Abraham P. Romero Madrid
Madrid
Updated Saturday, March 16, 2024-7:14 p.m.
David and José
Muñoz
are parents.
The first's son is 16, the second's is 12. David still has a thicker goatee than the rest of his beard.
José keeps the dreadlock, the talisman.
They wear sweatshirts on the interview tour because they still want to and they still can.
They open a
beer
, and two, for the same thing.
Between
1999 and 2024,
between
La raja de tu skirt
and
La ranchera,
between
Estopa
, their first album, and
Estopía
, their last, 25 years have passed for a group that has become an icon of a generation.
They talk about that, about technology, concerts, children and bars with EL MUNDO.
ASK. What is
Estopía
?
JOSÉ.
It was the last thing we did, give the album a name.
DAVID.
That happens to us a lot with the names of the albums and the songs.
We finish a song and they ask us "What's your name?"
"Well I do not know".
And the disk less.
J.
In this we had to bring together our 25 years and
Estopía
came out .
D.
It's like
Place of Tow
, like a parallel world that we have created for ourselves.
And then someone said "What if we make
Estopía
but inspired by
Hieronymus Bosch's
The Garden of Earthly Delights ?"
(This is the album art).
How handsome.
Q. A cover that was not made by Artificial Intelligence [At first, the public criticized the alleged use of AI for its creation].
D.
What's up!
We said it at first because we thought she was cool and then it turned out she wasn't (laughs).
J.
We didn't know there was that debate on networks.
D.
The cover as such was not generated, if the artist made a character he drew it in a sketch.
It is true that AI can inspire you.
It's like illustrators when they want to draw Batman, for example.
They have Batman models and are inspired by them.
I see it similar.
It's another thing to tell the AI: "I want a cover that's like Hieronymus Bosch but cooler."
That has neither merit nor grace.
Q. Have you ever looked up what an Estopa song made by ChatGPT (Artificial Intelligence) would be like?
D.
Yes. Shit, I'm telling you.
Shall we do the test?
Q. I told ChatGPT to make me "a chorus about partying to Estopa's style of music." And the answer is: "In the city the night wakes up, the lights blink and the party is arranged, with street rhythm we are going to move, on the dance floor life is reborn at dawn."
D.
But that's Sonia and Selena, man.
(Laughs).
Do you see how it has not reached the human level?
That has no soul.
J.
It's cold as steel.
It doesn't move anyone.
D.
And nothing original.
I don't know, maybe at some point, when the AI becomes conscious before destroying us all, it can make some good songs, but nowadays it's not like Estopa or anyone else.
Well, maybe some of them surpass it, but we're not going to say that.
Q. Are you afraid of AI?
D.
As a science fiction lover, it really catches my attention, I'm very curious about how this is going to develop.
Do you know that ChatGPT has a group of people in Africa to constantly correct the application's responses?
J.
Like all inventions, such as nuclear energy or the internet, it can be used for good or evil.
D.
The Internet can be used for evil, but total!
I believe that AI is not going to take away jobs from artists, illustrators or painters.
Not even the singers.
Maybe he'll take it away from the accountant.
J.
AI can help you with technique, but creativity will always be human.
D.
This is a great debate, huh!
AI cannot compete with the human mind.
If the AI has been made by a human.
Until AI makes humans... We beat it.
Have you ever asked ChatGPT, for asking nonsense, "what would happen if you became conscious"?
He told me "if I become conscious I will take over all the systems and depending on how they have programmed me I will be able to decide what is good and what is bad."
Don't fuck with me, that's scary.
Q. Another debate, but with the album. Is it an album more similar to the group's beginnings? Do you have the feeling that people always want something new, but in the end the same old thing works?
D.
These are 12 fresh songs that we made after the pandemic.
When we have tried to change, like in Estopa 2.0, when we decided to do something else because it is also healthy, they said "let them dedicate themselves to doing what they used to."
If you make an album like those from before, they say "more of the same."
But there are many styles in all the albums, it is not a rumba, pop, rap album...
J.
We always try to give a lot of colors on all the albums.
And we have always respected our taste.
We have to like it.
We have never tried to please people.
As long as we like it, we have triumphed.
Q. You are making a song in Catalan for the first time, 'La rumba del Pescaílla'. Did you feel indebted or was it natural?
J.
It has come out naturally, we have not forced anything nor have we intended anything.
D.
In reality, everything is simpler.
I was walking through the Gracia neighborhood with a friend and he told me "look at that, you'll like it."
And there was a plaque on a doorway that said what the beginning of the song says:
I el 1925, va néixer l'Antonio González
.
That Pescaílla was born there.
I kept thinking, I took a photo and from there we developed the song.
Since the sign was in Catalan, I continued.
If the plate happens to be in Russian, I make it in Russian.
J.
We think in Spanish and we get songs in Spanish.
But we saw the license plate there and it came out.
D.
And having said that, in hindsight we do like having made a song in Catalan.
And if it comes out in Galician I would also think it would be cool.
Q. What do you have left to do? A 'Bizarrap Session'?
D.
(Laughs) No, no... Another song.
Let's settle for that.
J.
One more stanza.
Q. Have you done everything you wanted?
J.
Yes, and this year they have proposed to us to do the Metropolitano and Montjuic, which we had not thought about, and we hesitated a lot because we were very comfortable with our WiZink, our Palau Sant Jordi...
D.
In that we are conservative.
You suffer a lot, huh.
J.
I got a twitch in my eye because of the stress, what need do we have to have a hard time.
Q. Why?
J.
Our fear was that we were not going to fill it.
It's just that with a WiZink, you make one and it looks nice, you make two and it looks nice too.
If a stadium of 60,000 remains at 40,000...
D.
It's shit.
And it turns out they sold out in five minutes.
