The last time Toni Sánchez Pardines, ‘Panxo’, went on stage was at the Palau Sant Jordi in front of 15,000 spectators who danced, danced and shouted to the rhythm of the most popular Valencian group of the moment.
“I’ve been watching the live video of that concert for a week and a half. It was very special; the atmosphere, the spectacular venue. We had all our people with us, our partners, family and friends. I think after seeing each other two or three months absorbed by the preparation of the concert, they understood the reason for the intensity of the previous days”, recounted the ZOO singer in a relaxed conversation with La Vanguardia.
However, the Barcelona concert cannot be understood without the previous one held by the group in Madrid. “Yes, it was the same repertoire, the same preparation, the same show. Also, it was the first and we were more nervous. In Barcelona we were calmer because we saw that everything we had prepared had turned out well.”
The Wizink concert, explains Panxo, had a “very exotic” component. “In Madrid, no group in the Catalan language had managed to come close to these figures.” ZOO made 8,600 people dance in the capital of Spain. “He had the morbillo of planting the flag in Madrid, if I may use the expression.” In a certain way, he acknowledges, “with those two concerts we hit the ceiling.”
Now, after a brief break of barely two months, they return to the charge before their people, in Valencia and within the framework of the Fallas concerts. The band from Gandia will perform together with La Fúmiga -another of the musical phenomena of the moment- next Saturday, March 11 at Paseo de la Alameda.
What is the key to ZOO’s success and its ability to break those boundaries?
Several factors come together. There is one related to our way of working. We have always sought to act outside of our linguistic domain; We have played in practically all the territories of the Spanish State. In addition, I would also say that our dialectal variety -Valencian- is easier to understand, we may also use more Castilianisms.
Panxo emphasizes the group’s will not to stagnate in the scene of Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, which “sometimes becomes excessively inbred”. This bet of the group has led them “to renounce always being in all the spaces of vindication of the language”. “Maybe it was the easier path. But it would have been a short race because people would have gotten bored with us. We have sought a balance: assuming a certain role as a cultural and musical agent but with limitations, so that ZOO was not always on the billboards of festivals in their own language”.
Apart from all this, some musical reason will explain its meteoric progression.
Well, that’s more subjective. Modestly, I think we did something different at the time by introducing rap with electronics and wind instruments, although I also have to say that Orxata Sound System already did it and there were rap groups in Valencian before we came out. We did not invent anything, but for whatever reason, our proposal was liked more.
Panxo talks again about the importance of context and how its take off coincides with the retirement of the great referents of music in Valencia such as Obrint Pas, La Gossa Sorda, Orxata or Aspencat. Somehow, they took over.
How is this year presented?
As I was saying, in a certain way I think we have reached a ceiling. This will be a year of transition. After two years with many concerts and taking advantage of the fact that we have released new songs, we believe that we can extend the tour for another year. It will be more select, with few dates and very well distributed by festivals throughout the Spanish State. We will go to Andalusia, the Basque Country, Extremadura, Asturias, Galicia, Aragón… there will be 20-25 concerts, less than half of what we have been doing. The idea is to enjoy the group, the coexistence, and savor what we are doing now that we can afford it.
And new album for 2024?
We do not want to set dates or commit ourselves to the public or to anyone. We have been working hard for many years and setting ourselves many challenges and it is exhausting. For 8 years we have been very ambitious, always trying to improve ourselves on a musical and business level. We have always wanted to conquer new territories, that is why the concerts in Madrid and Barcelona have been a click, it is starting to be difficult to overcome certain challenges, and it is time to change a bit the way we live and enjoy the project. We don’t know whether to bet on Europe with all that this entails… I don’t know, we’re going to enjoy ourselves and when we’re done, we’ll sit down and talk about the future.
But he’s not talking about the group stopping.
We are not in that scenario. We will have to stop and do new things, but like ZOO.
The success of this group that sings in Valencian has given new encouragement to a scene that has not always been able to overcome the language barrier or has been able to remove the label of making music in a certain language.
“I have always defended that the label ‘music in Valencian’ is something that should disappear, the label ‘music in Spanish’ does not exist. However, it is true that it entails a way of making music. What happens is that there is a great variety of styles and the scene has been greatly enriched. Hopefully the time will come when we don’t have to use that label because it would mean that ours is a normalized language”.
Despite the difficulties, Panxo does not hesitate and points out that, “compared to 15 or 20 years ago, the scene is becoming richer both musically and culturally; it is curious, because we are in a better moment, despite the fact that at a sociological use of language is in a more unfavorable situation”.