Several years after his last studio album and a couple of years after achieving a record by gathering almost 75,000 people in La Cartuja, Manuel Carrasco returns to release an album.
An LP with eleven songs where he has poured out his roots, his childhood, the love of his children and the passage of time, "like an arrow", of a career that has now spanned two decades.
The album is called 'Heart and Arrow'.
Whose heart is it and who shoots the arrow?
The heart is mine and everyone's.
And the arrows could be the different feeling.
This record speaks, it has different arrows, which could be part of the songs, that each song is an arrow.
Arrows that speak of the passage of time, of my origin, of the roots, of childhood, of the love of children, of loneliness, of freedom.
Let's say the arrows are the feelings or the messages.
The things that come into your life. It took several years to make the record.
I think other records also took a long time to make.
Do you like to cook your albums over low heat? I know that's not the case now, but in my case I have continued to respect my rhythms, which I think is the most important thing, rather than the rhythm that is imposed by life itself, the market , the industry.
It is also true that, apart from the pandemic that came in the way, I have been
which is why it was delayed much more, we had to do the tour again, which we had postponed.
Perhaps it was an accumulation of things that has been delayed a little more.
Even so, I have always dedicated a lot of time to it, yes. What is your creative process like?
There is a total catharsis when I face a record.
And I love that all the albums are different. I think that in this case there is a clear evolution, especially in sound, and also stylistic and, in general, artistic.
I love that this is the case and that after 20 years and nine albums I continue to expand the path that I have proposed and that makes me feel alive.
How is your creative process?
There is a total catharsis when I face a record.
And I love that all the albums are different. I think that in this case there is a clear evolution, especially in sound, and also stylistic and, in general, artistic.
I love that this is the case and that after 20 years and nine albums I continue to expand the path that I have proposed and that makes me feel alive.
How is your creative process?
There is a total catharsis when I face a record.
And I love that all the albums are different. I think that in this case there is a clear evolution, especially in sound, and also stylistic and, in general, artistic.
I love that this is the case and that after 20 years and nine albums I continue to expand the path that I have proposed and that makes me feel alive.
"There is a total catharsis when I face a record" Europa Press
He has always said that he is the writer of his own lyrics.
Does that put more pressure on you?
For better or for worse, the one who is exposed to danger is me.
And good too, of course.
It is a risk that I gladly take and where you go through many states of mind.
Sometimes you are quite anguished because making a record is quite distressing, but it also has moments of great enjoyment.
And when the record is finished, who are you more afraid of showing it to: your family or the record company?
There is usually a group of people closest to you who are the ones you teach the songs to the first times and there is an atrocious fear, because that's when you realize if something is wrong with a specific song.
When you are going to teach a song and, for whatever reason, there is a verse or there is a passage that makes you feel insecure, you just know it when you are going to teach it because you are going to expose yourself for the first time.
Those first listens are very curious because in the end it's one thing with yourself.
It is your own self-demand that marks that on you.
When you have it clear, when a song is well born, that you know it, whoever you show it to, be it from the record company, be it your family, whoever it is,
you show it to them with all of the law You have always spoken clearly that you have gone to therapy when you have needed it. What was the key moment in which you said "I need someone to help me"?
I believe that in one's life there is not only one moment, there are many moments that make you have to balance certain things.
All this adds up apart from what life itself throws at you.
There is a profession where there are many internal and external elements that make you move a lot.
If you are a moderately sensitive guy you need to balance it continuously.
I do it continuously.
I am constantly being aware that I have to have my feet on the ground and that I have to process my inner world to face, for example, the release of a record, that today I don't know if I have done 22 interviews, and I have to in a way,
open my heart and tell you my life.
Be strong to do it in the best way.
I can't be in doubt, yes I am, but you can't be with certain things that cloud that capacity that you have.
That's why I think it's important, no longer for a single need.
It is important for you to give your best to be well balanced.
What difference is there between the Manuel from before the help you received and the Manuel that exists now?
The Manuel of the present is always going to be much more complete than the previous one, because if I have one thing in my life it is that I learn a lot.
I am a sponge to learn from things and from life.
Of the good and the bad.
That I am well aware of.
That's why everything that comes into my life is worth it to me.
I will always be better than before, always.
"It is important for you to give your best to be well balanced" Europa Press
Are there times when you think that artists are people with a shell and that nothing affects them?
