Kevin Johansen: “I am in favor of the comfort zone, it is where ideas fall” | Culture

With almost 25 years of career and 10 albums behind him, the Argentine-American musician Kevin Johansen (Fairbanks, Alaska, 60 years old) already has unmistakable characteristics associated with his name: the fusion between Latin American folklore and pop rock, the good vibes that his lyrics give off – not worrying so much about the future, feeling satisfied with what you have – and a soft voice that sings about the condition of belonging to the global South with a certain sarcasm. The son of an American father and an Argentine mother, he arrived in Buenos Aires when he was about 12 years old and returned to North American territory, to New York, in 1990 to start his musical career.

His first performances were at CBGB on the Lower East Side, a legendary temple of punk that saw the birth of bands like The Ramones and Talking Heads. From then on, together with his group The Nada, he dedicated himself to making incredible mixes of rhythms: in one song there can be chords of porteño rumba with pop and in another you can hear the same beat of chacarera with a deep bass of reggae. They fit so much on a disk References to Leonard Cohen and Atahualpa YupanquiWith her mouth always open to give a smile, she answers the questions at Casa América in Madrid, the city where she will sing on Saturday, July 13, at Las Noche del Botánico. The following day, on the 14th, in Pontevedra, and finally on the 23rd, in the capital again, at the Albéniz theater.

Ask. Spain, after Uruguay, was the first country you toured. What does this country mean to you?

Answer. From the very beginning, magical things happened to me in Spain, since I started coming in 2002 with the album The NadaI remember a Spanish couple who was with an Argentinian friend and they said to him in front of me: “You have to listen to this guy’s music.” There is an important connection with the local public and, of course, with the Latin Americans who are scattered around the world, including Spain.

P. At 60, how do you face this stage of your career?

R. With great joy and gratitude. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. Trying to maintain the capacity for surprise, not being back from everything. The last thing I wish for myself and anyone else is to be back. I always try to surprise myself.

P. Do you constantly study music to maintain that capacity for surprise?

R. Not at all. Perhaps I am an intuitive scholar, without any pretensions of lecturing on anything. One learns and understands a lot. In my childhood I listened to folklore from the north and the south, folk from Joan Báez to Violeta Parra, from Cat Stevens to León Gieco or Charly García. In some way, this learning and understanding allows you to accept being open to influences, with the responsibility of putting your own stamp on it.

P. How did you get that baggage of genres and influences?

R. I had the benefit of a very music-loving mother. She wanted me to be a musician because she said I danced to the rhythm of the washing machine. She gave me a lot of classical music when we lived in Alaska: Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev), Verdi, Chopin, Schoenberg, but also Joan Báez, The Beatles. At the same time, there was the boom of Latin American folklore: Chile with Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara, Inti-Illimani or Los Jaivas. Argentina with Mercedes Sosa, Julio Sosa, Gardel. Uruguay with Viglietti, Zitarrosa. All of that was very present. Brazilian music arrived when I arrived in Argentina and began to study a song by Chico Buarque. When you are a guitarist, Brazilian music inevitably comes in, it is one of the great musical imperialisms as I say. Mexico is different, Argentina is the same, but to a lesser extent.

P. His lyrics always invite us not to worry too much. Even in I want better, from his latest album, talks about staying in the comfort zone.

R. I remain faithful to my principles, and if not, as Groucho Marx said, I have others (laughs). It is so fashionable to say “I left my comfort zone, I made a superhuman effort to leave my comfort zone.” I say the opposite, you have to enter the comfort zone. When I am at home with a glass of wine and in my armchair, my children are there and I have a good football match to watch or a good film, and the guitar is nearby, the elves appear, the ideas fall. I am absolutely in favor of the comfort zone and that is what this is about. I want betterof wanting quality of life over quantity.

P. Is it more difficult to find quality of life now than before?

R. I don’t know, but that’s what I’m looking for. Sleeping, dreaming, making love, enjoying the little things in life that are huge, are the ones that give you memories, your children, motivations, expressing ideas, all of that money doesn’t give you. Money gives you comfort to supposedly improve those things, but it doesn’t give it to you if you don’t look for it.

P. So you don’t feel any pressure anymore at this point in your career?

R. I didn’t think of music as a career, but rather as a destination that you’re arriving at and you never quite get there. The great benefit of any creative endeavor, directing, songwriting, is that you can do it until you’re 100 if you make it. The song is ageless and that’s wonderful. A good song is always good, it never gets old. I listen to really old songs all the time, Sinatra, Caetano, and I listen to them as if it were the first time, because there’s always something that catches your attention, it’s timeless.

P. What would you say to Kevin Johansen who, at the age of 26, made the decision to move to New York?

R. I would say to him: “Well, you did well, your recklessness in continuing to insist on music was right.” It all happened in a very intuitive way, by putting into words the ideas that were going through my head. I was separating from my girlfriend, I was sad and the owner of CBGB told me: “Write sad songs, it doesn’t matter.”

P. By singing in English, are you trying to retain that American identity?

R. I don’t think of it like that, it comes naturally to me. English and Spanish are just one language for me. I went to Argentina when I was 11, almost 12, and within a month I was speaking Spanish because my mother had already been hammering me with Spanish so that it wouldn’t be a problem. gringuito. I came from a public school in San Francisco to a school hippie in Buenos Aires. Finding one like this during the dictatorship was extremely rare.

P. Was the culture shock difficult for your father when he moved from the United States to Latin America?

R. My mother had been separated from my father since I was 6 years old. Then, she got married for the second time, she said “for the second time,” to a Mexican. And everything ended very badly with the Mexican. Unfortunately, it was a situation where we left from one day to the next. My mother told me: “Don’t say anything, we’re going to Buenos Aires tomorrow,” and we escaped from a violent relationship she had with her second husband. I remember that I was talking to her brother on the phone and he couldn’t believe that we were returning in the middle of the dictatorship. We arrived on May 24, 1976. It was quite traumatic.

P. What do you remember about the dictatorship?

R. I remember the oasis that was my school, the Escuela del Sol. Even as a teenager, you would walk down the street and be asked for your ID, and as a teenager you have your first dates, your first girlfriend, your first concert, and everything was a risk. Everything was difficult in Buenos Aires in those dark years. The generation before mine suffered a bit, but you could still breathe that thick air.

P. What is your opinion of Milei? How did you feel when she won the elections?

R. I answer you with the bridge of I want better: “There is no more time to make bad blood between us in this hostile world that gives us cramps, let us treat each other gently and better.” I think that the issue of fighting, creating conflicts is so outdated. I hope that he has the intellectual, humanistic capacity to see that we can agree to disagree, that sounds very politically correct, but it sounds almost impossible for politicians today.

P. Are you afraid of the dismantling of public aid funds for culture?

R. They will not succeed. They are not as strong as they think, politicians are not as strong or powerful. Neither are the military. Nor is any force of power strong enough to kill culture, to defeat it. One can lose, but they will not defeat us.