for
the German translation please click here for
the German translation please click here
Don't
lose your eternal fire
An
interview with Carlos during his Celtic-Flamenco Tour 2008 in Germany about
passion, respect for age and plans for the future…
Carlos,
in 1997 you were on tour in Germany for the first time. In the meantime your
popularity has increased immensely and
the enthusiasm for your music gains you
more and more eager
followers. How do
you feel about the German audiences - are we really
so overly cool and reserved as is often said? Are there any differences
to your concerts in France, Spain or Japan for example?
Well,
the first thing is that the German people, the German audiences have been a
surprise for me. Absolutely. Because everyone thinks, that the German audience
is cold. Not at all. I think, they are just intelligent people. At the same time
- when you want to be passionate, you are very passionate, more passionate even
than the others, if you want. So the German audiences has been a really big
surprise for me.
As
you can see we are developing a family of an audience. It’s like developing a family and it takes time. For the same reason in Spain it has taken a
lot of years, or in France. Now in France or Spain we make big concerts, even in
countries like Argentina or Ireland, but it needs many years. This is not a kind
of music with which you have one success like that , and you have a huge
popularity like that. I think it’s better so, because when you have a success
like that, then you have one, or two, or three years a lot of people in advance
but then it comes out. But that’s not really nice. I prefer that kind of
career, because you are working
and working on developing and you have the feeling that always everything
is going up. It’s getting warmer and warmer and warmer and this is the
situation in Germany.
With
your concerts you often give promising artists and local music groups the
possibility to appear
live with you. How does this collaboration come about?
Does one turn to you with such requests for a common appearance, or do
you ask for
local artists or groups, which you can integrate into your program?
It
comes naturally. Sometimes we arrive at a place and there is a school of
musicians, you see very young musicians and I invite them to play with me.
Naturally and never to prepare. Sometimes there are people, who contact us
before, maybe one month 
before the concerts, some weeks before the concert.
But
why we do that? First of all, to create a base of musicians, that follows our
music. For example: we are invinting pipers .. in France, in Spain, in
Germany... many places... in Japan. And then, little by little, they make pipe
bands. Now, when we go back to Sevilla, Barcelona or Madrid, there are a lot of
pipe bands, in France and I hope in Germany soon. Even in Tokio - they have a
pipe band in Tokio, they have Gaitas in Tokio, too. That’s the way. When we
invite those people, that reminds me a lot of what happend to me with the
Chieftains They invited me when I was a boy, I was an adolescent, and that
moment just gives you so much enthusiasm. So I think it’s very important to
give the opportunity, especially to the young people. So this is, why we do this.
How
much has that
early meeting with
the "Chieftains" and the close collaboration with them determined your
musical development? Would you have taken more the route to classical music
without them ?
Well,
from the very beginning I had two parallel careers - the classical training and
the traditional music. I thought always, that
there was a connection. That’s the way to see this kind of things in
Galicia, in my country. There is not a frontier between classical and
traditional. Everyone knew, that I could be at the conversatory and I could be
at a classical school at the same time. To play with piano, to play with
orchestra’s - there are no frontiers. Maybe there are more frontiers in
countries like Germany, there the things are very separately. Classical is
classical, rock’n roll is rock’n roll, traditional is traditional. But not
in Galicia and that is very important.
But
to meet the Chieftains was so important. Why? Because the Chieftains gave me the
possibility to
know, what this work is like. To develop the musical career is like to be a
medic, like to be a lawyer. It’s like another work and you have to learn, how
to work, the secrets of the job. You have things, that you have to learn
in the conservatory and you have things, that you learn in the tradtion. But
there are secrets, how to develop a show, how to make a miracle with traditional
music, music that usually people don’t like, how to do the cross over.
That’s, what this contact meant to me
-
the exception
it happens very rarely. So I learned all that from the Chieftains.
Those
who have already often attended your concerts, recognize that your program
varies every evening, you never play exactly the same pieces. Do you make
the choice of tunes spontaneously or how do you decide, what shall be
heard in the evening?
Yes, when you know to come to a musical tour … in a tour usually
we don’t have the time to change many things. Everyone is extremly tired. To
do a tour is really like to do a “tour de France”. It’s a long thing,
it’s like a battle of resistance. When you have 30 concerts, one each day…
wow… it’s very, very heavy. And at the same time you try to do more things
as we do on tour. When we are on tour I am preparing
at the same time the next album, I am preparing my next trip to Brazil in
one week, we are preparing the concert in Havanna to record it for TV, we are
preparing, what happened in the next years on the road… So it’s really a
question of to have a very strong capacity of rhythm, to separate your body and
your mind. Sometimes your body is
to say, what’s the city, what’s name of the city? Your mind is in another
place and to separate this is very
important.
Usually
in single concerts I do the program before I go on the stage. I always look to
the audience from behind the scene and I
smell a little bit to have an inspiration and then I go and make the formula,
just three or two minutes before I go on the stage.
But this is a tour and in a tour everything is a bit more mechanical. In
single concerts you always have the chance to make some changes.
