Mártires del Compás
Luis Clemente

"FOR THE 'MARTIRES' EACH FLOP AT THE RECORD SHOP
IS A SUCCESS"

The Mártires del Compás have released '"Mordiendo el duende", whose sound appears to be distancing itself from a trilogy. Its author has introduced ingenious and flamboyant lyrics into the world of pop music and flamenco.

There is strong imaging in the soleá: "Your love is like a milk carton that sometimes it opens easy and others it just doesn't want to open".

Chico: The 'soleá' form has become ligher in recent times and I wanted to bring it down as much as possible. Pregnant silences play an important role here.

The recording features flamenco guitarist Rafael Rodríguez, "El Cabeza".

Manuel: He's the only one I'd let play on the record because he's a bona fide professional flamenco guitarist who works every day.
Chico: For me it was of utmost importance that El Cabeza took part in my work because he is both classic and new. In my records I've never wanted to incorporate big names, only Cabeza in this latest one, and Manolito Soler on the first one.

You had a clear idea when it came time to record.

Julio: We went into the studio, all of us wearing headphones and looking at each other...
Alberto: A one, a two, a three, bing, bang, boom!...full speed ahead.
Chico: In the studio they went ape over the soleá: "How are we going to do it?" "No" chimes in El Cabeza. "But, how are we going to do it?" Forget it...in two hours that was it. We had the introduction set, but what we didn't know was how I was going to sing the soleá.
Manuel: The actual development wasn't clear.
Chico: Nor the drama of the lyrics.

Not even the lyrics?

Chico: Well you see, these lyrics I've sung for "fandangos". In concert I always stick in new lyrics. What I'm crazy about is the ending, because the openings aren't that important any more in solea. The hard thing isn't beginning, but rather ending any song. That opening of "soleá por bulerías" with a Cádiz sound: "I stayed with her last night, don't know if it was to love or to fight".

"Rigui mártir" has some of the best lyrics. It begins "Black carnations are floating down the Straight".

Chico: Ever since the first record I've been dealing with the theme of wetbacks, which becomes more and more current. It's one of the cruelest songs, it's the conscience we lack, there are repeated incidents but we just keep staring at our belly-buttons, because if it doesn't happen in Seville, then it's like it doesn't exist. But I talk about Africa as if it were the Tres Mil Viviendas (a famous gipsy neighborhood), these people who traffic in human beings...

"Maltratada" [mistreated] employs a somewhat jazzy guitar.

Chico: There are a lot of jazzy chords on this record. As far as chords, this record follows the same format as flamenco. Jazz chords have greatly enriched flamenco. In that song I don't speak directly but I do defend a point of view: regarding aggression, reaction. "If you die fighting you die for the future. It's sick to hurt that which you have loved."

What's "Oye el libro" [Listen to the book]?

Chico: For me it's the standard-bearer of the record. Constant dissatisfaction, like in my lovelife. "I'm gonna write a book about what you're doing to me, with hungry words and lost dreams".

You say: "He who searches for that which has been lost never lives what is at hand".

Chico: It's a question of looking forward, not backwards, not even for impetus.

In "Los peluqueros" [The hairdressers] you sing: "In bed anything goes and in struggle small things become big".

Chico: It's really "pop", paying tribute to an era: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Traffic, Cat Stevens... it sounded to me like a pop song written by the artist. "There are men with short hair" sung as Dylan's "How many times...". I have hairdresser friends and let me tell you, not even in the CIA is there so much inside information as you get at the hairdressers of life. The hairdresser is a person with the good taste the barber lacks. This is the first time we got into pop leaving flamenco behind, but somehow there's a flamenco soul, there's flamenconess in that song. But I think it's interesting from a literary point of view, if you get the metaphor, I get a lot of images from hairdressers' gayness.

Don't the other members of Mártires interfere when you write?

Chico: They trust my lyrics. The can see that I have a flair for that, just like Julio with the chords. When I'm in a humorous mood I give a taste of Cádiz, but I can also get into the cruelty of Seville.

