The singer of the mythical Gabinete Caligari reviews his successes in group and solo at the Nuevo Teatro Alcalá this Friday.
His 'In the heat of love in a bar' gains more force in these times of Covid.
Does dragging the fame of a mythical group complicate the solo career a lot? No, especially.
I have three solo albums and the first after separating from Cabinet had quite an impact.
Perhaps the opposite happens to me than to Coque Malla, who has a longer career and at this time
ment is rising.
After my first album, the success declined.
I read a critic who said that Jaime Urrutia had stayed in no man's land.
I am where I want to be.
Music careers are very screwed up.
It is impossible to always stay on top.
What advice would you give your early self?
Rather it would be the other way around.
When you start you have a lot of desire and a lot of enthusiasm.
Over time you lose that and you get to know the world more.
You learn to sing, especially.
When we did our first concerts with Gabinete, I barely knew how to sing on stage.
Who has taught you the most about the trade?
The discs.
Since I was little, I listened to a lot of records.
I am very eclectic.
I like from Serrat to David Bowie or Camarón de la Isla. I have taken a bit of everything.
When we started with Gabinete, we had no idea what a stage was.
After 2,000 galas, you are learning a lot.
You have confessed that you were not prepared and that many groups like Alaska and Dinarama "played ass".
At that time of the 80s, all the groups from La Movida came out.
There was a lot of illusion, but the conditions were difficult.
We had a lot of nose.
You played any seedy stage with no lights.
The stereos were very bad.
Little by little, an infrastructure was built.
Is La Movida overrated?
I do not care.
I do not think so.
I lived it from within.
There are characters from the Movida that may be overrated, but I see a certain touch with the Movida and the 80s of people who now say that shit was made of music.
There are the discs.
There are very good things.
What groups are overrated?
I'm not going to tell you those [laughs].
I'm talking about the good guys like Radio Futura or Carlos Berlanga, who made wonderful songs.
Gabinete Caligari was a group that claimed chastity and swagger.
We did not claim anything.
When you make a group, it is important to stand out from the others.
We liked bars, Spanish cinema, bullfighting, although it is wrong to say so, and the manners of living on the street.
We were showing it on our albums.
And it set us apart from other groups that made more English music.
For example, 'In the heat of love in a bar' is a song that now with the Covid has been claimed by many people.
We do half a social life in bars.
I thought it was lovely to dedicate a song to them.
Is it difficult for us in Spain to claim what is ours
I agree.
Since social networks have arrived, I spend a lot of history.
Anything you say comes out of the pot, they insult you.
For example, in Spain before they put the bulls on television every day.
As long as the world of bullfighting does not raise its head, they will end 30 years from now.
They are sentenced to death.
Morante de la Puebla told me in an interview that the identity of a country cannot be prohibited.
When Manolete died in 47 he was a national hero.
It is logical that the world changes, but you cannot deny your identity.
They continually receive sticks.
They only talk about bulls on television when there is a fuck.
Young people no longer have any hobbies.
There is little future for bulls.
They are beating us.
Your father was a bullfighting critic.
What do you think that bullfighters are now called murderers?
They have also called me a murderer for saying that I like bulls.
I had to close Facebook in 2013 and they told me they were going to kill me for drinking a beer after going to the bullfighting, damn it.
I read the sports press.
Before there were great sports journalists like bullfighting.
They had pen and recognition.
Now in the news it only matters if there are hosts or a scandal.
Many songs on La Movida could not be written today.
Not even in dreams.
For example, Total Sinister was a group that said a lot of nonsense.
Today's artists have to be thinking about the lyrics and they can't say anything.
What is the strongest thing you have done in your career to epate?
In the first performance we had at Rock-Ola, I went on stage and said: "We are Caligari Cabinet and we are fascists."
And the newspaper Alcázar even interviewed us, which was extreme right, thinking that we were.
We did it out of sheer provocation.
We are from the punk generation like the Sex Pistols.
I said the phrase and my colleagues also got angry and said: "Hey, man, let's see what you say."
Did it bring you problems?
We had ETA bomb threats in the Basque Country.
