A Penguin in my Elevator: "Every time there is a compilation of outrageous songs, one of ours always comes out"

It is not always easy to see them live, because now they are dedicated to other things.

But the time has come.

He has squared them on his calendar, they

the room and they fancy the plan.

returns to the stage of the El Sol de Madrid hall, by popular acclamation, this Thursday, June 23.

Once again,

to see the duo formed by Mario Gil and José Luis Moro play the cheeky and cheeky songs that

them in concert halls and nightclubs at the end of the 80s. An annual event in which never hits like

,

,

or

still performed with his characteristic nasal voice and accompanied by a keyboard with YAMAHA PSR 60 rhythms.

"I've dedicated myself to another profession for a long time, but since the world of music amuses me a lot, we still get together and continue doing things when we feel like it," says

(Madrid, 1965), founder of the group in 1985. His separation took place in 1993, only four years after the best moment of the formation.

After the publication of their four album,

, with more serious themes, their decline began, until they decided to leave it.

Since then, they only offer concerts from time to time and for fun.

"I had a fit of sanity, I knew that music, no matter how successful we were, I couldn't live. I like it, but I'm not that good. I decided to recycle myself and got into the world of advertising, which is what I I currently dedicate myself. I have my own agency Pingüino Torreblanca and I'm doing very well", assures José Luis.

Do you rehearse the concerts? Well, we don't do it much, because there are only two of us, and we already know the songs.

In reality, what people want to hear is the usual, and why are we going to upset them and touch on other topics that are not known?

For that we don't need to rehearse them, only in sound checks. Do you always play the same ones? There is a core of six or seven songs from the first two albums that are our biggest

and always fall.

Trapped in the Elevator

was perhaps more successful .

And they still sound practically the same after three decades. Yes, what was called nasal pop at the time, a definition they gave us thanks to my voice.

That's still in the same territory it left off.

We're lucky that the synths are more modern, but we like them to sound like they're vintage.

José Luis Moro, vocalist of Un Pingüino en mi Ascensor.

Today, the lyrics of those songs would not be very politically correct.

Do you care?

Are you more careful now when you compose?

We have quite little care and that is because we are an extremely minority group.

We don't do anything that makes so much noise that it gets us into trouble.

But it is true that, every time there is a compilation of outrageous songs, one of ours always comes out.

It is inevitable, because there is always someone who continues to think that censorship is the remedy for all ills.

I always say the same thing: if censoring these songs would really serve to change the situation of women in Spain, racism..., let whatever is necessary be censored, but the truth is that I don't think it's as easy as that ;

That's not the problem.

But well, in the end we are sensible people,

We don't say things that we think shouldn't be said either, but we do say what we feel like and we believe that, above all, one should laugh. How have social networks benefited you in your return to the stage? In 2001 and 2002, when Social networks began to emerge, several followers of Un Pingüino got together... and created a platform because they wanted to see us again in concert.

So we went back to doing performances.

In the end, the networks have allowed us to be in contact with all these people and give concerts.

They were also key during confinement.

As soon as it started, I decided to give small live recitals on the different platforms.

Every Saturday at 8:30 in the afternoon I connected, but Pedro Sánchez always counterprogrammed me with his press conferences, I didn't do it on purpose (laughs).

People thanked me very much.

because I was very bored, and, as a result of that, I wanted to compose new things.

But they were not current affairs but small nonsense that occurred to me and I was able to air them through the networks.

It is expected that a selection of these songs, which they will present at the concert on Thursday 23rd, will be compiled on the new album

Subjects that, according to José Luis Moro, are centered "on the collateral things of today, because the

seems less fun to me".

The duo in one of their last concerts.

How do you think the way of making music has evolved over the years? Radically, and almost always for the better.

On the one hand, technologically it has greatly democratized the sector.

Before it was very difficult to make pop music, you needed very expensive and hard to get equipment.

And record an album, I don't even tell you;

Now it is very easy and cheap.

That's wonderful, because in the end talented people are being given opportunities.

In the 80s it was a bit like the dictatorship of record companies and radio stations.

They were the ones who decided what was recorded and what was played.

In our case, when the fashion in commercial radio was indie, someone told us that we were too posh for the indies and too indies for the posh, so we just didn't fit in anywhere, they didn't put us on Radio3 or on the main 40.

This has now become very democratized and that is very good.

The bad part is that there are so many things that sometimes it is very difficult to find the one you like.

You also always introduce in your concerts some of the delirious versions in Spanish that you did of the great

of the 80s. Yes (laughs).

It all started in the 90s, which was our journey in the desert;

actually, that of many bands of the 80s, because, suddenly, indie music and singing in English became fashionable and all of us who had been in the 80s singing in Spanish, became losers.

And, it is not very clear why, people stopped coming to the concerts.

So it occurred to us to make an alternative repertoire, to see if we were more successful.

We started recovering

in English from the 80s and change the lyrics.

It didn't work at all but today they are little nonsense that we put into the repertoire at concerts and they like it a lot.

Among them

(version of

by Gilbert O'Sullivan), the first song in the world dedicated to urinalysis;

then there are others like

(from

),

(

) or

, the Michael Jackson, which we turned into

, based on the Madrid commuter train that stopped at all stations except Pitis, something that always caught our attention.

They even have an album These songs are actually a bit on the verge of legality, because we never ask permission from their original authors to cover them, that's why they are on a camouflaged album in which our name does not appear.

It's called

, a CD that we sold as a device to scare away pigeons, the kind that people hang from windows to scare away birds... There are the songs, without any type of credits, because we don't want any problems.

I'm telling you, since we're a minority group, no one bothers to sue us...

Concert:

Venue

: Sala El Sol (Jardines, 3, Madrid).

Date

: Thursday, June 23, at 9:00 p.m.

Sold out.

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