Sergio Dalma welcomes you with a frank smile that fits with the excitement he gives off when talking about his new album, with the fortunate title of ‘Smile because you’re in the photo’. Only the gray hair denotes the passage of time in this veteran gallant, kind and flirtatious but not at all stuffy, a dandy, as the title of one of the songs in this work where he recovers the style of the 80s filtered by his long experience on stage. We will see him there starting in February, on a tour that starts in Valladolid accompanied by a band that he describes as his family. “The year I don’t have a tour I’m quite unbearable,” he says on the terrace of a Barcelona hotel where he recounts his life, happy to have toured it.
Smile because you’re in the photo, it’s his twenty-second. Does it make you dizzy?
It excites me, especially because I believe that what you are looking for is to evolve, to reinvent yourself. It is the first time that I worked with six producers and the title reflects a lot of what I wanted to say, about the smile, about continuing to be in that space, that little musical niche within a market where there is more and more competition. But I can say that I have already become a classic with the good and the bad, that I see more good things than bad.
He has created a niche of followers, everyone knows what Sergio Dalma is
I try to be faithful to that essence and that style, but knowing that this fortunately loyal audience expects you to surprise them. And that is becoming more and more complicated, but that is the challenge, I have never wanted to stay stagnant, I want to do new things every time, work with new people. The most fun thing about this album has been recovering that style from the 80s, when I was starting out, it’s going back to my beginnings, but working with current people, with young people, it’s amazing.
How did you come up with this idea?
Speaking with Juan Carlos Somoza and the people at Sony, we said, what if we work with new people? I am always very much in favor, apart from the authors, of looking for a new producer, but it is crazy to work with two producers, imagine with six, each one has a different style. Perhaps the voice is what united all these paths, but of course, recovering songs like A star in my garden by Mari Trini with a producer like Paco Salazar, totally current, and then working with producers like Fernando Boyo, Carlos Almazán, very young, or more classic people like Pablo Zebriano, Santos
It is a very vital album, the songs are full of energy.
It came out as a result of the album Alegría, I would say that it is a continuity, for years they have told me ‘all your songs are always so sad’, and I thought it’s true, I’m not sad at all. My albums reflect more and more who I am, and I like that too.
How have you prepared the songs for the album?
As a result of the pandemic, I set up a small studio at home so I could try out the songs with the microphone, with a glass of wine or with my pajamas, because now is the right time for this song. When I receive them I like to knead them and take them to my field and see if it wakes me up, if I feel comfortable. With the album Alegría and this last one I have lived with the songs more than ever. Before I received the song, I went to the studio, I tested it and we recorded it. Not here, I have been living together for longer, and you have the feeling that the songs are more yours because in the end, since you are not the author of the songs, you have to fall in love with that song. When I fall in love with a song it is as if I had written it, it is part of me and then part of the people who steal it from you.
Have you listened to the songs from your early days again?
Yes, we are also preparing the new tour that is starting, and I always do this exercise of listening from the first album to the last. And of course, you listen and think what a different sound. It also emotionally takes you back to that stage, when I was still singing in some room in Barcelona, ??but I was already starting to prepare an album, and it reminds you of that producer, of those beginnings. Each album takes me to a specific time in my life, it is fun to see how you have evolved, and at the same time recover songs that I have not sung in a long time, or update those that are already part of your successes, as I do in Smile because you are in the photo.
“No, you can give up, you have to take flight, you know you can do it”, this is the spirit.
You can’t give up and live off those successes, I have always been a daring and non-conformist guy in that aspect, I want to investigate a little more and work with new people without losing my essence, my style or wanting to attract a new audience. That in the end refreshes your style and refreshes you too.
And is it more tiring to work now than when you were working when you started?
No, the years are heavy but I really enjoy what I do, even with the promotion, I continue to be excited about my work.
Dedicates Madrid-Buenos Aires to the relationship with Latin America.
Especially with Argentina, because it was, along with Mexico, one of the first markets I visited, just like Chile. I spent 15 years without setting foot in Argentina and when I returned I met again with those fans who in some way were still waiting for me. When I received Madrid-Buenos Aires I saw that the story tells a very funny story, because how many hours and hours we wait in the terminals, in the airports, I think it was very Dalma.
What weight does the Latin American continent have for artists who use Spanish?
The markets are becoming more and more united, everything online, social networks, have fueled this closeness. When they say Latin, if it really is because we speak a language that is Spanish I can understand it, but the music that I listened to when I was little is surely very different from what someone from Puerto Rico or Mexico could listen to. With Argentina there has been closer, because there was an Italian and Spanish colony, but obviously we have a very large market and they have always behaved very well with us there.
Have they been better with you in America or here?
Do you know what it is to be able to say that one is a prophet in one’s land? I have always felt very respected, very loved and fortunately we continue to do important tours here. I feel happy when I sing here in my house, being able to sing in your country and that people love you in your house and throughout Spain, makes me very happy.
It also has a deep Italian connection
I had studied Romance, French and Italian philology, what happened was that I had to leave it for music. They gave me a scholarship to study in Siena, but I no longer did it because of my musical career, and I always think how angry I wasn’t able to do it. But I have worked with many Italian producers, I have done many duets with Italian artists and I have always felt very comfortable. In fact, there are months that I live somewhere in Italy, I have always felt very comfortable, I have followed Italian music a lot and that is why a little bit of that tribute from those three albums.
The melodic song is a link between Italy and Spain
Those songs that won San Remo, those great melodies, after 10 days they were here because people consumed them a lot. Look at Laura Pausini, who has received the well-deserved tribute at the Latin Grammys, here she has always been very loved, she has always really liked Italian music. Laura has always felt very comfortable here, and perhaps she is the most Spanish Italian.
Do you listen to reggaeton?
No, I would be lying to you if I said anything else. There have always been new musical movements, and now we have had this reggaeton one. That way of phrasing that he has is not so easy, I don’t want to take away from it, it is a musical trend that has not been so temporary because we have been listening to it for years. But I don’t see myself singing reggaeton, although I don’t like when they put labels on music, in the end there are people who listen to one thing and there are people who listen to the other and we have to respect that.
Dancing together is a classic
Now they play them to close the club, but somehow people continue dancing. Years have passed and I stop singing songs like ‘Bailar Pegados’ and they kill me. I would also be incapable, I still get excited when I sing them because I have updated them so that they sound as current as those on the last album.
Is there a generational connection in your music?
Yes, over all these years I have taken it upon myself to get to know who my audience is, we have grown up together and now they come to you with their children who are also fans, and there are grandparents, parents and children at the same concert, and I like it sing while looking at them. I don’t have a teleprompter for lyrics, because I like to watch people. I have a tablet on hand in case I get lost, but I prefer to look at their faces.
Do you memorize the letters?
I have to do that exercise from memory, although I miss more than a fair shotgun.
And when you forget?
You always have the option of making the audience sing, they have a better memory of the lyrics than I do. Sometimes they talk to me about songs and I say what is this song? I didn’t remember that I had recorded it.