If someone is told that this is an interview with Adolfo Cabrales, maybe they might get lost. No, this is a conversation with Fito, the Fitipaldis and before that with Platero and you. In September he will release a new album, Cada vez cadaver. He does not like interviews very much, although he is in promotion. This is an exception in which he talks about his life and his career. Of those children who are his life and his passion, and of that girl who has stolen his heart, who is six years old, Marisa, Coyote.
What is life like without live music?
– Luckily the pandemic caught us without having a tour. He has caught other bands on a sold-out tour; That really is a bitch. When this situation was imposed, we had two days of study left to finish the recording of the album that will be released in the autumn. Nor did we have any agreed date.
The security measures set a different rhythm when going to a concert: seated, distance and masks. Has the spirit of music changed?
-In the Euskalduna or the Arriaga you have to be seated at a concert. What has changed is the stability of the productions. They need to be subsidized. You can’t go on tour for a 50% capacity because we should ask for credits to play, you don’t even pay for expenses.
Is culture being helped?
-It is that culture has never been supported, now neither. The pandemic is a great amplifier of the problems. Culture does not have a weight value as a precious commodity and has never been valued. How much is a song, a book or a movie worth? The English are smarter and they say: How much are the Beatles worth? For them it is worth a lot. I give culture a nutritional value, it is like food.
Essential food in the diet, right?
-Of course. It is very important that we consume culture, each one who wants it. It is good food, it is leisure, and it is also thought.
We always talk about that divorce that exists between politics and culture.
-Politics is business as usual, if you blow the candle well; but if I’m not interested, there is nothing. I have always said that if music and politics mix, it is the music that always loses. You have to make music or any other artistic expression outside of politics. Music itself should not have politics.
If you look back, 1989. Platero and you.
-On more than one occasion I look back. Is beautiful. Some friends, who instead of meeting to go riding a bike or have a drink, we stayed the time we had free in our respective work to play. We return to leisure. How happy were we? Getting together in a garage, playing and what came next was free and very unexpected.
Didn’t you dream of being a powerful group in the world of music?
-Never. I don’t think our dreams were going that way. That dream was out of the imagination and it was not in our intentions to get to any concrete point. I think we thought going beyond those rehearsals in the garage was out of reach. No one, no kid, ever hangs up his guitar thinking he’s going to record albums or tour.
What were they dreaming of?
-With playing, you like to play and the fact of getting together in a local with your friends was the reward. It is that you do not see anything within your reach beyond those moments that we spent playing. You just have no fucking idea. Where your imagination does not reach you, you cannot dream. You couldn’t imagine recording an album, much less having it successful. Now it is different.
Why?
-Because there is enough technology to make a model at home, you can hang things on the net. But we are talking about the 80s.
But there comes that moment that I neither imagined nor dreamed of, the first recorded album, ‘I’m going to end up drunk.’
-We started like all bands in Euskadi, alternatively. You recorded a demo and they were sold by certain bars, bookstores and other establishments. You would deliver your goods to them and then you would come by and ask: What about mine? Have we sold something? We were signed by a Catalan record company that turned out a bit froggy for us. Then we got the call from Dro [ahora Warner]. That’s when we took it very seriously.
His lyrics catch a lot of people. What really inspires you?
-What questions are you asking me! I just do not know. I always try to write songs for myself. I think what I’m trying to do is explain my life. I write to be satisfied and calm. Also, it costs me so much, so much €
Is it hard for you to write a song?
-When I finish a song, I’m not going to tell you that I consider myself Superman, but something like that, as if I had powers. It costs me, of course it costs me.
Do you miss the tours?
-Yes. We are like crazy to go out again. Hopefully soon. Being optimistic, we hope that tours can be done with some normality by next spring. It is something that we cannot know exactly, this is a total mess. We are totally off the hook, but of course I miss touring. Not only is it musically, they are the excuse to meet with people I have been with for many years. I’m talking about technicians, about all those people who surround live performances. It is the moment when we can celebrate or I release a record. If it’s not for the tours, there are great friends I don’t see, including part of the band. Some live in Valencia, others in Malaga €
Are tours a philosophy of life?
