Juan Carlos Romero. Interview

"My experimentation within flamenco music is
based on a deep knowledge of the roots. There is
no break with the origins. Otherwise it would be
impossible to create any sense of continuity."

Flamenco-world.com

I became interested in music thanks to my father. He was not the greatest of aficionados. I began playing with him at age seven or eight. When I was about ten I had the fortune of meeting Miguel "El Tomate" in Huelva. This man was "Niño Miguel’s" father and Tomatito´s grandfather. I started to take guitar playing seriously with him; he was a great guitar player.

Juan Carlos Romero

I was always a lousy student. The things I liked most were the guitar and the streets. Miguel "El Tomate" was well over seventy when I first met him, and when he died, I began to play the guitar with Manolo Marin, Matilde Coral, El Negro, Paco Toronjo, El "Turronero"... all the people from my area who sang and danced flamenco.

When I was 25 or 26 I met Manolo Sanlucar, with whom I have been working up to little less than a year ago. I was thus introduced to a different world; I learnt a lot, especially about the concepts involved in guitar playing and on how to get more out of the instrument. It was a deeper learning process than just studying falsetas. I also worked with other people; I composed for El Pele, Enrique Morente, Carmen Linares, Luz Casal... With Luz Casal I came to work thanks to a meeting with Tino di Geraldo in Mexico. He heard one of my pieces at the hotel and suggested that it would be good for Luz, so I sent it to Tino.

I wanted to have complete control of everything in this last album, so that it would turn out as I wanted it to; if people like it, great, and if not... I will just have to work on something else.. as they say, don´t give me any advice, I make enough mistakes on my own.

I am not an exibition guitar player with a fabulous technique. I have been interested in other things and know that this is not part of my style. Miguel "El Tomate" used to tell me in his own way - and now I understand what he meant - that you had to play the guitar with your heart, and that if you didn´t, your music would not be worth anything. This is true, I have always been interested in the things that communicate something.

When one takes the guitar one immediately has the temptation of adopting or imitating the other´s style; I have also gone through that phase but, fortunately, not for a long time, and I am happy that none of the things from that period were recorded! That is also one of the reasons for which I didn´t want to record the album earlier, even though I had a chance to, but I felt like I did not have anything to say yet.
I had been thinking for some time about recording on my own, but it was something that I had not even shared with my friends. I received CPS´s proposal when I was recording El Pele´s album. I had not composed all the pieces, but I thought it was about time to do so.

I like many different things about flamenco and I like people who interpret it in very different ways; I like El Agujetas and Enrique Morente, although for some these two are incompatible. I like each one of them for different reasons.

For the flamenco singers who have made their contributions in the album I recorded a reference set of vocals over which they sang, but I had already sent them the songs earlier.

I don´t usually listen to the radio; I don´t like what they play, except some of the classic or flamenco music, although there are some flamenco things which I cannot stand, and I prefer not to mention them. The flamenco world is a small one, and I prefer to say the good things in it and keep the bad ones to myself, but I will not say that something is good when it is not... In private it is different; within the flamenco world the criticism is fierce. It is a very tough scene, almost too tough, to the point that all of those who are stars in the flamenco world are fully deserving and recognized throughout as such; there is not one single bad artist within the elite: Paco de Lucía, Manolo Sanlúcar, Carmen Linares, Enrique Morente.. are all great stars in the flamenco world, where there are no cases such as those which occur with pop music, in which it is easier to seem something you are not and deceive people...

There is never fraud in the music, only in its definition; I cannot agree with some of the things which people call flamenco.

I like Ketama, Pata Negra, but this box into which all of them are put... I like Ketama´s music, but when I listen to Ketama I never think that I am listening to flamenco.

Public-wise the current time is a good one because flamenco gets to more and more people. What I do not like is the affectation of the music; melodies are composed for flamenco singers in which the only flamenco characteristic present is the rhythm, and if they would not be sung by flamenco singers they would be ballads. The lyrics are very bad, there are very few which are worth anything. The flamenco world has its own character not only in its music but also in its lyrics, and when I hear a flamenco singer saying "we made love in the beach" it is something which I quite frankly do not understand... you can expect that from Dyango, not in flamenco, that does not belong in our world, just as some melodies don´t either.

My experimentation within flamenco music is based on a deep knowledge of the roots. There is no break with the origins. Otherwise it would be impossible to create any sense of continuity

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