Once upon a time there was a jam...
Genesis and career

Ramón Giménez and Marina (Photo: Silvia Calado)

How was Ojos de Brujo born?

Ramón: The idea of Ojos de Brujo wasn't even to start a band. We got together to do jam sessions in which, without asking where anybody came from, we did what we liked. If there is a common denominator in the group's birth, it is the common admiration for flamenco... without trying to do flamenco. Flamenco is inside us just like many other things. The musical performance Ojos de Brujo does was a representation of those jams and a reflection of the entire group's musical knowledge. In a bulería rhythm, a Cuban plays it his way adding the congas and that creates a curiosity and an anxiety to find points in common. In time, since there were already raw materials of things to tell, when the chance to make a record sprang up, we included what had happened in those five or six previous years.

How do you come together on that same point?

Ramón: We've gotten to know each other through the music... you meet, do jams and that gets recorded.

Marina: And because we were always rolling too. I met them in Formentera, one of the hubs where some things popped up, though it was in Barcelona where everything materialized. It was a round trip. That happens a lot in Barcelona, in the Gothic quarter, where there are Colombians, Cubans, Chileans...in transition and a lot of them are musicians. Our restlessness has gradually brought us together.

Is the group closed or do members come and go?

Marina: There's a set group of six people and three or four who vary, but not because it is set up that way; it just happens that way.

Ramón: I think it's the band's mood, which originated from that restlessness and that curiosity about how the other performs. The way to find that link feeds Ojos de Brujo. There's basic work until the record is made in an initial phase and starting from there, although the presentation of the work on stage had to do with the record's mood, the rhythm of studies, the rhythm of keeping on making tunes no longer completely coincided. We used to go to the live shows and played a whole lot of songs that weren't on the recording anymore. I think it was starting with 'Vengue' that we began to think that it was for real and we decided to go forward with the project with the condition of always being an open band. For example, towards the end of the 'Vengue' tour we met a Chilean, Antonio Restucci. He got on stage one day, we flipped out with him and we got him hooked on the tour. That's what always happens...

	"There's no room for mercenaries in Ojos de Brujo"

Marina: Manu too. He was a kid that used to dance flamenco in the streets, on La Rambla. Where did he come from? He turned out to be Brazilian. He went bowling with us for a few months. We're always renewing ourselves and drawing from the street. We don't seek though.

Ramón: There's no room for mercenaries in Ojos de Brujo. There has to be some affinity, and life takes you there, there's chemistry and it happens.

And it is live that Ojos de Brujo displays its full essence...

Ramón: Live shows are our natural medium.

Marina: Ojos de Brujo live is much more impressive than the records. If you've only heard one record and you go to a life performance, I think you'll flip out because they're two completely different things. We've always seen it that way. In Ojos de Brujo's shows, everybody gets a piece of the pie; nobody's a hog. Each person is important and each one shows his best stuff.

Ramón: The result is the sum of those little pieces.

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