You scared fabric.
It was the year 92. We had a song called
Spanish blood
and the proetarras said that we had no place in their parties.
I'm not a fascist, damn it, but I do like bulls!
We were the essence of Spanish and cannon fodder for them.
Did the record companies give you freedom?
We never let ourselves be managed.
Almost all the groups of the 80's we had it very clear.
We wanted to do this and this.
In the late 70s and 80s there were many melodic singers to whom record companies imposed the image of handsome children.
We were independent and we won the battle from the beginning.
The singles we put out were made by ourselves.
They once told us that the image we gave was very serious.
Fuck you guys!
They asked you to smile more.
Yes indeed.
The three of us were serious and grim.
Sometimes photographers would say to me, "Hey, don't be so serious. Laugh a little. Take a jump."
And I would say to them: "No, no, no. I don't jump. I'm like that. If you don't like it, don't take my picture."
It pissed me off a lot.
The other two members of the group 'It was the fault of the Cha, cha, cha' seemed tacky.
Yes. It's a popular or easy song, but I don't think it was tacky.
We were together 19 years and it is true that relations are getting worse.
They said that song was tacky, but it was one of the songs that gave us the most popularity.
They liked grunge and Nirvana better, but I was the one composing.
"I am the designated one, the anointed one, the bearer of the word. I am what remains, the last classic," says Loquillo.
How would you define yourself?
I anointed I do not feel at all.
It reminds me of the Gospels.
The only thing I feel is a classic within Spanish pop.
I don't have the best of Loquillo's strength, who releases a lot of records and works hard.
With being a classic I am satisfied.
What does a rocker do when it is his turn to be president of the neighborhood community?
It has not touched me, but I have had to go to the meetings.
I would comply like anyone.
Would be a little
The one that looms
.
The world of the neighbors makes me laugh for that series.
How do you see the music scene?
Only trap and reggaeton sound on the radio.
Wrong. I don't like trap or reggaeton.
It seems normal to me that the new generations fight against the previous ones.
I have been left out of the game in that sense.
I find it very uncouth and lacking in class and elegance.
Of course, when they hear this, they will say that I am a carca.
When we played the Beatles, my father used to say, "Those hellish longhairs."
I feel that way now.
Now, I think the Beatles are eternally better than any reggaeton singer.
Now C Tangana recovers that traditionalism that you used.
I have not listened to him.
I have not had the opportunity, but I will listen.
I speak to you in general.
For example, Rosalía is a great artist.
I don't share his music, but I think it's okay.
You who have sung so much in the heat of the bars, how are you doing these Covid times?
Wrong. Holding the guy.
With the excuse of the pandemic, are they cutting our freedoms and rights?
It's hard.
We must give more importance to health than to the economy, no matter how screwed up we are.
Three years ago I did 30 galas and last year, five.
We are all screwed.
In Madrid we are in full electoral campaign.
Should the violence of the antifascists be condemned or was the Vox act in Vallecas a provocation?
Vallecas has always been a rough neighborhood.
But those of Vox have the right to hold a rally wherever they want as well.
I am a very calm man and I do not like violence.
They can both be right.
If Ayuso went to one of your concerts, what would you say to him?
I am not on the right and I do not agree with their ideas.
By not voting for it!
How do you age with dignity in the trade?
It's hard.
I can already imagine the day I retire.
I know I am not in the limelight.
I'm looking forward to releasing a farewell record.
I guess it will be the last.
Are you thinking about your retirement?
Yes I'd like to.
I don't know if it needs to be announced, but I do want to release an album.
Won't you do like Miguel Ríos who has been saying goodbye to the stage for 20 years?
That also happens to many bullfighters.
It's hard.
Is it hard to go from filling stadiums to circuit B?
I'm not going to say no.
Nor have I become obsessed because it seems natural to me.
It is the law of life.
You see Loquillo who is a guy who works hard and has thousands of friends.
But everyone has their career.
It is impossible to always be on top.
The only example I see is Alejandro Sanz, I don't know what he's been doing to go out everywhere for 25 years.
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