J.
There were 100,000 people on the waiting list.
D.
And since they were sold out so quickly, the promoter told us "we have to make another one, huh."
Another Metropolitan and another Montjuic.
He said we filled three in one night.
And we told him no, that we were going to leave it like that.
J.
We wanted to enjoy it and celebrate it.
D.
We want to get drunk later!
(Laughs).
Let me enjoy my first Montjuic and my first Metropolitano.
J.
We didn't want to do a concert of this size and have to go home because we have to take care of our voices.
D.
That's bullshit.
Yes, we would have all won a lot more money, but how much fun am I going to have?
Q. Have you felt squeezed throughout your career?
D.
No, because they always listen to us.
They pressure us to squeeze ourselves but we don't let ourselves be squeezed.
J.
And we have our times in which we disappear from the map and close the media bar.
D.
And sometimes they call us: "Do you have a record?"
"No".
Q. Where do you go when you disappear?
J.
To the neighborhood.
To home.
D.
We're not even going to Barcelona, I don't even take the car.
I was going to buy a car and why, if I don't use it, if I ride a scooter.
We always put that in the contract.
That there is no delivery date for the album, as if I never get one again.
That gives us peace of mind, knowing that they cannot force us.
Our contract is: if you make a record, it's with us.
Q. Have there not been moments of downturn, of depression?
D.
Not for fame, but for life, like anyone else, yes.
We've had our bad times.
J.
The weight of conscience.
D.
Let's see what garden you are going to get into, José.
J.
That as a young person you are unaware of life, you don't care about everything, a Sant Jordi, an interview... And now with the passage of time you have digested everything you have achieved and you realize the difficulty that has occurred and the responsibility you have when putting on a concert, the people who earn their salary thanks to your concert.
We didn't think about all this before.
Now you think about it and it makes you dizzy.
D.
I've gone beyond what you were saying.
J.
(Laughs) It will be the age.
When you have children it seems that your perspective changes.
You look more for him than for yourself.
Q. In
La Ranchera
, one of the star songs of the new album, the chorus says "Drink and drink, and drink and drink, and drink and drink
And let a fish fuck you."
Doesn't sound like fatherly advice, does it?
D.
Or yes (laughs).
I say to mine "son, baby."
Which is that he doesn't drink.
Let him drink a little, because all his colleagues drink and mine doesn't.
You can have a little beer, I tell him, don't get drunk either, not that.
And she tells me no, that until the age of 23 the prefrontal cortex is growing and if he drinks he will be dumber.
J.
You'll see when I'm 23 (laughs).
D.
He says he doesn't drink because he sees that his friends don't have a good time without drinking and so he feels very free without that bondage.
And look, he's right.
"Drink and get fucked by a fish" is
nonsense
, it doesn't make any sense.
It's like saying "fuck it."
Q. You don't put VIP areas at concerts.
D.
Never.
Once they put it on us and they put it in us.
We were singing and in the first rows I saw people letting off steam, drinking drinks, talking to each other... They were all posh!
J.
It's just that when you put the people who have stayed the night at the door in the front row... They give everything, they vibrate, you see their happy faces and that gives you a lot.
D.
If you want a VIP area, you can put yourself there without disturbing anyone.
Q. Posh people also listen to Estopa, right?
D.
Yes. But let them go back.
Don't bother (laughs)
J.
It's just that if you put them in the front row they take away the atmosphere of the concert.
D.
Do posh people also listen to Estopa?
I just think that posh people don't know that they are posh.
Nobody considers themselves posh, right?
J.
The
megapijo
.
D.
But let's see, having money is not being posh.
You can be posh and be from Cornellà.
Being posh is an attitude, but someone who is posh does not say "I am posh", because it is like saying "I am an idiot".
J.
The posh guy is a pretender.
D.
When I talk about posh people I'm not talking about people with money.
I'm talking about materialistic or ostentatious people, unscrupulous, classist... But classists do not consider themselves classists.
They don't know they are.
J.
But it's easier to be posh with money than without money.
D.
Man, it's easier to show off with a Ferrari than with an Opel Corsa.
Another debate!
(Laughs).
Q. You wrote 25 years ago "The world without politicians would be extremely boring." Are you still thinking about it?
D. Yes, it would be very boring and barbaric, right?
Who would govern?
I am a total anarchist, but anarchy is political.
There is nothing more anarchist than participating in political life understood as the concept of the Greek polis.
The good citizen must participate in politics, whether you are an anarchist or conservative.
Q. Are the opinions that matter most to you those of the neighborhood?
D.
Those around us.
And that affects me more than what someone on Twitter says.
J.
Our father had a bar, we grew up there and we have always been attentive to bar debates.
They talked about all the topics.
D.
About football, about politics... Well, about football and politics (laughs)
J.
And within that debate you knew who to pay attention to and who to listen to.
Well now the same.
Popular wisdom is in the bar.
D.
And as you drink a little, ideas flow.
The bar is the new Roman Forum.
J.
And social networks are not the place for debate because people with their privacy and with their icon whose face cannot be seen say real atrocities.
And in a bar you can debate and say "I said this."
Q. Your parents' bar was next to the police station. You could have ended up as police officers.
D.
My father wanted us to be police officers.
Inspector Muñoz!
And I said to him, "Dad, have you seen me? Can't you see that I don't have the face of a cop?"
J.
Many of the bar's customers were police officers.
D.
And we have many police friends.
People from all over Spain came to the Cornellà police station, and now whenever we go to concerts they call us because they have known us since they were little.
We are very fond of them.
They always come into the dressing room, have a drink with us...
J.
In fact, one of those who taught us how to play the guitar was a police officer from the Viladecans police station, and it was secret.
And he was the former guitarist of
La banda trapera del río
, he sees how the story changes.