Ismael Serrano: "Some doors have been closed to me because of my ideology, but things are going very well for me, so I'm not going to complain"

Ismael Serrano (Madrid, 1974) welcomes METRÓPOLI in the small studio he has in La Latina, one of his favorite neighborhoods in the capital that he knows perfectly well.

He appears relaxed, with a casual appearance dressed in a C3PO T-shirt and a sweatshirt.

He is a little "tired", he says, because he has been presenting

his tenth album and the final fireworks still remains:

, for which there are no more tickets left and in which Serrano will present an intimate show that goes beyond the conventional concert, which includes his new songs, some of his great classics and a scripted theatrical proposal.

After the tour, he will have no rest, because the vortex in Serrano's life continues.

"It's the feeling of having to keep pedaling so the bike doesn't fall over. He's constantly chasing you."

While the

is finishing, the singer-songwriter is already recording a studio album here and preparing another symphony that will end in Buenos Aires, which will be followed by a tour of Chile, recording video clips again here, etc., etc... "That's right how I feel about my job, guitar on my shoulder and permanent travel. The only thing is that before I used to leave for three months and now, at most, I'm gone for a month and a half; I come and go, I earn less money, because you spend it on travel, but I'm not complaining. Now I try to spend more time in Madrid for my children [she has a 9-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy]",

The family has changed his perspective on music.

"It's not the most important thing in my life, although I constantly live on this journey and it's my job, now there are other things that have to do with affection and all that," she says.

Even so, he loves his profession and enjoys it to the fullest: "It is true that I am not a guy who is composing all the time; I only feel that I need to write when ideas come to me and I want them to be reflected. Those moments of grace are very beautiful , when the songs crystallize. But they are also when you have to dress them, work on them in the pre-production of the album and see how they are taking shape".

Serrano confesses that there is a moment in the whole process that is critical for him: "Sometimes I think that, after how beautiful the song has turned out,

Why do I have to submit it to the judgment of others or the public?

That moment gives me a bit of vertigo". But it's all part of the same journey that is very beautiful, especially when you go on stage and all that you have devised suddenly hooks you and you realize that the audience is on that journey with you ".

Why did you choose Teatro Lara this time? I feel more connected to the people of the theater than to the music industry, which has more to do with brands and big festivals.

When I write the songs I don't just think about the record, but about the staging, which is usually very theatrical;

My concerts are a kind of story and already in the genesis of the song I'm thinking about how it's going to develop.

I wanted a small place that would favor more intimacy and complicity that a stage proposal like the one I do demands, with more intimate versions, like a guitar playing among friends and not the party of dancing the songs.

Ismael confesses that he likes to tell stories, to play himself.

"The dialogue allows me to contextualize the songs and that's important because they evolve in a different way. When I sing

[one of his most popular protest songs], I can't do it like when I sang it in my twenties. Now at 49 It's done from somewhere else."

Do you think that song is still valid today? Yes.

Testimonial songs are valid as long as they are useful to us, because they keep the flame of memory alive and, in order to understand the world we live in, we have to know where we come from.

He talks about a universal experience that has to do with the reproach that children make to their parents at some point because they did not keep the promises they made when they were young, because we all wanted to change the world and very few of us succeeded.

That reproach is a universal classic and that is why the song does not lose its validity.

And even more so in the current context in which young people are seeing that their future is going to be worse than that of their parents, in the sense that we do not know to what extent they are going to have good jobs, better salaries, better healthcare, better pensions... it is not clear, so I think that this reproach is going to be even more valid.

Is the thing in Spain right now enough to compose more protest songs? There are always hot topics, unfortunately.

When I started with

he spoke of "now those who died in Vietnam are dying in Bosnia".

The Ukrainian war is not so different.

Are there reasons to write protest songs?

Yes, the hosts continue to fall on those who talk too much [phrase from the theme

.

There are still many accounts pending. Do you also get hit for talking too much?

Yes of course.

That is the problem, those of us who stand up for the issues are the ones who receive the most.

These hosts are perfectly seen on social networks.

That is part of the dynamic, of the culture of the

, which is the host.

And it is something horrible, because there is no dialogue, it is about humiliating the other and leaving him in evidence.

It's like a culture of

that has been installed in the dynamics of all social networks, especially Twitter.

And I know that it has its consequences for being explicitly committed to something.

Among those consequences is the boycott: 'I don't go to your concerts, I don't hire you...', for thinking differently. That's the least of it and not so real.

If someone does that, it is so sectarian that it is not worth it as an audience.

I am sure that many people who listen to my music do not agree 100% with my ideas, as they should be.

I am aware that not everyone has to like me, besides, what effort is that?

I know that there are people who are going to hate what I do and it is logical.

It happens to me... Regarding contracts, the worst thing is that it happens to the right and left, it cannot be that the cultural programming of the patron saint festivities is done based on an ideological affinity, especially since the plurality of the neighbors it has to be represented in performances as well.

Have any doors been closed to you because of your ideology? Yes.

Let's see, what happens is that I'm doing very well, so I'm not going to complain, but I do know that it has happened to me.

It happens, but it has more to do with other things.

Certain social media strategies, such as Twitter, seek to make you a controversial person, at the center of noise.

What Twitter is trying to do is screw up your reputation.

And what brands take into account the most when hiring you is your reputation. Are those who express themselves politically stigmatized? Yes, there is a strategy in the networks to stigmatize those who express themselves politically.

And they have to do, for example, with things like Díaz Ayuso coming out saying: "The demonstration for Health is politicized", as if she did not do politics and those who do are those who are against me,

which is a bit stigmatizing political expression.

