Antonio Carmona, flamenco singer and percussionist. Interview

“I like for flamenco to remain in a pure state,
but Ketama made it heard by another audience”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, October 2006

The fact that flamenco doesn’t have any television programs, or radio stations that play it, or record companies that want to record it, or infrastructure for its exportation... “poisons” Antonio Carmona. Though in this case the substance isn’t harmful, but rather really inspirational. With ‘Vengo venenoso’, not only is the solo career inaugurated of he who was the lead vocalist of the group Ketama, but perhaps also a different way of producing flamenco; the way conceived in Los Angeles by producer Gustavo Santaolalla, without ‘re-seeing’, minimalist. Although he sticks a foot into latin pop, the singer, percussionist and composer can’t deny flamenco, which comes in the shape of tangos granaínos, in his echo, in his lyrics and in his percussion which, by the way, has left its mark on over a hundred records.

Antonio Carmona (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Josemi Carmona is making music with Carles Benavent. Juan el Camborio is playing for Pitingo. What road is Antonio Carmona taking?

Many roads have crossed paths in Antonio Carmona’s musical career. I’ve always been a very restless musician; I’ve liked very different styles. On this album, I’ve been listening a lot to Ben Harper, Robi Draco, a Puerto Rican guy who does really obscure American music. And going on from that to Pino Daniele, a musician from Naples who’s a close friend of Maradona’s, who’s invited me to present the album in Italy, where he’s like a god. Antonio Carmona doesn’t stop anywhere; he keeps on going, he keeps on meeting musicians, he keeps on learning, he’s like on a train ride: he stops off at a good station and then goes on his way. This is a trip. And this trip called ‘Vengo venenoso’ has been really gratifying, being with first-rate people such as Gustavo Santaolalla, who is a great from Latin America, is a guy who’s done a lot for latin music and has really known how to renew Antonio Carmona’s career.

Was it hard for you to find how to project yourself after Ketama?

I’ve worked really hard over the past two years, doing fourteen to fifteen hours a day. I’ve even lost friends because they’d come and they’d feel uncomfortable. I didn’t pay attention to anyone; I’d just sit down in front of ‘Protools’ and I’d forget about everything. Thank God the studio’s under my house and I was able to stay in contact with my family and with my daughters, which is the most important thing to me, since if not, you finish off your life. It’s hard for every musician to bring out an album and after twenty years with Ketama, with those huge monsters, Juan and Josemi, imagine the responsibility. And I’m very proud of this album. It’s a unique record by Antonio Carmona; I don’t think I’ll make another album in my life like this one. It’s a minimalist record, without ‘re-seeing’, which we flamencos overdo a great deal, with drums by Abe Laboriel – who’s now going on tour with Sting -, strings by David Campbell... The trip has been Los Angeles. And I have two angels: since I’m a Gemini, there are two of me and I didn’t stay alone in the group. I’ve stayed with another Antonio Carmona and I have two angels at my side. From the beginning, when I went to Los Angeles three years ago to meet Gustavo, it’s been wonderful in every aspect, it’s been really positive, even in the guests.

Do you think that if that way of recording and producing were applied to flamenco, the genre would take a new musical leap?

(A long silence). That’s why I left here. It’s not that I want to put aside Spanish producers, since there are really good producers, but that sound we brought out at Gustavo and Aníbal Kerpel’s house was impressive in every sense. They aren’t the typical producers who super-produce everything. They saw that they have a really simple artist. I don’t do a lot of quejíos within the album; I simply try and express. I don’t do flamenco, black or Arab quejíos, or of any kind, because I respect all those quejíos a lot. I have brought out a style which they listen to right now in America and they cup their ear because it doesn’t sound like anything there is. You can decide what you like more, what you like less, but... personal? The album has a tremendous mark which is impressive.

And with regards to flamenco, there’s a really wide range now, thank God. I like for flamenco to remain in a pure state, for there to be the monsters there are out there. But then with Ketama a lot of people have taken to listening to pure flamenco. I don’t try to do anything on this album either inside or outside flamenco, since to me it doesn’t have any limits; it’s Antonio Carmona -(he acts as if he slits his chest)- split in half; you open it and you see your organs and your heart. And that’s what’s there. There’s an Antonio Carmona who’s really settled down after fourteen or fifteen albums with Ketama, renewed and much more settled down in every aspect, musically and personally.

Antonio Carmona (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

What flamenco is there on this album?

It starts and finishes flamenco. ‘Se amarra el pelo’ is a song dedicated to all women, a tribute to all of you; I love women... Hey, I just have one! But I live with six women: my mother, my mother-in-law, my wife, my two daughters and a woman who takes care of us. I love seeing the three generations: my mother and my mother-in-law, who give my house a good base; my wife, who’s mischievous, has ants in her pants, the most daring one; and then the two girls, who are learning, I really like their attitude, because they like studying... They’re both really lured to music, but I’d rather they finished their studies and then I’ll do a little something for them, but all in good time. When I was thirteen, I dropped out of school and started working at a flamenco tablao, but it was out of responsibility and because it was needed in my house. Of course, I’m not going to take my daughters out of school; the attitude of learning is the best thing that can happen to us.

And then the album ends with tangos called ‘Miedo’. I finished it in Los Angeles. It talks about Sacramento and Tijuana because when I was going down the highway I could see by the signs that I was on the Mexican side. At the same time, they’re really Lorca-style tangos. I read Lorca there, ‘Poeta en Nueva York’; I like poetry a lot. And tangos are music native to Granada. Tangos are sung in ‘Graná’ like nowhere else. We were born in caves and... what can I say? Granada is wonderful. And let people size up what there is in the middle of the album.

