Amaral: “It seems to us a miracle that people keep listening to our music and coming to our concerts”

They are Eva Amaral (Zaragoza, 1972) and Juan Aguirre (San Sebastián, 1965) two genuinely free individuals and an indivisible nucleus for more than 30 years. And they are, above all, by conviction. Because today Amaral continues to play that, to Amaral, what already sounded in the late 90s, in the early 2000sunalterable beyond some timely electronic retouching. Because in the middle of the era of mass production of music, they have taken six years to put their ninth album in the market to chisel each of the 15 songs that make up the double disc Sweet lifethis Friday sees the light. Because, without ambiguity or pretensions, in the middle of that pop sound they reverberate much of the problems and social debates of this time, as happened with all the above. Because the first song of his new work says: «Free as the day I was born / so I have to live / until I die …».

«Absolute freedom, that of the newborn child, is clearly a utopia, but it is the image we want to accompany us. Having creative freedom and all levels is a constant that has accompanied us before even being musicians», Says Eva, sitting in front of Juan, in a cafeteria in Madrid in which she is the group’s first interview to present her new work. She, who has never felt music, still finds three decades later in this art the way to express. «It sounds topical, but for me this is our most personal album. We have hidden less under instrument layers, letters have more emotional nudity. It has a lot to do with uncovering the irrational part, with leaving aside the reason and that things flow, ”says Juan, who, as opposed to his bandmate, felt musician from his earliest childhood.

From that flow, a forged libertarian ode has sprouted in the final part of its last and infinite tour throughout Spain. While they played on weekends, the week became the time to lock themselves to record in the study. “It is not the first time we fall into the self -deception of thinking that we can be turning, composing and recording at the same time,” says Eva. In addition, in this case, the puzzle to fit the 15 songs that make up the album was changing until the end while the concerts continued throughout the national geography. Hence, the publication of the album, also dilated by a family problem in the group, has been extending over time until the start of this 2025. «We would have loved to go faster, but it has not been possible. AND Nor will we let ourselves be dragged by the general anxiety of new, constant things and for totally accelerated times. I suppose that it always attracts the idea of ​​touring and recording at the same time because the album feeds on that direct energy. But what is good for sound is bad for health, ”concludes the vocalist.

Q. The first two themes of the album are ‘free’ and ‘as I am’. Is it a declaration of intentions?

Juan Aguirre. The songs do not talk about the group or of us as musicians, they talk about us as people. The origin of free is the ambition to always live as you were born, but also stupefaction. A few years ago they called us to give us a medal of the Fine Arts and we were quite dumbfounded because we are not sure that we are deserving of something like that. What we have done seems very little, eight albums [con este nueve]if we think about the careers of writers and legendary bands.

Q. They are more than 20 years with a quite considerable success, they have a status of a certain prestige and references within Spanish pop …

EVA AMARAL. The truth is that it is lucky to have this affection of the public. In a world that goes so quickly it is still difficult for me to believe that people continue to come to our concerts and listen to our music. It seems like a miracle. But our audience, since the first times, was very diverse. People of different generations and aesthetic. That may have made people continue to hook our music.

Q. Why have you made this album right now? What has led to the point that Amaral should do this emotional nude?

And We have not done psychoanalysis about this album, we have simply done it. We have not tried to look for a why, we felt the need to reflect on the search for happiness through emotional nudity and everything you find in that path that sometimes you have to face. Not everything is happiness there, there are injustice, pain, cruelty.

Q. What did they want to convey with this album?

JA From the first time you take a guitar you show a kind of personal mismatch with the world around you. Music is a way of trying to fit into the times you live. For our process, it is logical to be playing in incredible places before a bestial audience, there are concerts that have been filled before the presentation of the album. But my intuitive part tells me that we continue to make music to fit into a world where you do not fit since you are 14 or 15 years old. There are people who seek to be famous or popular, we seek to do something that precedes us. We have no interest in becoming famous characters.

And The funny thing is that we think that not fitting in the world is part of the artistic vision. And the most cool is that people connect with that, because everyone feels that it doesn’t fit. But they don’t know how to express it. The canons to which we have to stick and the life objectives are so unrealizable that now almost all we feel that we do not fit in this world. Something fails if you are never enough. As we feel that way, we seek to convey with these songs beauty. I think that right now is the most subversive, dazzle with beauty, make people happy.

JA The same what we have to do is become denialists of the canons of this world if you do not like or do not fit with you.
And Sometimes one feels helpless, some songs talk about that, before the maelstrom of bad news and things that are not well in the world. That is why you have to grab what is right to get what is wrong to unbalance the other way.

