“Bob Dylan was my warm ancestor and Franco Battiato, a discovery”

Ermitaño and Guadianesco, appear when new material is released, leave the scene and disappear for a while. Public exposure is the price you have to pay for doing what you love but don’t like fires. If you go out, you pay for the script. Perhaps por esoculta a medias su rostro tras una leafy maraña capilar.

I studied journalism, but I preferred to be “Bob Dylan singing Manuel Campo Vidal”. Hula Hula. After a few minutes of performing at the outlet, the footage shows a lasso that explains his creative world and his fourth album, According to hierbawhich immerses you in a tour of halls and festivals across the country.

Please. How does this new job differ from the previous ones?

Response. It is a more relaxed and less charged album than the previous one, which arose from the influence of Franco Battiato and had a baroque point. I’m looking for it now go to the furniture essentialseven if it is also about electricity Nebraska by Springsteen. In terms of themes, it’s also more honest and honest, once again I’m explaining it conceptually, because everything spills over the grass.

P. What does this metaphor mean?

R. Go up the road. Take a moment to feel that your path has been lost, mostly by accident, due to circumstances that occur in your life, sometimes also in a happy and voluntary way.

P. ¿Cuánto hay de Dylan y de Battiato en su música?

R. Dylan está en mi caldo primigenio, es lo que más me agitó desde pequeño. Mi madre me regalaba discos de Camarón, de Louis Armstrong, del cantautor italiano Angelo Branduardi, de Blur, de Oasis… Música muy dispar que me forjó un gusto muy ecléctico. Battiato, en cambio, es un descubrimiento de juventud, casi de madurez, que me dejó flasheado en la época de la pandemia y me influyó mucho para mi disco anterior. Siempre me había parecido un tanto verbenero, pero de repente conecté un montón con su música. Poco antes de publicar Polvo de Battiato se nos fue y parecía que el disco era un homenaje, pero fue todo muy fortuito.

“Sabía que mi voz no era algo por lo que escucharme, así que tuve que encontrar un modo de cantar que expresara”

P. Tiene un estilo vocal impostado que lo hace único, pero a la vez es muy arriesgado: o gusta mucho o causa rechazo. ¿Por qué lo eligió?

R. Sabía que mi voz no era algo por lo que escucharme, así que tuve que encontrar un modo de cantar que expresara de algún modo, y dar en las letras un extra para compensar una voz que no es líricamente ideal ni mucho menos. Ahí encontré un montón de referentes, como Dylan, Sabina, Lou Reed, Calamaro o Iggy Pop, que no tienen grandes voces pero han sabido utilizarlas. Ya no me preocupo tanto por la impostación de la voz, en algunas canciones mantengo mi engolamiento habitual y en otras no tanto, según lo que me pida cada una.

P. Usted es un cantautor de culto…

R. ¡Oculto!

P. ¿Cree que ha alcanzado su pico máximo de audiencia?

R. Seguramente no, pero no tengo prisa. Es bueno que mi música vaya haciendo su trabajito poco a poco. Eso encaja más con cómo soy y con mis intereses, que son disfrutar de la música y vivir de ella, pero tranquilamente.

P. These songs are mysterious, sometimes sure. How do you go about making people understand and empathize with what you are saying?

R. I like to be mysterious, yes. That’s something that comes to me spontaneously and more so on this album because the lyrics required less elaboration, less detours, including less prior documentation work. I sing about the things that are most inside me. References to all kinds of art, subcultures, current affairs or politics come to me on their own and I don’t expect them to be more understandable. But knowing that there are people who say “well, I didn’t mean it, it just is, you know”. This is how I see some of the characters in it Numbers and lettersthat I disconnect and come back to you with a part of the text.

P. The cultural references are very different, from The Simpsons to David Lynch, from Ilio Topuria to François Truffaut. Do you think they help you create a special connection with viewers who understand you?

R. All those guides who use songs to complement the picture I want to show believe that people at home somehow understand them more. It’s like a record store or a bookstore where someone walks in and says, “Wow, that’s beautiful, I like that!”.

P. Humor and sarcasm are also key components of his songs. Are they used very little in Spanish music?

R. We are interested in Albert Pla, Pepín Tre or Javier Krahe and others more serious like Sabina, Serrat or Aute who also use humor. I have a greater dose of surrealism and de influenced by Faemino and Cansado, Monty Python and La Hora Chanante.

P. Julio Camba said he wrote it for a gentleman from Guadalajara. Does anyone think of that when you write your songs?

R. I am writing to obtain the contested vote of Senor Cayo and Fernando Conde, the third of Martes and Trece.