Long live Sweden: «After the pandemic there is so much hate that it is already boring»

The Viva Sweden quartet has left, not without some bad vibes, the independent label with which they had released their first three albums (they have said that Subterfuge saw them as “a business” and that they felt “overexploited”) to sign with the multinational Sony. There is no longer a debate about whether events like this are one more nail in the coffin of the ‘indie’, because he has been three meters underground for some time. At this point, it is much more interesting to analyze the effects of this phenomenon of absorption that this Friday has germinated ‘El amor de la Clase que sea’, a new work in which the Murcians collaborate with Luz Casal and Dani Fernández (ex of the boy band Auryn), people from the ‘mainstream’, a word that curiously seems to still make sense despite lacking an antagonist. “To begin with, this album is the one that has been made with the most resources and with the longest time in our career, it is the big album that we wanted to do for a long time,” says the singer Rafa Val. «It has been the longest, calmest and most beautiful creative process of all, among other things because to make the songs we went to a rural house in the Sierra de Riópar (Albacete). A beautiful place with a lake, perfect to be with your friends. We set up a small home recording studio, and in three batches the album came out». Having more resources is great, but sometimes it can make everything more complicated than necessary, right? In our case we were so clear about where we wanted to go, so at the moment of starting from scratch we felt total freedom. And also the responsibility to do something properly. From the first moment we stopped thinking about the concept of ‘album’ to focus on the concept of ‘songs’. “The pandemic had given us the best opportunity in a century to be a more empathetic race, and we have done the opposite” The title of the song ‘We haven’t learned anything’ sounds like the post-pandemic moral, doesn’t it? It is one of the clearest readings. The pandemic had given us the most perfect opportunity in a century to be a more empathetic race, to create bonds, to forget about stupid shit, because for the first time we all live the same thing at the same time. And we have done the opposite. There begins to be so much hate that it’s already boring. Politicians do stupid things, the media manipulate reality at will… the pandemic has exacerbated the meanest part of the human being. Dani Fernández seemed like an artist with a profile far removed from yours. This is our contribution to the world of music, showing that we can free ourselves from prejudices. We all think that we have certain artists, until we become interested in what they do, their situation and their circumstances, and we appreciate their music for what it is. We know Dani and we think he’s a great person, and when he entered the studio and started singing, we all thought he was incredible. And record with Luz Casal, what? Well, it is one of the greatest achievements we have achieved as human beings. We will never be sufficiently grateful to Luz for having wanted to enter our world for a little while and leave her signature. It is an incredible thing to collaborate with someone so timeless, who is a reference for so many people. It has been so beautiful that it has been overwhelming. In ‘El Mal’ she sings: ‘We will not be parents, we will not find peace where there is no sale’. How bad are the prospects? Every day it is more difficult to be a father. Firstly, because the society in which we live forces you to become so later and later, and secondly, especially now with everything that is coming our way, on an economic level it is going to be very complicated. And the verse of peace refers to the fact that it is impossible to get things that cannot be bought, regardless of how much money you have. The thing does not look good for the pockets, but his tour already has half a dozen ‘sold out’. It’s an incredible thing, and the album hasn’t even come out yet. There are two full Rivieras and a third for sale well in advance. It’s brutal. MORE INFORMATION news No Roger Waters, unleashed: “The Ukrainian government wants to assassinate me” news If Bono (U2) chooses Madrid to present his memoirs, were there times of economic hardship in its beginnings like those recently recounted by Víctor Cabezuelo, by Rufus T. Firefly, when he revealed that they sometimes charged thirty euros a head at festivals, after years of running? Víctor got into an embolao there (laughs). I am going to speak to you from our personal experience. We have always had the feeling that we received what we generated. In some festivals we have been paid more, and in others less, but we have always considered fair what we were paid. We have always received what we were worth, or what we are supposed to be worth. What I do not see well is that there are musicians who go on stage without charging. This is a job, and there is nothing more undignified than doing your job and not getting paid for it. Aside from this, I don’t want to get too much into that garden. We try to make our band sustainable.