Is
there a kind of ritual, a certain routine with which you prepare for a concert?
Yes,
every artist has little secrets, little formulars. I remember Dulce Pontes, the
Portugisian singer. She used to take all the musicians in a room like
this, close the lights, take everyone’s hands to do like a sort… like the
Indians… to do some noises ‘come
on now, everyone together … hmmmmmmm…’ like football
player before the match?… yes, things like that.
We
don’t do that. But for example to
me the shower is very important, what I call the “artist shower”. You are a
normal person until that shower 10 minutes before and when you come out of the
shower, you’ll become an artist. Sometimes I am in the middle of a shower and
I tell to someone ‘…number 3 - Pilgrim's Sunrise - then we will go
on with invite …’ and I am under the shower.
So for me the shower is a moment of concentration and also a moment of
inspiration. Every morning for me the shower is so important, because your body
is away… but what I mean… you are between the dreams and reality. So it’s
a very interesting moment. In the shower you have very crazy and artistical
ideas.
You
are one of a few artists, who are almost always available for autograph wishes
and conversations after the concert. How important
is the contact with your audience, the feedback of the concert-goers to
you?
Very,
very, very important. As you can see, I always talk with people. I insist, in
tours like this is very difficult, because everyone is so tired. But always in
every concert I speak with the people and what I try is to see through your eyes,
to listen through your ears. I try to learn from you, because each country is
different.
Now
I am preparing the Brazilian album. Now I know,
how the Brazilians are, but one
year ago if I was in front of a Brazilian
musician I didn’t knew what to say to that person. In every concert, in every
country are things that works in the imagination of people and things, that
doesn’t work . If I say some certain words to a French person or to a Breton
or to a Scottish person, that person will understand, that we are very happy
people. Every human is very different and every country is different, so that is
my way of learning from every culture .
Now
I know better, how the German people are, how you are, but years ago I had no
idea. You don’t know the limits, you don’t know if you can go far away, you
know? In Japan the limits are different than here and in Spain they are
different than there, maybe, so this is my way to learn from you - to talk with
you after the concerts.
In
2004, as part of the Irish Folk Festival, you appeared among the other places in
the “Peterskirche” in Leipzig,
where J.S.Bach, whose music you especially revere, was organist. What was it
like for you to play there? Was somewhat to be felt of
the "aura" of the great master?
For
me in Bach’s chorals there is a big secret. Behind the structure is a very
metric of music, a very classical structure of rhythm behind all that. And
inside of all that there is an older material: melodies that come
from a very, very long time ago. And through that material, that Bach
tried to put on the chorals with rhythm to make the polyphony, to make different
voices parallel you have to put that with the rhythm to match all that.
What
I see between the lines is a very old music, the very old German music. I had
the feeling, that the Dudelsack, that I was bringing to life again, a very old
German music, this was in the time. I had also the feeling, that in Galicia we
have things alive, things that used to exist in Germany in the old times. So I
You
and Xurxo are musical multi-talents, who impress again and again by your
versatility on the most varied instruments.
Was a lot of music played in your family? Do your parents or your sister Helena
play instruments as well? And who
introduced you to the music?
Well,
this is a story, that has a connection with our next album, the Brazilian album.
We have a great-grandfather, who was a musician. He
used to play this wind instrument - Bombardino, Euphonium -
it’s like a small Tuba. He played in brass bands, this kind of brass
orchestras, popular orchestras…. One hundred
years ago, he was our great-grandfahther. All his family was a family of
musicians. Then he went to Brazil, to look for a better life, because Galicia
was very poor at that time. So just our country was very complicated
for a musician.
He
went to Brazil and suddenly someone said, that they killed him.
But I suspect, that he was not killed because of jealousy, because they
said, there was another musician who was jealous of him and that killed him. I
thought, he just went to Brazil and he stayed then. So since that moment music
was somehow taboo in my family, no more musicians. My grandfather was a teacher
of history, someone very cultivated, very intelligent. My father is an artist, a
painter of visual arts, he’s also a publicist. And then the next generation…
Xurxo, me, my cousins… again the music comes to my family.
So… yes… I think, the music is in our
veins. There was that story, that made
the music suddenly something bad. No one spoke about music… So in the
next album we will go to Brazil to find our great-grandfather.
In
Brazil you recently worked on your next CD. What
can we look forward to and is
there already a date of the release scheduled
Who
knows... The thing is, we want to
make a great album. We will spend a lot of time, a lot of money making that
album, because I think it will be something fantastic. Brazil has many things
from us, from Europe, from Galicia, and they are still having that middle age,
that we are losing. They are still having the way of making instruments, the way
of singing. So I will go to Brazil to find my great-grandfather and on the way
we will discover our own in Brazil, our future in Brazil. And the combination we
are making with the Flamenco, with the Latin music, with all the Brazilians -
they already did these things many years ago. And of course there is a Celtic
world also in Brazil.
In
your native country Spain, but also in France or Japan you are tremendously
popular, you appear in much larger arenas than you have until now in Germany. Do you prefer the bigger venues or is the
nearness to the audience and the intimacy of the small concert halls
especially attractive? Does one feel the reaction of the audience more
directly?
