tell you that?
Of course … and it is a comment to put in the list of silly comments. There are people who consider that if you are out of reggaeton you cannot have a successful career. That is having the ability to observe reality very diminished.
I imagine that he enjoyed the movie ‘The Blue Star’.
Yes, I had the opportunity to know the project in early stages. Macipe passed the script, he asked me for collaboration, I could see an initial assembly … The truth is that I am glad to have followed the whole process because the result has been a film full of sensitivity that shows a director with something to tell.
In the final scene, when the protagonist (Mauricio Aznar, leader of Más Birras, whose ‘commitment to rock’n’roll’ was the only version that made heroes of silence) listens to his message in the answering machine, he does not return the call. But the reality was not so, right?
That’s right, he called me and we were talking. That talk was during the recording of ‘The Spirit of Wine’ in London. I called him to ask permission to version ‘commitment to rock’n’roll’ for face B of a single, I left the message on the answering machine and then he called me.
I imagine that what sounds in the movie is a recreation, not the original message.
That is, yes.
The imperishable desire for another meeting of Heroes of Silence, do you feel it towards a band?
When Bauhaus gathered, I went to see them delighted and gave a great concert. The same with the Stray Cats. I like meetings that are not spectacular. For example, I have not seen Guns N ‘Roses, and I don’t feel the urgency of seeing her. Also because I already saw them on the ‘use your illusion’ tour, and I stayed with the feeling of having seen a band at its best. But no, I have no special interest because no band meets. I like that artists live their creative lives in the best possible way, and if they decide to meet because they need money and have to pay the rent, it also seems good to me.
“I don’t get those things of jealousy, envy, sarcasms so typical of other colleagues”
The first edition of the Hall of Fame of Hispanic Music has just been held, how do you value it?
What is clear is that everything that is to recognize the work they have done musicians who have given us so much joy is great. I really enjoy the creations of our teachers, and everything that is to thank, welcome is.
In the original Hall of Fame there is not a single group that sing in Spanish.
I have seen that Maná has finally stayed out, yes. At the time he tried with Soda Stereo and nothing happened. This time the nomination has been reached, so it is an advance. What I do not do is get into those things of jealousy, envy, or sarcasms so typical of some colleagues, because I think that everyone who receives tributes, deserves it. And I never think I deserve it more. I already feel flattered by my audience. With Maná, I have seen a comment by saying that “Maná is not rock,” or even “I am more rock than Maná” … these children’s discussions, for the school patio. The same in rock’n’roll hall of Fame should be a Latin division, as in the Grammy.
Taking into account the characteristics of ‘pending accounts’, I say goodbye by asking him about the blackout.
Mmm … the blackout … had landed in Spain at dawn, so I spent it at the hotel. I lived it with a lot … Well, in my hotel room.
But do you have any reflection on it to share?
Yes, that made me short.
