After taking a break for a while, Juan Gomez (El Bro) he’s on tour with new songs on his latest album, living thingswithout forgetting the classics that are not missing from his repertoire (Fly, It’s good to live, Cinnamon stick…) that the public agrees and approves. “Sometimes we look like a karaoke band,” jokes the Malaga man, who sees it as “the best thing that can happen to a writer”, far from complaining.
After a year without a concert, you said that you sing by yourself. Are you even?
Yes, I even managed to get even (laughs). No, what’s up? I’m having a pretty good year because the descent has been good for me to regain that desire, and it’s been a year filled with quite a bit of work, but it’s not like the year before the pandemic and at the same time I had to. Do more than ninety bowling. Now I’ll maybe do fifty, but not as crazy as before. Having an independent and alternative project is what you need to work on and I don’t regret it but I won’t do it again. If I can afford it, I would rather give concerts for forty-fifty years and keep the desire to sing and connect with the stage, which I think is necessary.
How do you combine the desire to sing with the tiredness of the tour?
Every single one of them has to be seen. I remember when I was 25, when I went to casinos in Spain to sing in front of 30-40 people, I thought a lot about it as the future was uncertain. There was no guarantee that this project would grow, and when I was forty he wouldn’t have seen me then, sleeping in the car or on my colleagues’ sofas, charging 40 euros per concert. I didn’t see myself prolonging this, but I also said: “I just liked it so much…” It was a different kind of concert, less demanding, I made improvised songs, none of them the same; they’re not the same anymore, but we have a repertoire, I go with a group, sometimes I sing in front of thousands of people and that imposes, we have a schedule, we have a team, we sleep in a small hotel…
This changes things…
Light man! And we have come to the end of the month (laughs). I remember that desire was enough for me back then, but now I don’t know if that alone will be enough for me. You have to keep asking. I can’t go on stage without the slightest urge to sing, I have to get hooked on the music and give people 100 percent if I can, but now I’m forty and I can’t cross all of Spain with fifteen people. I give a concert once a month, sleeping on sofas. But I will tell you how December ends. I really want the concert on Friday in Alicante and it’s beautiful.
And it’s always a pleasure to sing new songs.
Yes, although there are many things at concerts and I am privileged. Now we’re presenting a new album of songs that people haven’t internalized yet, where I can see how they’re reacting to the stories I’ve been telling and what’s going on in the process, although many have said so. To show. We also see what happens in old songs. Cinnamon stick, how good to fly, how good to live.. and sometimes we’re almost a karaoke band, because people come out singing from start to finish, which is beautiful. I made the songs because I liked it, and I love the process of composing it, but imagine when people made their own songs and a song I wrote for my girlfriend when I was 20 is now sung by 2000 people as if it were a song. their own. This is very precious and the best thing that can happen to a writer. And this happens to me at almost all concerts.
The classics should be preserved.
Clear. I always say that I don’t like to stay in the past and want to present the new live but I’m not a jerk or a bastard and I can’t stop singing fist Talking about old songs seems disrespectful to me. I understand the artist who did this and you have to be very brave but I want to give people some of what they want. There has to be a balance, to defend the new, to be detail-oriented and generous with the fan club. We always manage ourselves in this balance.
Speaking of new songs, is it really you? self portrait (a bored, a book neurosis, an idiot…?
Yes girl yes. I won’t say I’m exaggerating a bit, but you A little. So am I (laughs).
You are defined by musical diversity and the optimism you exude. Do they always accompany you?
I’m not looking either. I don’t worry about such things. When I start writing a song, I want it to be beautiful and sincere, and then I like to sing it. I’m not worried about style or whether it’s more or less optimistic, after all, it’s a reflection of what you are because I’m not a 24-hour optimist either, I’m more positive than optimistic. I see light-shadow and I’m trying to get over it, to read where I can learn, to be a little bit better person. That’s my specialty, but when I start composing, I like to say nice, constructive things, I like to progress on these paths on a lyrical level. I’m still too old to change, but nothing says I’ll be doing things differently 50 years from now. I’m not worried about it but the song is as good as it gets.
Do you miss the little ones more now that you’ve completed the big stages?
I continue to combine. Not a single year of my life did I stop giving a small concert with guitar and voice. We were on a small stage in Melilla, it was just me with the guitar. We’ve done one hundred and two hundred things… We always make time for this because I think that’s the essence of the job and I like it very much. Then everything should have meaning and not do everything in my heart, but if I could I would give one and one, a few concerts with a band and solo concerts with another couple, because I really enjoy both and I enjoy them a lot. different.
You have almost a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Is this important?
No, what happened? For me this is a happiness. I am well aware of my beginnings because it was not so long ago and it was a very long time. It wasn’t my job to release the first album and play it on the radio and fill the stadiums. This wasn’t my story, but it got longer over time. I remember how bad the situation was when I went on a trip from Madrid to Galicia or elsewhere with four pre-sale tickets, and I said, “Is someone coming?” And he looked at the crowd of people who came and said, yes, I spent 50 euros on the train and I’m going to play for seven. This is very unpleasant (laughs). And now I see that I have a million listeners, I’m happy that you shit before the tickets are sold and compared. I have a mental process and I have been doing therapy for years, but I think that I compose quite freely, I do concerts as I feel like, and I don’t have to worry about being wrong, I don’t have to worry about being wrong. unsuccessful. So far this has worked for me and people are addicted to my movie.
What can those who have never seen you expect from your concert?
You’ll find a singer-songwriter with a band with a pretty high percentage of animated songs. I am not very prone to melancholy, there is a lot of good weather in public and among people of all ages. You might be surprised because many people sing as if they had composed the songs themselves. We also rehearse, we know the songs and everything is in place (laughs). Sometimes I think about what you’re asking and if someone new comes in I want them to have a good time and have something happen on stage. We don’t have the means of Beyoncé, I’m not going to fly away but we try to make it fun.