They don’t consider themselves a supergroup, they find it megalomaniac, but looked at one by one we find ourselves in front of a category band, a group of groups with musicians from Love of Lesbian, Sidonie and Egon Soda. Led by Gonçal Planas, a reference in the Catalan Indie scene, Mi Capitán returns to the music scene after six years of silence with Como ladrones sorprendidos, the third album of the rocker combination where alongside Gonçal (vocals and guitar) we find Ferran Pontón (bass), Ricky Lavado (percussion), Dani Ferrer (keyboards), Víctor Valiente (guitar), Ricky Falkner (drums) and Julián Saldarriaga (guitar). Before the presentation concert, tonight at La Tèxtil (10 p.m.) we talk to Gonçal and Julián to find out how they are preparing their premiere.
Are you a band of bands?
Julián: We are friends who have met in the group scene, and Gonçal had always been behind the scenes. With Love of Lesbian he had been a sound technician at the beginning, then tour manager. He had always had songs and actually played with another group, Sanpedro. We all knew he was the most leader of all the musicians we had worked with, because he had the show-off, the ability to stand on stage and invent characters.
As part of this joke, we started staying at a rehearsal place to see each other on Tuesdays, which we named Martes Súbitos. We went in the afternoon, without any aspirations, and we bought wine and whisky, we lived it like a party that included the game of changing our instruments. The bassist played the drums, the guitarist played the bass, the other guitar played the percussion, that was kind of the idea.
This fresh spirit was transmitted in a series of songs, until we made Suave la voz, which caught the attention of Warner and they made us a contract for two records. It’s something that had never happened with Love of lesbians, or with Standstill or Egon Soda, which is that with a song a multinational record company comes and gives you a contract. This is precisely what happened to the group that had the least aspirations.
This without ever touching?
Gonçal: We hadn’t done any concerts, in fact it was after the first performance when we received the proposal. We played six songs which were the ones we had up to that point. We uploaded the video and they called us one day, I remember we were with Love of lesbian on Tour of Scotland, and they said we had 40,000. I get goosebumps remembering it because I thought: is it possible for this to happen to me at 35 years old?
Are you all from Barcelona?
Julián: We all grew up here in Barcelona in some way. Training, military or university, has always been in Barcelona. When you came to do the concerts, where you came to see them, when we started meeting each other at the La claqueta sónica festival. The bands that did not appear on the posters had the possibility to play at some concerts at the Màgic, the Apolo or the Báscula.
Gonçal: The mortal leap of leaving everything and dedicating yourself to music is something you did with people you identified with your eyes. These people, in a way, are the ones you end up having that kind of bond with.
Gonçal is the one who heads the project
Gonçal: I wanted to be a record producer, I loved it and I dedicated myself to being a sound technician because of the relationship with music, because I didn’t have the ability to compose, despite being a guitarist. Already established as a sound technician, I started to recover the thing of producing, and to produce I had to have songs. It was a path that I learned until a moment came when we fed each other in the songs, especially because I had a lot of insecurities when it came to setting up a band.
Julián: We didn’t intend to put our color on what was Mi Capitán, because it was what he wanted, he chose the people who would be part of the group, and he chose the speech and the touch. It’s different from a group where you add colors and that ends up becoming a song. On the other hand, Gonçal was very clear about what kind of font, what kind of message and sound he wanted.
And where does this desire to put yourself at Gonçal’s service come from?
Julián: It has to do with friendship and trust. I don’t think there are groups that apply it easily because within the groups, and I say this from my own experience, there is a lot of ego. What El Gonçal has is respect and a route where there are no stains that make you suspicious. As a technician, as a producer, as a tour manager, as a friend. There are so many links with a track record of so many years that makes his resume very clean.
What is your goal with Como ladrones sorprindidos?
Gonçal: The goal is to exist again, to feel that the group emits a signal and that it has its own discourse, elaborated and with more meaning than ever. I see it as a refoundation after so many years.
They’re all Mi Capitán records, but this is maybe the first one like the ones we wanted to make when we were sharing conversations about what it would be like to have a group together.
Julián: The band has to vindicate itself, it has to fight some obstacles that are the supergroup label. This happens when you take members from other groups, and it’s scary when you read supergroup because we’re not, we’re a self-published group that can sell 250 tickets in their city.
We also have to overcome the obstacle of coming from a circuit that is indie when we actually do rock. Within the rock circuit we are looked at with a certain distance, with a certain meddling, because we come from Indian groups, but I learned to play the guitar by listening to Metallica songs. I came from trash and the hardest rock, that I end up doing pop in my 40s is a trajectory. With Mi Capitán, we’ve been rocking since the first album, a very concrete rock, and that’s one of our aspirations. With this record and the next ones to come, at some point we will have to break this prejudice of the rock scene and also that the indie people see us as not being an indie group.
You define yourself as a rock band
Gonçal: We all agree on a pleasure for aesthetics, be it the Southern Harmony of the Black Crowes, some by generation, and those who don’t, the White Album of the Beatles. Our coincidence of musical tastes is exaggerated. There is a common point of aesthetic understanding that the band carries out in a very honest way, and that is that it is very rock.
Julián: Rock is very grateful, pop has something of a rounded aesthetic where you have to be very careful in how you treat the song. For us, rock from the beginning was the schoolyard, when you went out to throw yourself on your knees, to get your clothes dirty, a game in the rain. And suddenly you say “is this song ready?” because it’s intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus and out. With the Standstills, with the lesbians, with Egon Soda, the architecture of a song is baroque, the turns, the chord changes, the refrains are different, the lyrics are different. A rock song by Mi Capitán is a stone from Stonehenge, it is square and will last for centuries.
Is that what made you follow?
Gonçal: It is what has made us continue after 6 years without publishing. Now it will be 3 years since we played live. Beyond the pandemic, it’s been a long time since we’ve done either, post or play live. We could have folded, and if it had been up to me it probably would have happened. It’s thanks to the band, thanks to Julián and Ferran and the spirit of the group behind it that this didn’t happen and that we released this album.
are you rehearsing
Gonçal: Yes, the album was recorded a year ago, and it’s an album that has to be rehearsed because when you record an album, you don’t record the song as you play it live afterwards.
Julián: They are demanding songs. There are groups that work with clappers, with bases, with hearing aids, with helmets and such. My captain is garage, monitor, amp, this is very well integrated, if not everything is wobbly.
How do you see the future of rock?
Julián: Obviously new songs and new groups must come out, new styles, new mixes, there are those who say that trap is the new punk, a type of opinion that you have to know how to respect or understand, and then respect them . On the other hand, I see that more electric guitars are being sold than ever before in history, and it won’t be for trap. There are indicators that may indicate magma that is moving and has not yet erupted. Maybe within ten years there will be a generation next to Seattle or La Garrotxa that brings out a new rock movement, a new type of electropop or whatever makes everyone drink from the classics.
Gonçal: It is very difficult for rock to disappear because of the power it has. From time to time things come out like the Arctic Monkeys when they do AM, or Queens when they do Songs for the deaf, or the Strokes with This is it.
Julián: I saw Taylor Swift’s concert the other day, and she performs with a rock band.
Gonçal: This has to do with psychedelia, with Tame Impala because rock as a genre is also fed, as happened in the 60s and 70s, by sister genres. The White Stripes did an incredible job, and are much closer to the blues, like the Black Keys. It may never be the storm of the 70s or 80s again, but grunge was already like rock understood in another way. It will never be that glamorous, sexist, whiskered, farloper thing again, maybe it will become sophisticated, to survive, but it will continue to exist and will come back stronger, surely.