“We will not let ourselves be dragged by the general anxiety of new things or for totally accelerated times”

 

Q. Do you consider loving a political band? Because, attending to his repertoire and what has been his career, he has much more political dyes than others to which that qualifier becomes.

JA I do not consider it, what interests me the most with the guitar and when I write is to convey a feeling of beauty. What happens is that when you write a lyrics it is inevitable that your vision of the world sighs. But if we wanted to do sociology, anthropology or politics we would make the leap and we wouldn’t make music. I get up soon in the morning and I play the guitar because I love it, I would stay there. Politics and sociology are transformative entities, music I think is an entity that accompanies you, but it is a thousand light years of being those disciplines.

And We have never worried that our political trends will be shown because we do not militate or be part of any party. It is true that there are people who think that everything is political, is a phrase that is repeated quite often. And maybe it is so, but I have not done that analysis. I do not want to think so coldly in all our actions as a political vision of life, but as something you feel or need to do. Of course, one positions himself, everything we have to say is in our songs, on our albums. Who has heard them can get an idea of ​​how we think and how we see the world. And many times then you position yourself for your actions and for the things you do.

Q. There is an act that has been specially commented on this last year, when Eva showed the breasts on the stage of Sonorama. He generated many supports, but also a lot of hate. How did you live it?

And I have lived it well, but I don’t want to talk about it. I will not do it again, but I think that when I did, I was well done. When we did, rather. Because we all assume it all on stage.

Q. Was it an act agreed within the group?

And I just don’t want to talk more because if it doesn’t seem like it is that I get it in the interviews. It has already happened and that’s it.

That moment ended up, the summer drought of 2023, into national debate fueled by the Social Networks Forum. And the controversy was even greater because of the dimension of who had done so, one of the current Spanish pop-rock referents, poster head of a good part of the festivals indies nationals in the last two years. The two kids that Zaragoza joined when they barely had twenty and did not manage to complete the capacity of the concert halls in their beginnings, today filling large enclosures throughout the country. Of course, without giving up the style that allowed them to take off at the Millennium start. «When you leave your bubble, everything is categorized and you don’t control anything because it depends on people. There you no longer choose almost anything that happens to you, just the things you want to do and those that do not. Everything else is casual, an alignment of planets, ”says Juan. And the composer continues: «When the group began, we weren’t even underground because at that time the underground It was fashionable And we were not part of that fashion. And then when the project grew we saw it with a point of strangeness and distancing ».

There Eva intervenes to point towards its origin, towards the Aragonese, as a germ of that reasoning: “We are from Zaragoza and there we always think that nothing is so much.” But it is also that identity character that has helped place the group where it is today. «Not taking us seriously is something that protected us, it has protected us and protects us. It has helped us not to lose sight of the fact that four days ago we were playing in a huge room and there were only two people. It’s okay to remember when you are in a concert with thousands of people seeing you, ”adds the singer.

“Sometimes one feels helpless at the maelstrom of bad news and things that are not well in the world.”

 

Q. After so many years, to go through the experience of playing for few people in rooms and for large crowds in festivals and palates of sports, what do they feel when you get up to a stage now?

And I get more nervous and sincerely thought I was going to be the other way around. This album speaks precisely of feeling fragile and accepting that fragility. I almost got to the degree of anxiety attack before going on stage. Many times I wonder why I have decided to dedicate myself to this, could I not have looked for something that is less exposed? Then I already go on stage and I realize that they are questions about the scenic panic. When I return to the dressing room after the concert I understand why I expose myself so much, because I enjoy it. And so I am in an eternal loop.

JA I also get nervous just before leaving, but reassures me when I have the guitar and I hear that sounds in my hands.

Q. How does a united group maintain for three decades? Because we have seen a few who have broken along the way.

JA Artistic tension is sometimes violent, but we must differentiate our personal worlds, when we met from young people in Zaragoza, of the group. We can have very different artistic visions, we can discuss and fight. That we do it because we both have very strong convictions and ideas, only that we do not publicly insulted on Twitter as Oasis. But when there is an idea in which we both come together, it is something magical and that, at least to me, does not happen to me with many people.

And When we met and began to make music it was because we had a lot in common and at that time everything was perfect. As the years go by, the thing is complicated and you have to learn to live with those complications. Evolution makes each one take their paths and have to learn to converge.

Again, freedom. Juan and Eva, as an indivisible, but genuinely free core.