WITH Diego Cantero, tightrope walkerShe loves life and singing. When you see him sing, it feels like you’re attending more than a concert, as if you’re standing in front of one of our country’s best singer-songwriters. She left behind her time at a multinational company and started her own record label. Miss Rock’n’Rolltake control of and publish your artistic destiny Animal (2022), with instinctive, sparkling songs full of optimism and vitality, recorded between Spain and Puerto Rico. I love life, Same place And super powers. Furthermore, the musician recently released the single. Two seas and a glanceCollaboration with Turismo de Murcia, benefiting from the region’s promotional campaign in Fitur. Because he is the ambassador of this land together with tennis player Carlos Alcaraz; so this saturday night concert Mamba Room! The capital of Segura is special. brought in as a guest artist. malaf
-Plaza de Toros de Murcia collapsed when he sang the song I love life at the fortieth anniversary concert of the Statute of Autonomy of the region…
-It was great. And I was there for the first time… We gave a concert during the pandemic period, but of course everyone was seated, the capacity is low, but it’s not the same thing. Imagine what it means to me…
-It will be because there is Murcia and Plaza de Toros, because you are used to big venues. For example, Wizink Center, where the Animal tour begins.
-It’s just… you know, I started playing in small bars, theaters, and my references were theaters, not big halls. This is something that came as a gift for me because it was something I did not expect. And now, twenty-odd years after starting music, it’s really nice to be surprised.
-You’re always surprising, and you do that with songs like your seventh studio album Animal, as well as songs like Señorita Rock & Roll, your first self-label album. Did you see yourself pushed into it or did you see it clearly? Was it an opportunity to control, to take the reins?
Yes, I clearly saw it. After all these years, I’ve managed to build a good team that gave me the chance to make that leap. Because being independent isn’t about being alone, it’s – in my case – choosing the right people to work with.
-Do you compose more freely now?
-As a creator, I’ve always had freedom. As I was in multinational companies, they never told me what I should or should not do. But you always want to stand up for your job and be the decision maker when it comes to my career. Because now I don’t just have an artistic job – composing songs – but I also have to deal with a lot of things…let’s say the nature of work. But I was surrounded, and that’s what made me dare to try.
-And neither short nor lazy, you went to Puerto Rico. The album has a Caribbean feel to it…
-Yes, it has a lot to do with those sounds, those rhythms, that taste. You must also know to allow yourself to be counseled and to look for things where they were born. If a Japanese wants to record a flamenco, I imagine he knows he has to visit the south of Spain. We decided to go to Puerto Rico to add some good percussion bases and Latin resonating pianos.
-You can see the influence of Juan Luis Guerra, Carlos Gardel, Chavela Vargas…
-Yes. I think it comes from ‘origin’, the music my father used to listen to in the car. Maybe I didn’t realize it, but those influences were entering me and now, as the years passed, one began to filter and understand them. But that’s great, huh? Let them spend time boiling inside, so when they come out they’re ready to be something you own, not a copy of something else.
-By the way, this ‘animal’ seems to have taken some anger out…
-Yes. There are songs that are super-optimistic, perhaps the ones that stand out the most—because I’ve never written anything like this before—but there are other songs that are more instinctive, far less thoughtful, much more direct: now, if I have to choose “I love you.” I prefer to say “I love you” and if I have to say “I don’t like you” I say “I hate you”.
-Maybe that’s why you called him Animal because you responded to your most instinctive or irrational side.
-Well. The first word that came to my mind was ‘instinct’ and ‘instinct’ led me to ‘animal’, which could be submissive or more violent. In the end, our mood changes—first of all; It changes several times from the time we get up to the time we go back to bed. Therefore, the purpose of this song group is to accompany people, to make them a part of their daily lives; offer them a theme for every moment.
-The songs on the album have a slightly different sound than what we are used to.
-Yes. Someone is growing up, breaking down prejudices, daring…
– Instinct again, animal.
-Actually.
There’s also something animalistic about Bohemian. With a certain irony, it’s like you put someone on the solf in that song.
-The truth is if. You dedicate yourself to writing songs for yourself as well as for others. And sometimes, by the way, I’m lucky enough to write for well-known artists who are usually the most respectful – and the people I’ve learned the most from – but other times it’s done because I like to stay in touch with what’s going on and what’s going on, I get to meet new people, most of them great.
-“Most”…
-Yes. Some of them… Here at my home, in my studio, my notebook, pen, guitar, I am waiting for them to learn and write songs with curiosity, and you immediately realize that they have come to take pictures. record gold and little else. Time passes and you say, “You’re not here for this, you’re dedicated to music for very different things than I am.” And this song talks about that. On the one hand, remember that a musician doesn’t have to be or feel special: it’s like any job (baker, florist…). And on the other hand, to say that it’s a few hours of applause and spotlights, but the rest is from a van, sound tests at fifty degrees on Saturday, August …, I want to dress up a lot of things that are much rougher than I usually am, but this song came out that way.
-You’ve also found rhythms that are now very up-to-date (reggaeton, trap…). For what? I think people are also permeable to what’s going on around them.
-It was due to the same irony. I wanted to tell those kids something with the shape and suit they wore. It was kind of dynamic. It fits with all the irony in the world: it has all the automatic settings they put in, it’s programmed the way they usually do… A bit: «If we can, we know how; another thing is that it is not part of us ».
-Is it easy to register nowadays? And sell them?
Selling them is a utopia. For people to consume them digitally, yes, more and better, but selling them is very difficult. But it makes sense to me. Formats are changing. So I was cleaning the car the other day and I found a lot of CDs and I thought, “I don’t have a place to put them”. But it’s not that I can’t copy them to the car’s hardware, it’s because I have a recording studio at home and no place to put them there. The people who buy the record today do it at the collector’s level, but I understand that the niche is very small. To me, as long as the songs continue to be heard, I don’t care how or how.
-Back to Animal: Did any song hurt you while writing it?
-No, because the angry are healers. There is a song called My calmness and your anxiety which is true that it was written not out of pain but out of anger and I love it is a song about catching that person, that disease or anything that hurts by the chest. suffers and says: “You, what? Weren’t you so big, weren’t you so scary? Come on, here I am.
-Another song you released outside of the album is Dos mares y una mirada, which you made for Fitur and paid homage to the Murcia Region. A bespoke song or a meal, as Luis Buñuel said while shooting these films in Mexico in order to make other films later on?
– Let’s just say it went beyond the “food” thing, because it got me so excited. Suddenly they invited me to become the cultural ambassador of the Region of Murcia. On this basis, emotion kicks in, and when emotion kicks in, you think about doing your best. But the thing is, I’m telling you too: I don’t know how to do heartless orders. Additionally, during this time I was fortunate enough to encounter overkill commissions, as I did almost a decade ago for Suchard nougat, which is still sung in schools. I think you need to know how to add a piece of yourself to commissions, defend them with dignity and play shamelessly so that they are part of your repertoire.
-Two seas and one view reflected the many landscapes of Murcia, the sea, the blooming lemon trees…, that piece of paradise (“little piece of paradise, as they used to say”), “old and new”. You get it all back. Are you hiding everything?
-Obviously. There are things I like more than the new ones and things I like less, but I think we have an enviable Territory. In fact, everyone who comes is going crazy. But if we go into detail, we always find things to change and improve. And I wish we did! From caring so much for heritage to saving our garden that we brag about (and care so little about). And above all, the Mar Menor from the title in this song. I think putting him out there, at the center of such a campaign, will get him to pay more attention and take a closer look, expose himself and talk about it. The songs may contain claims in this sense: “If someone talks about it, we’re going to have to listen to it.”