By Rodrigo Garcia |
Buenos Aires (EFE).- Idols of the masses in the early years of Spanish democracy, the group Tequila and the mythical Argentine accent of songs like “Salta” and “Rock and roll in the town square” are part of the popular Iberian imaginary . A phenomenon that, paradoxically and because of the dictatorship, never reached Argentina, where the group is almost unknown.
“I’m sorry, but perhaps now it can be partly repaired a little bit,” Alejo Stivel tells EFE, who, oddly enough, has just performed for the first time in his life in his native country, in a theater in Buenos Aires directed by his sister located a few meters from the house where he lived and composed, as a teenager, “I need a drink”, the first hit of his group.
The moment of such a symbolic debut, in which Stivel reviewed the band’s most popular songs, was the screening at the Buenos Aires International Film Festival of the documentary “Tequila: sex, drugs and rock & roll”, about the history of the group that between 1976 and 1983 revolutionized youth rock in Spain.
“Everyone I told…’I’m going to play Argentina for the first time’ said, ‘what? as? But the records didn’t come out? Don’t you know them?’, asserted the 64-year-old singer-songwriter, who in addition to having been the voice of Tequila, which he joined together with Ariel Rot, also an Argentine, his childhood friend, and the Spaniards Julián Infante, Felipe Lipe and Manolo Iglesias, treasures a fruitful career as a producer.
Veto of the dictatorship
The situation was like this: “It was an issue directly caused by the military dictatorship. My last name was blacklisted and banned from all media. My father couldn’t get out, he had to go and so did we. My father was a very famous television director here, David Stivel, and well… a lot of very politically engaged family.”
Threatened by the extreme right-wing state group Triple A in the run-up to the dictatorship, his father emigrated to Colombia, and Alejo -like the Rot- chose Spain to flee a few months after the coup, when the partner of Zulema Katz, his mother, the journalist, writer and guerrilla fighter Paco Urondo, was assassinated by the regime.
“Spain seemed to us the most interesting option and I think we were not wrong,” he asserts about the country that welcomed him and where he met success at a time, after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, when society clamored for freedom and fun. .
Like them, a multitude of Argentines chose Spain as a refuge, and some became essential cultural figures, such as Juan Gatti, designer of several of the most mythical covers of Spanish pop records.
End of the Tequila group
In Madrid, with Ariel on guitar and the Spaniards in the group, Tequila turned his ‘Stonian’ style, with hints of the then unmistakable Argentine rock, into the symbol of an era. In 1983, after four albums, with the excess of drugs taking its toll and the first departures from the formation -Álex de la Nuez had entered as the new bassist-, the band dissolved.
A period of activity that coincided with the time of the Argentine dictatorship: “We separated shortly before the dictatorship ended, so it no longer made sense for them to release the records (in Argentina), because we no longer worked,” says the composer, who believes that his lyrics -without political messages- would have been liked a lot.
Despite everything, there is a Tequila theme that resonated with many Argentines. “I’m going crazy” was used as the theme song for a television program, but “nobody knows who sang,” adds its composer.
As an anecdote, he recounts the request he made to the public in his debut, days ago, in Buenos Aires:
“In ‘Salta’ I said: ‘now I’m going to play the most famous song I have. You don’t know her, but pretend you know her and when I say jump!, you get up and jump. And everyone got up and jumped, ”she recalls.
After 25 years retired from the stage, in 2008 he toured Spain again with Tequila together with Ariel Rot -who did sound in his country with his later band, Los Rodríguez-. And in 2018 they did a farewell ‘tour’.
“I didn’t go to university, my university was Tequila,” says Stivel, who continues alone and says that “you never know” if Tequila will return. “Let’s see how the next decades catch us,” he concludes with a laugh.