There's no more sevillanas and hardly any electric guitar, there's less emphasis on percussion.

Chico: Now that we haven't got Sidy holding up the African part, everything has become much more transparent. We used to make a song and then he would join in, and that gave a predetermined sound, it limited it. I was very happy to work with Sidy, but I'm convinced that if I had done my work without him everything would have come out much better. And it would have come together better. The bottom line to all this is that it would have come together better.
Julio: The trick is not all trying to play the same chord. We take every chord apart so each component has his own identity, but when we get it all together on a harmonic level, we create one unified chord. The hardest part is making it easy.
Jesús: The hard thing is taking the chord apart.
Chico: What is new, if anything, is having arrived at the conclusion that with a "cajón", a bass guitar, and two guitars you can arrive at any kind of musical understanding. I've always been opposed to wind instruments, drums, the piano... anything with more than six strings hinders the "compás", the beat of what Mártires is all about.

Surrealism

Chico: We've revived lyricism, that's true. I believe I've given a different pulse to the way of writing... giving life to milk cartons, microwaves... I'm a pioneer in this area.

If the previous record completed a trilogy, what does this one begin?

Chico: It's not a question of closing or opening trilogies, it's a natural cycle, and the Mártires are at that peak. For Mártires each flop at the record shop is a hit for the next record, a hit because we keep on creating, and thanks to that continuation, because we believe in ourselves more than in others, we have come to close a trilogy because the concept broadens the field, in Mártires there hasn't been a negative reaction when a company doesn't sell, because we've shown you can make good music in this country without having to be 40 years old. If you go to sing, you fill the place, and the audience knows your songs, that's the commercial success the work has to have, not the millions you get paid.

You have said "Calling certain things flamenco seems a shameless crime to me". You get indignant about flamenco.

Chico: If you watch the TV programs and you're a good aficionado, you'd get indignant just like me. Many styles have been lost due to this ignorance, the spirit of going partying, of being in a little restaurant... well okay, this is the year 2000 and you can't be in a small place because we have to get flamenco out into the daylight so it can be understood. But if we've taken it out to lock it up, then I don't go along with it. I would rather the authorities to come close to the bar where I'm singing instead of being in the Lope de Vega or the Maestranza Theater, and killing it there, in a proper place, as if we were going to church. For me, it's not that flamenco is so serious, but it's a lifestyle. And I'm against anyone who attacks my lifestyle.

Every time someone mentions the word "fusion" to you, you fly off the handle.

Chico: I've been saying it for twenty years, that fusion is the imposing of a rhythm, criteria, on someone else, like a hodgepodge... If we're going to talk about flamenco don't talk to me about Tomatito with Michael Camilo, don't talk to me about Ketama or Joaquín Cortés, nor about Mártires... although, when we get going with the real flamenco we're as pure as anyone, I prove that, I do it and I record it. I'm not just patting myself on the back. I fulfill it honorably and in my own way. But here they lost that way of being.

How can you possibly say that they are disrespectful of flamenco?

Chico: Those people who made flamenco great in Seville came from outside, they lived a hard life in the Alameda singing what we all know about. And Seville thinks that flamenco singing is for the wealthy landowners. That lack of culture of your roots is going to cost us dearly because we're losing something which is ours in order to arrive at that which doesn't belong to us, which is the abduction of flamenco, an absolute lack of taste and sensitivity. He who doesn't know his history is doomed to repeat it, and it's going to cost us dearly.

In the newspaper "El País" Fernando Martín wrote: "The Mártires raise the banner of history. "Veneno" with more vigor than anyone today.

Chico: The record "Veneno" was a sheer accident and the Mártires are a reality. We've made four records maintaining flamencobilly, in the direction we want. There are few groups with so much autonomy, I concede my rights to my musicians, to my children as a way of getting involved with my musicians. I'm a twin and they taught me to share.

A twin?

Yes, my brother is bigger, I'm the runt of the family.

Interview: Luis Clemente
Translation: Estela Latania