Interview with Juan Delola, guitarist

We hadn’t met, but I have to admit I had a great time interviewing Juan and his buddies, the group called “Delola”.  When you listen to the record “Tan Sólo por Esta Noche”, it evokes nearly forgotten sounds, from Andalusian rock from the end of the seventies, to “El Bicho”, passing through some traditional guitar-playing from this prodigal son of the guitar.  We spoke to them about their record which also has an element of social works.

I don’t know you guys, and I have a feeling not many flamenco fans do either.
I’m Juan Vázquez, the “Delola” comes from my mother, very typical in flamenco…that turned into the name of the group.  I’ve been a flamenco guitarist, although I started out playing electric guitar and drums.  Sort of following in my father’s footsteps, he played drums for rock music.  I’m not from a a flamenco family.  So in Marbella we sang in English, a tribute to Nirvana and all that…there was hardly any place for groups who sang in Spanish.  Then, when I was sixteen, an age when lots of young guys are already making a living thanks to flamenco, I started to play for cante and dance.  I got into flamenco all the way.  I didn’t flirt with it, I became a flamenco guitarist in order to make a living.  And I devoted a lot of time to it, more than to anything else…I made a clean break from rock music.

With Enrique Cortés, a great gypsy maestro, I learned how conventional guitar-playing goes.  All the old stuff, I took it very seriously.  And there’s a tribute to him on the record in the sense that I play tarantos the way he taught me…it’s a kind of oasis within a rock aesthetic, but I want everyone to know that I come from flamenco.

Now I’ve got flamenco on the back burner you could say, my career took me away from that path.  But I spent years in hotels, peñas, the tablao of Ana María in Marbella, in Greece…

So did you get bored with flamenco?
Well, I got very broken in, I was a regular in those places, but I didn’t see myself doing that all my life.  Here in Madrid there are some incredible hot-shots playing and singing in the tablaos, they’ve adapted to this life.  It’s not my thing, I need something else.  And besides, I missed playing rock.  Now I do everything live, and there isn’t so much emphasis on guitar.  My first recording was more flamenco and guitar-oriented, not any more.  Flamencos are made of special stuff, people born into it are a breed apart.

Life is funny…imagine a flamenco musician making a career in Greece…
Yeah, and we had a good time.  We didn’t see TV, we didn’t know what was going on at all.  The Olympics wrecked their economy and things are even worse than they make out on television….and to see your friends bad off now, it’s infuriating.  That was six years ago.

What’s the state of Andalusian rock now?
I’m a great fan of Andalusian rock, and all the people on the record who are from that ambience worked for free, really incredible.  And so humble……El Manglis, Pepe Roca de “Alameda”, Antoñito “Smash”…now all that is forgotten, completely forgotten.  A crying shame.

Well, you can fill the vacuum.
Yes, and associations of the infrastructure support me, because they know I don’t do flamenkito or anything like that.

I also see the influence of “El Bicho”.
I actually play a Godin guitar, it’s an audio concept that doesn’t give any acoustic problems.  They also use it.  I’ve got nothing to hide, yes, I admit that “El Bicho” is an influence.  You can put that in the headline, people tell you they’re not influenced by anyone, that everything is authentic and all they do is make music.  That’s a lie.  Everyone takes things from others.

Camarón himself, he made no secret of it, he took music from Greece, from rock… And yes, I always liked “El Bicho”.  We’ve had some gigs with them, and Miguel was almost going to be on the record, but it didn’t come together.

For rock people, it’s a very flamenco record, and for flamencos, very rock….so I’m not only influenced by “El Bicho”.  I think Daniel Casares and Vicente Amigo are a constant inspiration.  And more so for me, since I’m a guitarist.

I believe you said part of the box-office revenue is going to a charity….
Yes, it’s called Cudeca, they take care of terminal cancer patients.  I met them through a close relative, and everything I can manage, well, it goes to them.

There are some strong guitarists playing with you on the record.
Daniel Casares.  Very special, an artist I consider a true maestro of flamenco guitar, and a friend too, we live very near each other.  Nono García too..

The voice of Juan Granados seems particularly personal.
I met him in the company of Carmen Mota, a dancer from Málaga.  He’s from Jerez and does the styles of a lot of different singers, but he’s especially good doing Manuel Molina whom we both admire.

So it was clear, I told him he had to sing like that on a record of mine as soon as possible.

Who is it that sings to your daughter?
That’s someone very important to me, a singer from Madrid called Sonia Berbel, who’s not her mother, but she’s known my daughter since birth.

How would you define your style?
I do rock fused with flamenco.  It’s the only thing I know and do.  Lots of people do fusion without knowing what they’re playing, with no criteria, just to see what happens.  They stick one thing they don’t know in one place, and something else somewhere else, and they’ve got no idea.  I was playing flamenco in tablao for ten years, and another ten doing rock.  And I don’t leave that territory to stick in funk, Latin, jazz…I just can’t, it’s a question of ethics.

You have people who do a million things, and then it sounds like a fun-fair.  Even though they call it “world music”, it’s a meaningless pastiche, it’s misleading.

I’ve produced flamenco musicians, accompanied singers of all kinds, even oldtimers like Eulalia Romero “La Gallina”, sister of Rafael…what I mean is, I’m not a “flamenkito” who brags about being flamenco.

Look, the word “flamenco” wouldn’t even be appropriate for this record, because I know what flamenco is, and I don’t want the term used frivolously, even though there are some pure forms.

So your evolution is more in the direction of rock…
Yes…I’m de-flamencoizing…and in the future, even more rock.

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