The Pamplona band El Columpio Asesino is retiring from music with a farewell tour and reviewing, along with other artists, the biggest hits they have released in their more than two decades of career, one that has been a satisfactory “surprise.”
“We didn’t think we could make a living from music as we have done all these years, doing what we wanted, without commercial conditions, being ourselves,” adds Álbaro Arizaleta (vocals and drums) in an interview given to Europa Press together with Cristina Martínez (voice and guitar).
The artist emphasizes that the renowned group, which is completed by Raúl Arizaleta (guitar), Daniel Ulecia (bass) and Iñigo Sola (trumpet, percussion, synthesizers), “leaves nothing undone” in their career and emphasizes that this year It was the right one to retire because it is better to leave it at a moment of success: “Up here, without starting to fall.”
The idea had already been floating around since the recording of his album ‘Ataque celeste’ (2020), a work that Arizaleta explains “took a lot” to do and, in addition, took a “terrible” blow because it was released shortly before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Covid-19.
The “exhaustion” that the group was already feeling grew in the face of this situation, which made the decision to withdraw “accelerate.” “We felt that we didn’t have any more strength to face the next album, but we were at our best moment of the career,” explains the vocalist about a decision that was finally made with satisfaction for what was achieved.
Although this fatigue to which the band refers is the result of an “accumulation” of many things, the artists point out that, in part, it was influenced by not understanding where the industry and the profession are going. “In the face of this profession I was more romantic,” says Martínez, to regret the operation of some streaming platforms due to the distribution of profits to artists or the imperative of the number of reproductions.
“Before we didn’t think about any of that. Social networks exhaust me and it seems to me that the artist loses a lot of mystery with them. We have lost a lot of magic,” warns the artist.
GIRA ‘DUE TO STEEL’
What has not yet lost its magic has been the live performance on stage, which is why the band made the decision to carry out the ‘Amarga Baja’ tour, with which it has already stopped in Mexico City, Pamplona or Bilbao, it will continue through fifteen Spanish cities and will end up returning to the Navarrese capital at the end of 2023. The tour, with more than twenty dates, consists of at least eight ‘sold out’.
This tour is the “end of a lifetime” for the members of the group and gives attendees the opportunity to physically take their latest work, a vinyl with four songs. Specifically, this includes the new versions of ‘Perlas’, with Pucho by Vetusta Morla; ‘Diamonds’, with Santi Balmes; ‘Babel’, with Fermín Muguruza, and ‘At the back of the sea’, with Amaral.
“Somehow we have indulged ourselves with these reviews,” says Martínez, to defend the singer Eva Amaral from the hate messages she has received on social networks after showing her breast during her last concert at the Sonorama Ribera festival.
“It seems that we are moving forward, but we are going backwards (…). For there to be equality, what else are we going to have to do?”, he laments, words shared by Arizaleta, who defends the “freedom” of each person being able to do “whatever I want on stage.”
In relation to freedom and censorship, questioned for their position regarding the requests of intellectuals and citizens not to screen at the San Sebastián Film Festival the documentary in which Jordi Évole interviews former ETA leader ‘Josu Ternera’, the members of El Columpio Asesino regret that topics like this are still “untouchable” in Spain and consider that the film should be able to be broadcast. “First let it be seen and then let it be judged,” says the vocalist and guitarist.
MORE “COMPLAINMENT” IN THE SONGS
At this point, Arizaleta warns that he misses a message that is “more committed to society” in the music that is most successful today. “They are more naive in that sense,” he points out, adding that he would like to see “the dissatisfaction” and “complaint” regarding “the current times” reflected in more songs.
However, he specifies that if an artist does not have that need, it is better not to do it, and warns that the “most dangerous” thing would be if they were “pushed not to sing” about certain issues, thus leaving an industry in worse conditions that The members of the group consider that, like everything, “it has its dark side.”
“What happens is that many times it seems that in the life of musicians everything is a party or that since you work on what you put all your heart into, it is easy, but it has its reverse side,” highlights the vocalist, who, despite everything , remembers with complete satisfaction the trajectory of the band that in a few months will conclude its career after more than two decades that will remain in history for its alternative hits.