Herald Archives: Spinetta, a living myth

A founding figure of the late-1960s rock nacional movement, Luis Alberto Spinetta (1950–2012) was one of the country’s most influential and revered musicians, a poet and composer who helped shape the sound and spirit of Argentine rock.  Leading groundbreaking bands such as Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, and Spinetta Jade, Spinetta constantly reinvented his music, nurturing from avant-garde literature and poetry, pushing boundaries and elevating local rock to a serious art form. He died of lung cancer in 2012 at the age of 62.  We dived into our archives and came across this interview with him by Ricardo Zabala published on May 14, 1985, only days after his concerts at Luna Park stadium with Spinetta Jade.  The Buenos Aires Herald’s original interview with Luis Alberto Spinetta, May 14, 1985. Original photos by Liliana Servente. Spinetta, a living myth by Ricardo Zabala Luis Alberto Spinetta is 35, but he comes across like that young lad who leapt to fame with the 1960s group Almendra, with the charisma of his unabashed personality and relaxed manner his conversation often punctuated with sharp, fresh humour.  This living myth — although he insists on not being referred to such — talked in an exclusive interview with the Herald of happy moments in the past and good times to come.  He has earned the respect and admiration of a wide sector of Argentine youth and rejects the idea that he is an idol or a myth, saying he does not play for an elite.  He spoke with maturity of the problems facing Argentine youth today: drugs, violence and repression, the punk fad, the development of Argentine popular music over the last ten years and the thrill he still feels whenever he takes the stage for a performance.  Which of all the groups you’ve played with over the years has given you the most satisfaction? Almendra was, of course, very special for all of us who played in that group. For me it was a baptism of fire. It launched me with the only real hit record I’ve ever had, Muchacha ojos de papel (Girl of paper eyes). I gradually became more popular after that and also made a name among fellow musicians and performers. Perhaps what you do at the beginning  is what leads to your true objectives.  Maybe you’re losing some of the thrill of performance I wouldn’t like accepting what you’re saying as fact. Perhaps some people see it when I don’t, but I’d like to say that when you start out you’re helped by the urge of learning what you don’t know. It’s different when you’ve got years of experience behind you and you follow a pattern designed to avoid earlier mistakes. There is no yardstick for emotions. I was excited with Almendra but also with Pescado Rabioso (Furious fish) and Invisible, which was when my son had just been born and I cried as I was performing. And I’m sure I’ll react emotionally to doing my new compositions of Madre en Años Luz (Mother in light years) — Spinetta performed the latter over the weekend. Is your music and poetry elitist? I play for all and if an elite is formed I’’m sorry about that. My music has certain attributes, but if few people like it that’s another matter. It’s all down to the myth that gets created around someone or something. Other groups have even more complicated words than mine. I’m also looked upon as difficult, unreachable, crazy. It’s trueI may be a bit difficult, but the positive side of that is I don’t get mixed up in things I don’t care for or promote myself.” Thank God I’m one of the few rock musicians who earned genuine respect for my work and way of thinking. A lot of kids take that as a parameter to look at themselves.  Has Argentine pop music moved ahead in the last few years? Yes,  I think so. It has evolved with the appearance of good groups with a mass popular following like G.I.T. and Virus, or an exceptional songwriter and singer like (Alejandro) Lerner. And if we take the more Spinettan side of it, Pedro Aznar or Fito Paez fully justify the work of my generation.  What do you think of the punk fashion?  I think it’s a kind of rebellion. We’ve all got punk in us. What’s negative about it is the music. I find it out of tune and lacking in real force, and I also find it forcedly simplistic  when the guys playing it are super complex. I like young people to rebel, therefore I love punk…(laughs all round). If I were a teenager now I’d be a punk, I’d be a real devil. Imagine, simple as I am now, I still do some crazy things. Something that’s always been related to pop music is drugs… Look, privately I think it ought to be a duty to smoke a joint and open one’s mind a bit; I’ve tried it and I know it helps you to discover things dormant in you. But we can’t set ourselves up as apologists for drug taking and there are many different drugs, including TV and politics. I think Argentine youth is so naive about other places in the world and to chase and hassle them ’cause they’re looking for alternative ways of growing up is a terrible mistake. I’m against human destruction, and if I hear of a kid dying at a concert after injecting a drug, I’m going to feel very bad. I feel worse when I see a policeman in action, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun to see a drugged kid lying on the floor. Is rock more violent these days? I think it’s the answer to repression which is always there, even in latent form. Violence in rock is minimal in comparison with violence in football. I really meant hard rock, heavy metal. That’s a new form of rebellion, I think. But I don’t think a kid that likes music is hiding a criminal or a violent type. Heavy metal here is a bit of a myth in any case because we haven’t seen much of it. The more heavy metal becomes neo-Nazi, the more I hate it. Getting back to more personal things, what did recording Only Love Can Sustain in the US mean to you?  It was very important for personal reasons as a composer and because I met a group of superb musicians and the backing of a New York orchestra with violins, horns, harps and Spinetta there in the middle of it all. It was an invaluable experience which I was also able to apply to later work. Tell us about your latest work and Renata Schussheim’s involvement. Renata did the scenography within a very specific framework, to fit the seriousness of Spinetta-Jade. We’re not a fun group, obviously, as one can tell from hearing our music. We don’t need a “talking’’ staging as it were. (It was an excellent scenography of cosmic style and proportions.) Finally… People create myths to serve a purpose in their lives and they’ve simply got to realise that it won’t last, nobody’s does. If that’s the case, then I don’t mind being an idol for some, but not to the extent it becomes a condition for the way I have to be. I’ll keep on going forward, without masks or fancy dress.