-Also. It is the other side of my life. We are a team that have been together for many years and we like to work together. We catch up on our lives live, it is not the same to do it over the phone.
The van, life on the road € From the outside it has a certain touch of romance.
-Is it so romantic to live on the road? Well no. Romantic is not the word. Romantic I apply it to another scenario. When you are on the road you feel that everything you are living is a dream come true. You see trucks from other groups that circulate on that road; You stop to eat and see other bands, you talk to people who have the same interests and who also travel miles and miles to give a concert, just like you. This is not the United States, in the end you end up crossing, if it is not Burgos it is in Huesca. We move like a circus, maybe here you are right and this has a veil of romance.
Is it lazy to leave the house to go from stage to stage?
-Getting together with your friends can be the best thing in the world. You even forget that you are 55 years old or whatever you are; You may feel like a kid, music turns you into a Peter Pan € You forget a lot of things. But it can also be lazy, it comes with responsibilities; It comes with a hustle, a lot of hustle. Perhaps over the years you conceive tours as a suit made to measure.
You have lived in Gernika for a long time €
– € But I have lived in Mungia for two years. But I go back and forth to Gernika. I have been there so many that it is impossible for me not to stop by. I lead a very quiet life, you have to listen to your body and see what it asks of you. I have three children and I am happy at home. What I like most about this world are my children and music. I go out little, but I miss going to a room one day a week to listen to music.
There is a person who has changed his life, his daughter, little one, La Coyote.
-Before I was born I already knew that this girl was going to be the total shock to my life. He did not count on being aita again, he already had two children. Each one of them has come to contribute, it is a marvel €
Are you worried about being a good parent?
-Not. I think there is no need to be concerned about whether you are a good parent or not. Children come to remind you of many things that you have forgotten over the years and that are important in life. In Coyote’s case, this has happened. After two parenthoods, I find myself energized, reborn.
I imagine that you have experienced very different parenthoods with your three children.
-My oldest son is 22, the second is 19 and the girl is six. Having a child at 30 is not the same as at 50. At each age there are other priorities. It’s hard when you’re young to put your parenting before everything else. When you are young you are more aware of your work, of your goals not yet achieved. At 50, who did not consider myself older, I think there are mental ages, you prioritize things and it is more fun to be a 50-year-old. You’re looking forward to taking some time out to be with your little girl. When I go on tour I also take it with me.
I see that your little girl has seduced you.
-All your children seduce you, at least it is my case. But at 30 I was looking forward to being away from home, what I wanted was to work. Now what I’m trying to do is reconcile it. I try to enjoy both, parenthood and music.
Who made you pick up the guitar?
-Hostias! No one’s ever asked me this question in my fucking life. I have been asked many times why I sing or why I write, but never why do I play the guitar. I’m going to confess that I didn’t like the guitar at all. You know? He reminded me of those girls from the nuns’ school who were playing the fucking little guitar. She was not very attractive to me. But my brother had a guitar with the Pelvis picture on it and he didn’t use it. One day, I took it for granted. Also because he had a friend and his brother had records, we stole them from him and every time he caught us he beat us up. It was that hippy music that made us interested in the guitar. I think it was a shock the first time I heard Jimmy Hendrix.
‘Cada vez cadaver’, his new album. Are we going to recognize Fito or has he changed?
-From my point of view there are many changes. Every time I make an album I think there are many changes, but then I see that everything continues to sound like Fitipaldis to people. There are changes, but I like that my music is recognized. I provoke without going to the other side. I can change nuances, but nothing more. I am Fito and the Fitipaldis, always; in each album our spirit comes out. When it comes to composing, I don’t change that much. I keep doing it with a piece of paper, a guitar and a BIC pen.
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