Jose Luis Picon | Malaga (EFE) “My colleagues Edi and Ferni wanted to go back to our origins, more sinister, and make rock”, he reveals.
“He was to blame for the separation. That was getting into what they called folklorism, something more popular, and they wanted to be a rock group. That’s what they told me when we parted ways. I thought that the time had come for each one to follow their path and that is what we did”, Urrutia explains in an interview with EFE.
The end of the band after eighteen years was caused by a “wear and tear” of the relationship between its members and also because another generation of musicians arrived who “began to push”. “It was clear that we didn’t intend to be number one every summer either,” says the singer, who this Sunday will offer a concert in Malaga as part of the Atardeceres Larios cycle.
“Impossible” the return of the band
When asked if a return of the band would be feasible, he assures that he sees it as “impossible”. “Each one followed his story, and in fact I read some statements from Edi (Clavo) in which he said that he would not return. I never say ‘I won’t drink this water’, but in principle we are not interested in going back”.
“We spent one of the most beautiful times of our youth, we did very well and I don’t think there was much resentment. Deep down, I love them, and I think they love me.”
The band was born in the early 80s, “at a time when rock was beginning in Spain and there was also an explosion of the new wave in the US and England. Lots of bands were coming out, everyone wanted to play, record a record and be important, and we tried. At the beginning it was quite hard, because we barely knew how to play on stage”.
The bullfighting aesthetic
Their first lyrics were very dark, because they liked “groups like Joy Division or The Cure, from the sinister wave, which was called in England”, while from Spain they were influenced by the band Paralisis Permanente of their friend Eduardo Benavente.
“We started with very sinister songs, which had their audience. Later we went more to bullfighting rock, and there were people who criticized us for having taken that turn”.
This turnaround coincided with the military service that Edi and Jaime did in 1983, when they discovered “the most popular Spain”. “You could hear Los Chunguitos and a lot of rumba, that influences you, and I also really liked bullfighting and we did a couple of songs, one dedicated to Juan Belmonte and the album ‘Que Dios reparta luck’”.
“We liked the bullfighting aesthetic and we said: ‘why not talk about what we have nearby?’ It was a pretty logical evolution of our life.”
He admits that some of his lyrics from then could not be written in the current times of political correctness, when “everything is seen from another point of view and is thought differently.”
“For example, there are phrases from the cha-cha-chá that you hear now and they would be accused of being macho, that of ‘patting your girdle with grace and courage.’ Those were other times and I thought it was fun to do it then.
He also acknowledges that there were songs, like the cha-cha-chá itself, that they got “fed up” with playing, “but deep down, if people ask for them, you have to give them with all your love”.
“Camino Soria”, the best album of the band
Jaime Urrutia believes, “without a doubt”, that the band’s best album was “Camino Soria”. “I have always thought so. It was a very round album in terms of concept, songs, style and lyrics, of course. When we recorded it, we left the studio thinking we had a ticking time bomb on our hands.”
It was June 1987 and it coincided with a change of record company, from “DRO, which was more or less independent, to EMI, which was a multinational that did a lot of promotion and the most intense tour of Gabinete, about 150 days going from here to there”.
At present “one lives mainly from live performances”, because of the platforms “it is very difficult”, while “with records and CDs everything was more physical and you realized what you were selling”.
The radical change of the internet
“When the Internet appeared, the change in music was radical, and it is missed. We all have nostalgia for the early days, for how it was done at that time, but it is what it is and you have to settle for it”.
But he considers that “it has lost all its grace”. “At the age of 18, I was looking for Rolling Stones or Bowie records, you saved up to buy them, you came home and you heard them a thousand times. So, I thought it would be nice to push a button and have it all, and now we have that, but the romantic concept of being a fan of music has changed”.
At his Sunset concert, Larios will offer “a little bit of everything”, both from the Cabinet and from his solo career, in a trio format that he calls “al natural”, together with his keyboardist and his acoustic guitar, “in places welcoming” such as El Balneario de Málaga.
Looking to the future, he admits that, in two or three years, “the day will come when he decides to quit”, because “to be in this you have to have strength and morale”. “I want to put out one more album and retire leaving something beautiful”.