Or like when I was at the demonstration and they said "Look, it's becoming politicized because Ismael Serrano and Carlos Bardem are there...".

Of course it is politicized! But regardless of my ideas, that does not detract from the argument that the health workers have to demand better working conditions.

To this day, they punish you for expressing yourself on Twitter and, in fact, if you ask colleagues they tell you that they avoid positioning themselves politically, something that should be totally normal.

Now look at how all the right-wing boys who are exultant because they have interpreted some words of Sabina who is one of theirs have come out.

In other words, Sabina is a left-wing type and she has many followers who are right-wing and nothing happens and that's fine.

And I'm not going to stop listening to Sabina because she said things that I don't agree with. At the time you joined the 15 M movement. What's left of it?

There remains a whole generation of people who dedicate themselves to politics that come from somewhere else and not from the conventional political parties.

The bipartisanship is not going to be the same no matter how much the PSOE and the PP insist, who hope that everything will be like in the Resines series, that when they wake up they believe that everything has been a dream.

That is not going to happen.

What happens is that I think it is a window that has been closed, but it does not mean that it cannot be opened at any time.

The 15 M can happen again at any time, that young people recover the illusion of participating in politics, but for now the necessary enthusiasm is not lived among young people.

I believe that, unlike before,

What do you think of the censorship of song lyrics that were written decades ago? All songs deserve contextualization, because they have been written in a certain context.

Having said that, is it such a big deal to revise things that were written years ago?

They say, "this song is sexist...", well, we were.

I have said many things that I don't say now, jokes that I no longer make, that does not make me a perverse being.

The roll is the stigmatization, everything that is around, the signaling.

That hypocrisy when it comes to pointing out the contradictions of others without taking into account that we have all had them, kicks me.

But that has always existed.

There have always been well-thinkers who have told you what you had to say.

You have said that you have to leave space for sadness in your songs...Sadness deserves attention,

and it also has to do with the attention that mental health deserves.

We are constantly required to have a smile on our faces that does not always correspond to reality.

Returning to the networks, they generate a false account of what our life is like.

Instagram is very toxic among young people, because it generates a lot of frustration, because what is expected of us is that we always be well, happy, handsome, happy... Sadness makes us uncomfortable, nobody wants me to tell you that they're screwed.

If you are sad, you need to grieve with the calm that it requires.

How can we not be traumatized after the pandemic, confined, terrified, not knowing what was going to happen?

What happens is that we have a defense mechanism and we put aside any negative thoughts about her.

It's not that I claim to be sad,

what I claim is a space for it and to recognize sadness as a normal and necessary feeling.

When something terrible happens to you, if you're not sad, you're sick in the head.

I think that in this society we don't give the sadness the necessary space.

And that has to do with mental health.

On your tours you never leave Latin America out.

Do you have a special connection with the public there?

There they have a different way of living music, more passionate.

Maybe it has to do with the precariousness of life and with the fact that music is their livelihood, it is incorporated into the culture.

We tend to criticize everything about our country. Do you see Spain differently when you spend long periods of time on tour?

Yes, I realize what Spain is like when I have to go to a hospital in Argentina and the first thing they ask you for is your credit card.

Here you go to the emergency room and nobody asks you for anything.

When you go abroad, you value much more what we have and the welfare state.

In fact, I was embarrassed when I raised the issue of the crisis in Spain with my Argentine friends or when I talk about inflation..., without removing the real problem here, that people do not make ends meet to fill the shopping basket, but, of course, complaining to an Argentine about inflation...

The Madrid of...

Ismael Serrano grew up in Vallecas, but moved with his parents to Pozuelo de Alarcón when he started high school, and "due to life circumstances" he continues to reside there with his wife and two children, ages 9 and 1.

His music studio is in La Latina, one of his favorite neighborhoods in the capital.

"I love it, although over the years we have seen how there are more and more tourists. I am very fond of bars and taverns like Dani's, J. Blanco, El Tempranillo, La Paloma, on Toledo street... the Galician that is next door... My father, a poet and journalist, taught me that route. He had a gathering here every Friday and he brought me to visit the bars. El Rastro is also opposite, the antique shops, I like it a lot.

The singer-songwriter assures that he continues to go to

a lot .

"That's where I started and now I'm going to meet my friends. It's a place where we meet and see people play, new talents, but above all I'm going to meet friends."

Theater:

"I go less than I would like, the last one I went to was the

(Zurita, 20), to see

, a percussion show for young children that I absolutely recommend."

Bookstores

: "There is one called

(Mayor, 18) who are friends of the family and I like it a lot. In Vallecas there is another called

(Av. de Pablo Neruda, 89), which I recommend; we have made presentations there I really like science fiction and I go to

to the store on Calle Puebla, 15, like the one that has opened next door in Tirso de Molina (Conde de Romanones, 3). They have a small bookstore of science fiction and fantasy with the latest news".

What do you like most about Madrid? That it is an open, supportive, tolerant city, everyone feels comfortable.

I love Madrid. What is the least? That it is losing its identity in many aspects.

I worry that the rents are so high that only tourists and people with money can live here;

that concert halls are closing or surviving badly because they do not have help from the Administration;

that culture has not been supported;

that neighborhoods are not taken into account... How is it possible that Madrid does not have a film festival?

Public aid is given to macro-festivals and not to small halls that are suffocated.

Madrid is becoming a tourist center, as Ayuso wants, who said that his model was Florida, which is a place for retirees, tourists... That model of all shopping centers,

of big festivals, it has nothing to do with neighborhood life.

Madrid is its many neighborhoods full of life, like Vallecas.

I like the terraces but Madrid has to be something more than that.

That vision of Madrid of the reeds all the time is poor and does not conform to reality.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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