The Eurovision winner performs this Monday at the Teatro Lope de Vega in Gran Vía to play his album 'Bpm'. Recovered from his health problems, Salvador Sobral has just become a father and his heart continues to pump music.
What vibes are you feeling during this tour? In all the shows I do there is a demystification of what the artist is, because I do not feel that music is something superior, but that it is a craft like any other. So when we go on stage we don't have any pretension and we're just musicians playing and having fun. People feel part of the game too. You just played in Brazil and Jorge Drexler told you it was going to be the most important step in your career. I had wanted to go for years because they are people who speak my language. It had been a long time since I felt such a special connection with a country. I already knew that was going to happen because I grew up with that music. I was left with the desire to live there. It's never too late. You are still on time. Anyway, languages are not a problem for you. You've sung in 30 different languages.Do you know what's going on? My mother was a simultaneous translator. When I was born, she breastfed me while doing the simultaneous translations. I think that stuck with my unconscious. That and my absolute love for the human being. I love communicating with each other.How many languages do you master? Master how to do a PhD... Well, being able to have a conversation is good for me. Then I can also include Swedish, English and, later, Latin languages. Once you speak Portuguese and Catalan, you can obviously speak French well. For me it is strange to say that I speak Portuguese, French, Italian and Spanish, because they are all very similar. Similar, but it costs me. I don't think it's that easy. Imagine speaking in Chinese or Basque. How will your performance in Madrid be? The last time I was here I sang with Silvana Estrada and it was unique. The people of Madrid always receive me very warmly. There is going to be a special guest. Can you tell us something? It's a surprise. I can only say that he plays an instrument and sings wonderfully well. You achieved the miracle of a jazz musician winning Eurovision. How was this phenomenon possible? The song was honest and true. And people always feel that.Did you ever hate winning the contest? Never. I wouldn't be here talking to you. Everything good that brought me was always superior to the bad part of fame. And that happened too. You sang that fame is having to smile when you are filmed in a hospital waiting room. That was before. Currently I have the ideal reputation to have an audience at concerts, but they do not recognize me on the street. For a creator, is music above all else? No, people are ahead.What is the figure that has marked you the most? My mother, like every son and like Freud well know.What is the most surreal thing that has happened to you on stage? I always play a lot and sing a song with my sister that has two parallel melodies. Since she doesn't come on tour with me, I ask many times who wants to get on to sing, which is a risk. But I love risk. Once a guy got on, he sat down at the piano and started trying to play the song with both hands: one melody with his right hand and another with his left. And that was so lousy and so terrible that I had to stop. I laugh. You always have to embrace that kind of thing. What is the craziest thing a fan has done for you? A tattoo with my handwriting. That's pretty heavy. There was a slightly more dangerous one, who chased me and gave me a towel that said it was Ringo Starr's. She asked me to look at her at concerts. And I was already married and everything.Is the musician's life still sex, drugs and rock and roll or has that gone down in history? That part I have never lived because of my illness. I can't sing if I drink drugs or drink alcohol. I would be paranoid. And the sex thing, well neither. I had a crazy time before I became famous. There I did take advantage of my voice to seduce women. But it was a short timeDo drugs help the creativity of musicians? No, not at all. My illness screwed me up all the drugs, because if I take something I get pregnant. It's heavy.How do you live with a new heart? More intensely. It's like a second life. Yes, I don't feel like I'm the same. I don't recognize myself when I see preoperative photos. It's weird. You said that, at first, it was a bit difficult for you to adapt because the heart was not fully connected to the nervous system. That is not an emotional thing, but a biological one. When you put in a new organ, the nerve endings aren't there yet and don't respond to emotions. It's something that comes over the years. Many lies were told about your illness. What hurt you the most? It hurt me when they said I was about to die.Is it hard to have to please people all the time? No, because I never do. The hardest thing is pleasing parents, musicians, and people you respect. Parents teach you to look at life. What did you learn from yours? My mother is a Portuguese woman with a lot of strength and determination. And from my father what I have learned the most is the pure love for music.And how have you changed now that you are also a father? I don't know if I've changed much, but I've found this new love and this pure dedication because it's my responsibility to survive. Not having won the talent show I went to as a teenager. It helped me a lot to create my own career. If only I had to be stuck to a contract from those killers. Shakira has broken all records with her song about Piqué. Have you heard it? Of course. The song is fine, but I think it's all a marketing hit from the two of them. And I think it's horrible for the children. Horrible and I feel bad about everything that goes through my head when I see thatDo you believe in God or Caetano Veloso? In God as a concept of love, but more in Caetano Veloso. But I believe in a God in the form of music and spirituality, beyond religion. I believe in everything: in Buddha, in God, in Krishna... He left all doors open because I don't know what's going to happen on the other side.
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