Besides your voice, there’s also your percussion, which has to be highlighted in the flamenco of recent years. What musical ingredients have you put into this record?

I’ve made a little over a hundred records as a percussionist. I’ve recorded with all flamenco and then with Italians, Americans... with all kinds of people. The box drum is an instrument we christened for flamenco and it ended up being a part of flamenco. The box drum’s given me a lot of satisfaction and it’s also helped me buy my first little house in Madrid. Of the percussions that are on the album, the ones I like most are the ones in the tangos, a song I did practically all by myself; neither Aníbal nor Gustavo touched it. I did the entire base myself. They flipped out because in one day the song was sung, played and everything. We Spaniards are taken to be easy-going, like we go out for some omelette and then... That’s not it at all. I wanted to work, work, work and come back soon to Spain to have the omelette and paella here. Ha ha ha. I was worse than them. In twenty days I put together the singing, all the guitars and all the percussions on the album. The percussion is really important. I always say I’m a good percussionist, a mediocre singer and a frustrated guitarist. The guitar is the instrument I like the most; it comes with me on all my trips.

Antonio Carmona (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Taking a bit of a glance back, what do you think Ketama contributed to what came to be called new flamenco?

Ketama contributed to the evolution of the genre and to a new audience joining pure flamenco. Ketama was to flamenco like what a company that has an employee who speaks English and can communicate is to Europe. Ketama spoke more languages than flamenco. And besides, we’re such restless people that we’ve been able to play with musicians from all over; we’ve played with Lenny Kravitz, the other day I sang with Marc Anthony... Pure flamenco might be a different way to approach and what we used to do was more approachable. We’d get to London to play and turned places upside down. The other day, Marc Anthony’s musicians played songs by Ketama for me! We’re known all over the world because we were a banner. No matter how much they say we were sacrilegious within flamenco and no matter how much we had to work more up Madrid than down Madrid, do they want to recognize what we did in Ketama? Fine. Don’t they? Oh well. What’s evident is that Ketama made a great many people come to flamenco and we’re proud of that.

And there have been descendents...

Oh yeah. The road was opened to absolutely every new flamenco group thanks to Ketama. It’s nearly a problem for those coming afterwards... and even for Ketama, because everything sounds like Ketama. People end up thinking we’ve come out with a new album. There’s confusion and I don’t know if that’s good, since if we want to bring out an album they’re going to think we’ve already done so. We’ve come out with a trademark. That’s why I don’t want to seem the same on any album. You can say this album is better or worse, but it has a mark of identity this big. No flamenco could have done this album. I don’t have Ketama syndrome, I have a learning, going forward syndrome, Ben Harper, Robi Draco... and that’s my restlessness.

Many Spanish singers have gone to America appropriating the label ‘flamenco’ without being so and you insist in interviews that this isn’t flamenco. What value does that label have there?

The album begins flamenco and ends flamenco, but then look at what’s in between. There are really venomous guitar solos like the one by Juanes, there’s the rap by María -La Mala Rodríguez- which says things like “I’m walking down the street with my back full of stab wounds and he who doesn’t love suffers more, that’s clear to me, I laid down the foundation, I’m the first lady, besides I also set up the bed”. She gave me a retort there to which you have to say, this is really gypsy! Well yeah, I’m still a gypsy and have a gypsy life. However, I get together with gypsies, Andalusians, blacks... there’s a guy who’s Iraqi in the tangos. I came across him at a street party, I took him to the studio and we recorded from ten o’clock at night until five o’clock in the morning without knowing English or anything; we looked at each other’s face and laughed. And he told me, “my brother, my brother”. I haven’t stopped being flamenco, I can be more flamenco than many flamencos are, but I’m a guy who’s up-to-date, a restless guy who’s moving forward. I don’t go backwards... not even to get a running start.

	"Why don’t they recognize how many years we’ve been fighting for flamenco in the world? I’m venomous, I’ve been poisoned!"

And they really flip out with everything that smacks of flamenco; they like it a lot. In fact, I played the guitar all night long for Salma Hayek and she wouldn’t let me go. You can really play the guitar, she told me. And of course, the thing is I come from Spain and nobody there has our way of playing the guitar. And they appreciate it. Here, on the other hand, flamenco is on the decline; it’s devaluated. There’s no infrastructure, there are no radio stations that play flamenco, zero television programs.. it being music Spain is known for. What’s up, is it known for rock or for pop? No, it’s known for flamenco. Why don’t they recognize how many years we’ve been fighting for flamenco in the world? I’m venomous, I’ve been poisoned! In a week’s time, I receive like three or four demos from guys asking me for help. No company wants to sign them. Nobody wants to record flamenco. The plague’s come. Our music has to be exported. That’s why I’m not worried if nothing happens with the album here because I know it’s going to have repercussions abroad; in fact, it already is.

The documentary ‘Herencia flamenca’ by Michael Meert is about to be released on DVD. How is the Habichuela family reflected there?

It’s really touching. It’s seeing the experiences of a family of gypsy guitarists who live in Spain; which could have been in Poland, Czechoslovakia or France. And the truth is that it’s really moving to see my father, see my family and see the affection the Germans treat this sort of thing with. A German came to do it. We know that if it isn’t cooked up here, it’ll have to be cooked up abroad. Now there are companies working abroad, but there used to be a lot more flamenco companies, like Flamenco Puro, which had Chocolate, Fernanda, Farruco, Los Biencasaos, Angelita Vargas... And they’d go to America for a week and end up spending two and a half months on Broadway... they were a huge success. Flamenco has to be exported.