The singer-songwriter celebrates 20 years of career with a compilation album of collaborations
“What do you want?” In 2001, a very young musician who had barely finished composing his first songs wondered. Twenty years later, he doesn’t know if he could have asked for more. Álex Ubago (1981) celebrates his two decades on the road with an album that collects 18 of his best songs, re-recorded and sung as a duo with 18 collaborators and friends. A “repertoire of singles” that has already put up the sign that there are no tickets for his concert in Madrid and that will arrive on the 25th at his home and in front of his audience at the Victoria Eugenia. But now it’s time to look back.
– Let’s travel to the beginning of everything. Who was Ara?
– Oh! I was quite surprised. Ara is Araceli and she was my first serious girlfriend when we were about 17. The first demo I recorded with five of my own songs was actually a birthday present for Ara. I had written those songs for him and recorded them in my cousin David’s home studio. And then, due to living circumstances, that model came into the hands of Iñigo (Argomaniz) and all this came about.
– Was it easier for you to break that shyness with songs than face-to-face?
– I have never considered myself a shy person, on the contrary, I have always been very open and with a great sense of humor. Perhaps my more timid side was seen when I got into this and put myself in front of the media. He was not used to the spotlight, to journalists, or to press conferences. There I earned that label because it scared me and forced me. I’m a man who doesn’t find it hard to say ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’, but maybe it’s easier for me to say it through music. My most sensitive and sincere side has said a lot more things through the songs than face to face.
– Do you have to think about someone to write a love ballad? Or can you write to the feeling of being in love?
– At the beginning of my career I always thought of someone when I wrote a song, but when I started the profession I was able to write without having someone in my head. In fact, to this day I can write a song about heartbreak even though my love life is very stable and I am happily married. But I find those stories very inspiring. Other times I put myself in a friend’s story, in a movie, or in a past moment of my life.
– We don’t all have a life full of adventures like Dylan or Sabina.
– I heard Sabina say herself that always writing about yourself and the things that happen to you is very boring. It’s more interesting to look around and tell third-party stories in the first person.
– When you think you have given so many couples a soundtrack, but also comforted so much heartbreak, how do you feel? Responsibility?
– I am proud. It is a very nice feeling to know that you accompany many people in moments of loneliness or infatuation. There are couples who tell me that this or that song is the song they met or danced to at their wedding. It also happens to me with a broken heart. I always say that if you have a bad love, listening to Álex Ubago can become a bit masoca (laughs). But when you feel identified, you also feel less alone.
– If it hadn’t been for Ara, I might have been done with business and would now be “biting” Excel in an office. Did you ever have a plan B for music?
– Go find out! Having a plan B is fine, as long as it doesn’t mean you don’t put 100% into plan A. As in all families, the subject of music is seen as an unstable and complicated profession, and I saw it as something unattainable. So I continued my way through university with music as a hobby. But when I started to feel that someone would like what I was doing, I bet on it and my parents supported me.
– Fernando and Antonia were his first audience.
– I have pictures with two years of singing with toy instruments. It’s something I’ve sucked home. My mom sings really well and I actually have a duet with her on the last track on this album.
– Do you remember the first song you wrote?
– Not as much as the first. But from my first album ‘Hay que ver’ and ‘Do you know?’ They are two songs I wrote for Ara in that first demo. Then Iñigo (Argomaniz) told me he wanted me to send him more songs before we could sit down with a record company. And I told him. not have!
– Because it was Argomaniz who encouraged him to take the plunge. However, the decision caused a lot of unrest.
What triggered that fear in me was the decision to drop out of college to bet on music. I was finishing my first year in Business Administration when I realized this wasn’t my thing, but I was very concerned about causing a nuisance at home. I kept that to myself for many months and I had an episode of alopecia areata, which usually occurs when all that stress somatizes. When I finally spoke to my parents to tell them I wanted to drop out of school to start making music and they gave me their approval, I dropped a huge backpack and everything disappeared. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he had already chosen a path.
– Now if you’re doing a ‘flashforward’ to last week’s concert in Madrid, how did you feel when you relived your greatest hits with a ‘sold out’?
– It was a great high, I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t played in Madrid for a long time due to various circumstances and seeing the theater full was magical. People sang from the first to the last song. We’ve been able to enjoy a repertoire that, well, that’s what 20 years gives you. It is a repertoire of singles.
– And how did you choose the 18 songs on the album? Are they your favorites? Your fan favorites? Who dictated by the numbers?
– There are 12 or 13 songs on the album that are not to be missed because they have been the most important singles of my career and they clearly bonded with people. There are also others who are more recent and who weren’t even singles but are very special for personal reasons. It’s a mix of everything.
– You have given these problems a new lease of life.
– We have re-recorded everything, there are some that we have completely changed and a majority that keep the essence of their originals, but with a more current sound. The goal was not to distort them, although we have been a little more daring with some.
– He has not chosen a song from ‘Aviones de cristal’ (2006) and only one from ‘Calle illusion’ (2009). What happened in those years?
– First I made a list of more songs that contained more than one of these two albums, but in the end others won out. It’s not for anything in particular, I liked other people’s songs better.
– And among the artists who work together in the duets, there is everything. From emerging singers to foreigners.
– There are 18 songs and 18 collaborators, some younger like Leo Rizzi and Ainoa Buitrago and others who already have a career like Beret, Álvaro Soler or Nil Moliner. Also friends like La Oreja, Antonio Orozco, Andrés Suárez and ELE, with whom I sang at Chillida Leku last year.
– Is anyone on the Victoria Eugenia on the 25th?
– I will not be with the guests at these first presentations, although Donosti’s would have liked to be on stage with La Oreja, but they are on tour in America. Right now I focus the live shows on the songs, on my band and on me, until all the pieces fit together.
– And after that, where is Álex Ubago going?
– The idea is to keep enjoying music and making songs and albums. When the pandemic broke out, I practically finished an unreleased album that we had to postpone. I have many songs in the drawer waiting to be released and shared. This marks a new phase, a before and after.
– By the way, what happened to Ara?
– I still see him! (laughs). From time to time we meet. She is also married, was a mother and has her family. It is with great pleasure that I keep many beautiful memories of that time and every now and then we drink a cup of coffee. For me, as an artist and as a person, it marked a very special moment in my life.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
