Nacha Pop still up to date. In the last five years, including a pandemic, a compilation of their best songs has been released (The Girl from Yesterday and other songs that made me love you), a book (No, I won’t forget), and even a new album, Sudden Impact (2017). Of course, Antonio Vega, a fundamental pillar, is missing today, but the truth is that he was more on the move, not a group to return to. The meeting of the two co-lead cousins in 2007 took place on a tour that was a complete success (they went through Lemon Pop) and was recorded directly in Reiniciando. Then, in 2013, they hit the road again, albeit not the author of Yesterday’s Girl. And now they got over the health crisis and took the stage again. We spoke with Nacho García Vegas prior to his visit to Caravaca Power Pop this Saturday.
How about this return to Murcian lands?
We are happy to return to Murcia and look forward to it. Also, the end of a season: I think the Caravaca concert is the last or the penultimate if I’m not mistaken. We gave nearly thirty concerts in Spain this year, and it was once again a wonderful experience for our public relations that continue to sing the songs of the eighties but also have an immediate impact.
How is your leg injury going after the concert in Chamartín? Are you coming with a cast?
I’m going without a cast, but I can’t support it. At least I can bend my leg a bit, but I’ll have to be on the stool… Which makes the concert a bit ‘special’ and not in the best way. Because you know I like to go from place to place…
The immediate impactful comeback came just thirty years after the release of Nacha Pop’s last album. Was it situational or…?
Completely random and conditional. When we decided to part ways in ’88, we already knew we would meet again. Most groups that break up at a pivotal point in their careers do so because they don’t get along too badly with each other or because they disagree about how they work professionally, but in our case there was none. this. And everything was cut short when we finally came back in 2007 with great enthusiasm (I’m talking about the loss of Antonio, of course). Because we wanted to continue the career with all its dimensions, not only by giving concerts, but by taking steps to release a new album, and in this sense, his absence was very important. But we didn’t want to abandon the project that we both started with great enthusiasm (although I didn’t consider the possibility of getting the group back until four or five years later). But people wanted me and convinced me. And the truth is that coming back was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life: Every concert we give is a tribute to what Nacha Pop was before it came into existence, and especially to Antonio, who is still so precious. present in the soul and, of course, in the repertoire. In fact, there’s a song in the Immediate effect that features a guitar that Antonio recorded before he died: Do me a favor, which was crazy for him, and at some moments on the tour, it’s like Antonio played that track with that track. They were in the landscape.
On Nacha Pop’s comeback with a record, the presentation single was Your Best moment, which came as an injection of optimism. Did he address someone?
To an entire generation. In the 1980s, people like us (I don’t mean musicians, I mean people in general) were entering a phase of our lives – some one way, some another – where self-confidence was fundamental to what was to become. us in the next ten or twenty years and this song is a call to reinforce that trust. Because age, what is written on the identity card usually leaves you a little weak, actually I think we are in ideal conditions. Of course, health is very important, but if it respects you and you are not going through critical moments, financially or morally, it is time to regain your energy, look back at some of your dreams, and not throw the towel. . It is a tribute to all of them.
You have about two and a half million listeners on Nacha Pop. Spotifygiving an idea about the validity songs. To what do you attribute this survival value in the middle of the urban age and reggaeton?
I think eighties music in general has a lot of magnetism, but that’s just one of those aspects. It is music that is very spontaneous, very direct, less biased, full of desire to persuade, please and make people horny in a very short time. On the other hand, Nacha Pop is always trying to be very musical and I think this may have been one of the things that made our songs listenable in 2022; they don’t define that time that much or that much about the comeback and the new wave from Madrid and something more timeless that youthful spirit of Nacha Pop is even seen in the way you express yourself on stage.
Is it difficult to keep up with the times?
It was something very natural for me. It’s not yet time to see it as something other than pure rock and roll, something very energetic and even youthful. That’s why the leg thing seems a bit strange to me: because I’m on stage and I can’t think of anything other than letting go of everything with strength, intensity…
It seems that Nacha Pop’s second life is still going strong…
We are full of illusion. We have such a good time together on stage that the band is already asking us to go into the studio. I have six or seven songs almost finished, and the other five or six are pretty advanced; and songs that gave me the same feeling they gave me when I shouted “Get dressed or Nobody can stop” one night. I wear them, I wear them again, I play on them, I change things, I compare… I love working on new music and I think this illusion is the seed of everything next. Because then we had a great time playing them on stage and it shows. Sometimes you wonder how the Rolling Stones want to continue touring: The only possible explanation is that they’re having a great time.
And how do you focus on your repertoire now?
A review of the band’s best-known songs, because without it, we’d feel incomplete, and so would the audience. Nacha Pop’s eight or nine most iconic songs will always be there; We don’t play hard, we don’t reserve intense moments with the public. Then the other ten or twelve with B-sides from the 80s, some Knockoff…
Anthony Vega He left us in 2009. Did you get over your loss? What does Nacha Pop mean to you today?
I couldn’t get over his loss, and I don’t plan to get over it either. Because his presence would give my life another meaning: It would be something different with another way of working. And I still miss him and it will always be like this. Although yes, of course I enjoy life even in his absence. And about musical life and life with Nacha Pop… Nacha Pop is still something very original to me. It was an incredible challenge to consider continuing with the group without Antonio Vega. Even if Carlos Brooking wasn’t there in 2007, it already seemed that way to me… So it’s not the ideal formation, you’ll like it best, but what the music is, it makes a lot of sense in terms of the repertoire. .. There’s a huge difference between a tribute to Nacha Pop and seeing us play. In fact, people leave our live shows very convinced and it strengthens your confidence in what you are doing. When I started acting as Nacha Pop back in 2014, 2015, I had some concerns that one day someone would come into the locker room or shout something at a concert that would destroy that confidence at me, but that never happened. No one approached me to say “Hey man, this doesn’t make sense without Antonio Vega” or “This isn’t Nacha Pop”. And we’ve already done nearly two hundred concerts between Spain and Mexico… It’s too late to ask myself if I’m in my place, in the right place, at the right time, because I’m sure of it.