So
it's a question of taste?
Yes,
yes... it's like the people, that like to have a big car or a little car. If you
go on a safari, what's the point to have a Mercedes in a
safari? No, in a safari you always need to have a car like that. If you have to
go to a ceremony, you have to be very elegant, you use other clothes... And I
think, this is very important for us - the capacity of adaptation, the capacity,
to adapt to different situations. To play in a church or to play in football
stadium, or to play in a classical venue or to play in a rock 'n roll place -
it's very important ... it's like a conquest, like a challenge.
To
play in a football stadium you have to learn so many secrets, to make, that the
show works in a place so big like that. You have to play differently than in a
small place. When I say to Spanish people ' yes, in Germany we play in
churches and the people, they can have drinks in the church, sometimes they can
have beer or they have a party and they dance in the church'... and sometimes
people say ' wow.... incredible, incredible, we want that here, we have to do
something like that…. It's not too cold? I say, sometimes yes,
sometimes not, because they have warming systems in winter…. Oh, imagine....'
It's
a new concept and it's very interesting, so in Germany we learned how to make
concerts in churches. Because the acoustics are different, so you can not play with the same instruments, you
have to play a little bit slower tunes, because of the acoustics of the place.
But everything is good, everything is nice. It's just the difference.
For
a large part of the year you are on tour and travel around worldwide to the most
different countries. Which country fascinates you with its culture and its
people the most?
Every
country also is different, every culture has a knowledge, a book of memory. When
you play in countries like Japan, you know that they have a message. In Japan
they like the old people, they like the masters. You have a Japanese master of
one hundred years... and they say ‘maestro,
please, maestro, tell me, what do you think about that?'
And they listen to the master, because he is the one, that has a lot
of experience.
In
other countries they don't want maestros, they just want the young people. So
it's just different. And for excample in Japan finally it's very fascinating
because of that. But also Latin America is fascinating, it's like a secret world.
Even North America is fascinating, when you see people living in a way, that you
never cold imagine. In Cailfornia, a sense of freedom. Different. I think it’s
just a difference and I think you can find paradise everywhere.
Maybe
the places that are even more magic are the places far away from the power. The
power always is in big cities - Paris, London, New York. And than there are
places far away from big cities, sometimes places with sea, but far away. And
that feeling ... this is what the Brazilians call
"sertão". Sertão is like the dessert, far away from the
power. People
live sometimes in secret paradises. There are many secret paradises in the world.
Germany has also secret paradises, people, that lives in houses far away from
the power. You can find special places everywhere … in Japan, in Spain, in
Italy...
You
have already co-operated with countless artists and musicians of international
rank. Which meeting, which artist has impressed you the most - personally
as well as artistically - and is there someone, with whom you would
absolutely like to share the stage again?
Especially
old people with a lot of experience. Compay Segundo, exactly. He was 98 and he
had a girlfriend of forty. Or the Chieftains... Sometimes
you see musicians, artists, who have a lot of success, but you say ' ok, you are too young, for me you are too young...'
Because it's like Picasso: when you see Picasso with thirty years old, he
was not the same Picasso as when he was seventy. This is the Picasso, we like
today, you know? The Picasso with an eternal life, with experience.
I
also like the Picasso’s of music. People, that still having the body, can miss
rapidez, bracias..... but the most important thing comes from inside. And of
course someone usually with sixty years old will play better than when the same
person was twenty. For example: the same tune... a person with twenty years old
will play fast, but not sure of himself and the same person, maybe forty or
fifty years later will say many things with the same melody. It's incredible.
In
Argentina they say, “to sing tango you have to be old”. Because, if you
don't have experience enough... or ... you have to suffer in your life, to sing
tango.
There's more emotion it it...
Exactly! Look, at the same time there are artists, that when they are
thirty, they already lose the twinkle and the fire in their eyes. And this is,
because something happens and they lose the hope, the hope in music, the hope in
life. Many people that just live, they have professions, but they lose that
special energy.
And
when I find an older musician, who has that fire.... that's fantastic! That is
something, that worries me a lot - be careful, don't lose the fire, the eternal
fire. This is very impotant. So I
prefer usually more the musician with sixty years of experience than the one,
that is twenty.
Is
there something, you want to tell your German audience and your German fans?
Thank
you very much for being here, waiting every year. I know that sometime lately we
come every year and people ask me ‘Carlos, you are coming a lot, you know’. Than
I say ‘yes, me are making that effort to come, come, come, because it's the
only way to develop that family’.
For
example - places, were we are more famous, like in Spain for example, I don't
play every year in the same city. Maybe once in
three or four years. In Madrid maybe I play each four years. Or in Vigo,
were I live, maybe one concert in three years. Something like hat. So it's nice
sometimes to be small.
So,
for the moment I have ideas and things to do for many years. But the thing is, I
don't have time... but ideas many.
Carlos,
thank you very much for giving me that interview and for taking the time before
your concert here tonight in Lörrach.
c)
sf 2008