I think it's the opposite.
There are personal cases, I don't want to generalize, but I think that in general artists are the opposite.
There is a greater sensitivity and there is a courage that is put into it, which exists within that sensitivity, which is why it also connects a lot with the public.
I think that artists dare to do many things while being sensitive so that later we can be for the people.
These days there has been talk of the transformative power that artists have on the subject of Qatar, whether or not they go. Do you feel obliged sometimes to present your opinions on certain topics? No, there is no obligation.
But in this specific case that you are telling me, what I don't understand is that it seems that artists are the only ones who have to call attention to what is happening in Qatar.
This case is a soccer World Cup.
Football, in addition, which is exemplary in many things, because children suck it from a very young age.
It is something like music, that since you were little you live it and you live it with passion.
It accompanies you, you suffer.
I think the example starts there.
We all want Human Rights to be respected and for us to have a better world and for us to join in so that things that are not done well are done better.
But not only the artists, I believe that the responsibility belongs to everyone.
Some comments on the album on social networks say: "Tiritas para mi corazón";
"It arrives at the perfect time" and I know that there are teachers who put their songs in their values classes.
Is success transcending beyond the musical? That is very nice to happen.
The success to begin with is that I dedicated myself to something that I like.
let him try,
that I carry it out and that it turns out well for me.
If that then happens in that other area, it is an accumulation of wonderful things, incredible.
Success is many small successes that make this make sense.
There is no more, it is not just filling a site and such, which obviously also makes sense because it is preceded by many other little things.
Everything is smaller, I see it from a more short term.
There are little things that make you feel good and feel successful.
On this album there is a lot of Manuel Carrasco's past.
In the song 'Yesterday Night', you talk about a child who has left, but who is still in you. Is it essential that the child who was or the person who was continue in you to continue pouring that into your songs?
In what I do, I look not for the child itself, nor for the moment, nor for childhood itself specifically.
I look for what was worth to me of those of those moments.
What set me free, made me feel good and made me feel happy.
And I bring it to the present moment so that it works for me now.
When we are little, we are young, there are things that mark you and that stay with you for the rest of your life.
Valid things I mean.
When things are valid, I think it's important to go to that from time to time to order certain things and that's why on the album he went through those passages.
Apart from your humble origins in Isla Cristina, you have never relegated painting, with your father going sailing... Is that basic for your music?
Yes, I think that is the most important thing.
In fact, my great value comes from there.
My greatest learning, my person and my DNA comes from there, as the last song on this album says.
That's where everything starts and that's where my strength comes from.
Do the artists who come from shows like OT, the one he went through and which was very important, feel judged more severely by the public and critics? In his time that happened, obviously.
It happened to me and it would happen to all the people who went through it.
There was a point of not credible, of ninguneo.
It was another time, but nowadays it's cool.
It doesn't happen nowadays, really, and I'm glad it doesn't happen because it's bullshit.
We have come a long way in that.
Each one is what it is.
Has time made it clear that you are a great artist? Time has proved me right, yes.
I can't say otherwise.
Many artists say that when they become parents, the way they see life, the way they see music, changes completely. What is it like to be a father and be an artist? I am not an artist with my children.
The artists are my children in this case.
My children are the deepest arrow of this heart and they pierce you.
You learn to do your work, we all learn to do what we used to do, with that amount, but it's the same. But their songs have the filter of children.
put a lot of heart into them
Which is in my profession, of course.
In this case, the art of the songs, the creative part, all that has added to me.
Because the sensitivity is widened.
After filling La Cartuja, WiZink, platinum record, Ondas awards, adoptive son of Huelva... what is left for him to do? Little by little, it's a new album, keep taking steps, we'll see if they're bigger or bigger. little ones, and enjoy it along the way.
When you started playing in small rooms, few people... did you see yourself at those concerts?
No no no.
Never. And when you go out to a concert, do you remember those moments, in the tiny room, with the guitar, playing? Of course.
Just when I was going to present the album at El Hormiguero, I was thinking about all that in the car, which I later related.
I thought about it and I felt lucky because I am going to present a record in a program where millions of people are going to see me and I am going to tell people my story.
That's amazing that it's still happening after 20 years.
It's almost the first time.
Have these 20 years gone by quickly?
Never better said, like an arrow.
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