Red Marten | Valencia, (EFE) ”, the Social Security group has already completed 40 years of experience, a path that its leader, José Manuel Casañ, tells EFE has kept them “in continuous change”.
A concert at the Viveros de València this Friday will commemorate the four decades of life of the Valencian band, which will feature “friends” such as Sole Giménez (former vocalist of Presuntos Implicados), the DJ and producer Chimo Bayo, Javier Ojeda (Danza Invisible), Bullfighters with Flip-flops (former Dead Bullfighters Pablo Carbonell with Don’t tread on me, I’m wearing flip-flops), Carlos Segarra (Los Rebeldes), Manuel España (La Guardia) and Miguel Costas (Total Loss).
This tribute transcends the group and reminds “a generation”, which intends to “congratulate everyone’s birthday, because almost all of them have been making music for 40 years” in a “key site” for the singer’s musical training, who he remembers having seen in that enclave (the Viveros Gardens) to many groups that marked him.
“It is a way of showing that the people of our generation are still in force, they continue to fill concerts and in top form, not only with old material but also making new records,” he claimed in an interview with EFE.
Punk, cod and Latin rock
Music, believes the leader of Social Security, accompanies social changes: it did so in the 80s, when the cultural and musical scene was enriched “like when you remove a plug” but also in the 90s, when the public “took off a sell” and “the fear of mixing” was lost, and even now, when there is “a different morality”.
“In the lyrics of the songs there is a tremendous change, things that are already very prohibited,” says the singer, who points to “a lot of censorship but a lot of awareness of other things”, before which he urges “not to stop being rebellious and stick your finger in the wound from time to time because, if not, we become assholes ”.
This is said by an artist who, when he started his band, was labeled a “punk” and who claims the need to “be politically incorrect, especially when you’re 18 years old” because if at that age “you’re not a protester, you’re already dead.”
“Punk was very good for us because it was the movement that said: ‘do it yourself even if you don’t have much idea, put a lot of cane into it’ and that was an open door”, he thanks.
When Social Security stopped being a punk, it was finishing “the second part of the Ruta del bakalao”, a movement that its leader claims to the extent that “at first you could go to Barraca and they put on the Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop and then techno” but which, in its decline, made the band “get into their redoubt, like Asterix” and start working in Madrid.
Enjoy both The Clash and Peret
From then on, Casañ realized that he “enjoyed both The Clash and Peret” and the group turned from “hard rock” to the “torrent” of “Chiquilla” (1991), composed in just 15 minutes and at a ” bastard rock” mixed with rumba and finally oriented to Latin rock.
After four decades, he does not attach so much importance to the existence of “hidden gems” in his discography or forgotten titles, but rather ensures that “the greatest gem” is “the spirit of continuous change, of not settling for what is and not repeat”.
With this “leitmotif”, Seguridad Social developed as a “suicideously optimistic” band: “We always thought that with the first thing we did we were going to touch the sky, but fortunately it didn’t”.
His fame was rising “little by little step” but, Casañ acknowledges, with the publication of “Chiquilla” he “took the elevator”, which meant that the band was able to become professional and he himself was able to stop working in his parents’ bakery.
He remembers the good part of those years, of “feeling loved”, but also the “group smacking therapies in the van when someone came up.”
A tireless anniversary for Social Security
At that time, however, they could not have imagined an anniversary like the one they are preparing, between the Nurseries and the “most beautiful place in Valencia”, the Lonja (World Heritage Site), where on April 29 Social Security will give a concert Acoustic accompanied by the Valencian cartoonist (and friend of Casañ) Paco Roca, who will illustrate each song while his performance lasts.
The year of the great celebration will end with the publication of a book-disc with 40 stories, micro-stories and poems written by Casañ, illustrated by names like Paco Roca or MacDiego and duets with other “friends” of the band, this time from Latin America, to “rebuild the bridge” with the other side of the ocean that the pandemic forced to abandon.
For Casañ, this mix of music with illustration, audiovisuals or literature makes all the sense in the world at a time of crisis in the industry, “not music”, where “we listen to more music than ever” but its sector is “completely undone”.
“They always say ‘follow the money’ and now the money comes only from concerts, not so much from record sales,” he considers, but points out that it seems good to him: “What we wanted was to play, because I haven’t been so comfortable in there is no place like on a stage”.
girly the musical
For this reason, he continues to focus on the stage even with the production of the musical “Chiquilla”, in which “the script is a concatenation of songs” and which was “somewhat stopped” with the pandemic but plans to resume.
The name of José Manuel Casañ and that of Social Security have traveled Spain for years, although he assures that he prefers not to make himself “a character”: “I prefer that people not recognize me on the street but dance to my songs.”
But now they have come to more unexpected places, such as a room in the Ronald McDonald house, in a charity initiative supported by the singer, or a rosé cava from Bodegas Vegalfaro, named ‘Chiquilla’, which the band promises to uncork to celebrate. its first four decades.
They will toast to the future, which Casañ sees as hopeful, because he plans to “continue doing things”, surf “the new waves that come” and above all, he addresses “those who don’t like reggaeton and all that”: “That they be calm Because that will happen.”
