Waiting to connect. The video trick begins on the screen a little later, with the cuffs pressed against each other and a few feet. Then, holding her backpack, there is music —in all senses— Rita Payés (Vilassar de Mar, Barcelona, 24 years old). She does the interview with her second daughter, when she is going to become her mother at only 20 years old, she is not overly premeditated: “I simply knew that I wanted it, or that my life moment demanded it.” This impulse of internal coherence is the material that has inspired De path to path, the singer-songwriter’s first studio album made entirely with original songs: “I wanted to do some personal reflection and jump into the pool with chord songs,” she says. Of road to road vI see the light last Friday, and this Sunday they will take to the stage at the Teatre Grec: “The launch of the album doesn’t excite me that much, I’ve already felt it and I hope you like it, I try not to think about it. I really like it, and I want to touch it and enjoy it,” adds Payés.
Ask. From road to road It is a reflection on his career. Why do you do it?
Answer. I wanted to tell new things with a different story, and the album leaves me with this feeling of change, of continuing to walk and make progress. I didn’t expect to have so many songs and I was thinking, damn, this, from top to bottom, could be an album. The disc is a photograph of my present, but now it is from all these years of musical and vital trajectory, which in the background is the mateix.
P. The professional path has remained stable, without radical changes.
R. The boom is not going to me as an artist. My profile corresponds to the same idea as the album: walking my path like a little frog, with no other pretensions than to enjoy music and play with some of my references out of admiration, not out of ambition. I have been building little by little and, as I have more resources, more experience and more influence, my work is transformed into greater things. But the passion of formiga is maintained, I am studying music, working on it and believing in it from the beginning, I am not going for the big explosions.
P. Have you always been in contact with music?
R. Since I got pregnant. My family is all musicians, I’ve always had a lot of interest, and I quickly realized that it was the one I wanted to do. They will not force me to take this path, but they will pose for me, they will invite me to follow them and they will not cause me any more inconveniences.
P. Has being surrounded by music influenced your style?
R. A mica, yes. My father has always been a big fan of jazz music and I started to get into this genre through him, because his records sounded at home and I’ve been drinking them since I was little. I also think that he will catch me because he gave me more freedom, it is a music that is made from the game. When it comes to composing, I really like music: jazz, bossa nova, which I identify with are musicians that I have been chorusing, sounding good, crossing paths with and listening to. I have stayed. But it is also the result of everything I have studied and of leaning towards making the music and the songs that I feel at every moment, according to how I am and at what time of my life I find myself. They have already sorted this out, but in a year they could be totally different and we’re not talking about 30 here.
P. For five years he has been playing and composing with his mother, Elisabeth Roma, and while doing this interview he is breathing his swam. Is family fundamental in the way we experience music?
R. Being a mother transforms you as a person, everything you can create will be influenced by this, and I am personally trying to live motherhood with a lot of presence and to revel in the influence that this stage can have on me as an artist. With my mother I have always discussed music, she is a classical guitarist, and people think that they are at home all day playing (laughs), but that has not gone beyond the first albums and concerts. Playing together is a relatively new thing, we are beginning to create but keeping our roles: I write the songs and adapt the music to the chord, then I move on to my mother and she does her thing… On this album it is an incredible complement because the music you make sounds like a dream.
I have the feeling that we just lived in a moment when we felt like one with a tribe. There are many of them who are in front of music and each time they contact more referents, who join together and the pilot continues to grow
P. In addition to Elisabeth Roma, she has played with C. Tangana, Jon Batiste and Kiko Veneno, and especially with artists such as Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Silvana Estrada, Maro and Judith Neddermann.
R. I have the feeling that we just lived in a moment when we felt like one with a tribe. There are many who are in front of music and each time they contact more referents, who join together and the pilot continues to grow. We have seen women so oppressed in art that it makes us even more special to live in this moment when all this Germanness flourishes. But they leave us a lot of time so we can do it.
P. Tot and the other critics who talk about “trepitjar”, performances like the opening concert of the Greek Festival of this year, do they believe in germanity or rivalry?
R. I don’t like comparisons, it’s about the opposite: a communion with all these artists. It will be very nice to be performing together celebrating the beauty of others and to see solo singers accompany Sílvia Pérez Cruz. It is very interesting to see in which space each person is placed, exercising a role to which we are not normally accustomed. It’s an impossible phenomenon, but that’s music, it goes much further than egos.
P. In the Catalan music scene, are there more egos or Germans?
R. One thing is the music scene and the other is the music industry. I believe that there is a great deal of germanocracy among artists, but the situation changes when those who do business with music enter the game, seeking to place themselves in this panorama. It is a necessary phenomenon – to negotiate if we want to live like this – but I feel that it is very important to keep our feet on the ground, especially in such a fast-paced era in which information arrives everywhere and comparisons are imminent. It is very cool to remember who we are and that this industry does not diminish us.
We have seen women so oppressed in art that it makes us feel even more special to live in this moment when all this Germanness flourishes.
P. How do feet hook onto the ground?
R. I try to surround myself with what I like, with that group of musicians and artists, the rest doesn’t interest me. I want music to be given to eat and give concerts, and I feel very lucky to be able to live this way and continue on my path. Looking to the future, I only know that I will continue walking, working with a fork, and incorporating the things that are happening. I don’t conceive music in a way that doesn’t follow On the way to the road.
