Israel Fernández saves his fury for the concerts and shows up to the interview clean, wearing a striped suit, a round shirt and two crosses hanging visibly from his neck. He maintains his serious and silent posture as he settles down to calmly answer the questions. What has become the benchmark of the new generation of flamenco singers already has two albums accompanied on guitar by Diego del Morao, Amor i Pura sangre, a duo that this January 18 (9 p.m.) will offer their art at the Gran Liceu Theater within the Millennium Festival.
“I’ve always written, but I didn’t believe it because I didn’t live it”, explains the singer from Toledo about the origin of the two albums. “To write you have to live, whether it’s something from you or a friend or whatever, even a film or a painting, something that has inspiration and that you understand. When I got a little older I started writing and I believed it, in the end you defend your child more than anything else”.
In his songs he tries to embody what he feels and what he lives, “when I start to write and compose, I try to be sincere, and what I can’t defend in words, I sing”, he affirms resoundingly and concisely, always with his family and humility in the mouth. The recent successes have not distanced him from his surroundings or his town, Corral de Almaguer, a Toledo municipality of 5,000 inhabitants where the Flemish community remains united, “but the adults are missing, because life is like that, and we need to play in the street, I don’t see children playing in the street and in my childhood we played a lot”.
At the age of 8 he was already playing by ear, “without anyone giving me a chord”, a gift that came accompanied by a unique voice of which he was aware from a very young age. “Singing can’t be learned, it can be improved but it can’t be learned, that’s why you have to be born”. With these two talents, he manages to dazzle all kinds of audiences by offering himself up in the open at festivals where flamenco had not entered before. “When I’m at a concert and young people come, this is my prize; I want them to enjoy flamenco because it’s incredible music.” It doesn’t matter if they are fans or neophytes, everyone is welcome to his performances, although “if you understand it, much better, you enjoy it more, but this is like the one who eats and does not know how to cook: the important thing is to eat- yes, and thank you”.
Without departing from the flamenco he learned from his elders, Fernández has created records with character and personality, writing from his “update”, he explains, “it’s what I live”. His only rule is to do things “with knowledge, respecting what has been done before with loyalty and truth. Flamenco already has a root, you must respect what has already been done and not destroy it but contribute, restore what is old without breaking the mold”. To achieve this, Fernández contributes his grain of sand as Morente, Camarón or Paco de Lucía did before. “They had the knowledge to do what they did”, he insists.
His love for flamenco, “my life, my heart”, has not prevented the 34-year-old singer from delving into other genres, as when he covers Bye, me fui by Bad Bunny, although he remembers that he has nothing to do with flamenco. “It’s not a stick, the only thing it has is the flamenco sound because it’s who I am, I can’t sound any other way”. Along this path, he has collaborated with Pional as producer of Pura sangre, and with Ralphie Choo, with whom they published the song Platero, a preview of his next album. “When I do things like this it’s because I feel them, in my life, I literally can’t pretend.”
His contribution, accompanied by Diego del Morao – “a genius of this century, just like Farruquito” – has earned him two nominations for the Latin Grammys, which he sees as a blessing. “It means a lot because flamenco, the music, even if it can’t be seen from the outside, is a constant struggle. I don’t want to give a cat for a hare, I’ve never done it because I’ve seen it in my family, who are very humble and noble people, with a lot of truth.” And he remembers the lyrics of Caminos y vereas, a tango that talks about “a very beautiful house / of noble gypsies / in such a beautiful house / that it has a mountain on top of it / and I am visiting because they are simple and noble”. “I have seen so much nobility in my family that, humbly, I cannot be any other way. The material doesn’t matter to me, even though a taste doesn’t make anyone bitter, because since I’ve never had anything and I’ve always been good, I want to leave the music for real and express what I feel without cheating”.
