Basically I've planned to declare this week a "
Detergente Líquido Week" and be posting here something about one of my favorite bands on the everyday basis. It didn’t work out. But I also couldn’t let myself sink completely into melancholy and miss the release of the new album "
Si En Verano Estamos Solos". So yesterday I pulled myself together, wrote to
Alberto Rodway (guitar, vocals, songwriting), and asked him a couple of questions (one is a good one, I suppose, while another is kinda silly). I’ve never interviewed anyone before, and that wasn’t the goal this time either. I just wanted to ask Alberto something that no one else would ask him. So, I did it. To
Alberto’s credit, even the silly question he answered very thoroughly.
Q: The question is about your lyrical identity. What changes occurred to it over this long journey between "Todo Es Tan Fantástico..." and "Trambahía," from the boredom of "Now I don’t care about what’s left to come, I’m tired" to the desolation of "in that, parallel to the highway, Trambahía was moving, unperturbed and empty just like me"? Did this persona get more disenchanted over these past years?
A: Well, I wrote “Todo Es Tan Fantástico Cómo El Cartel De Una Farmacia” fourteen years ago. I think up to now, I’ve gone through a personal process that is the same for anyone. You reach a certain age where you start wondering what’s going on with life, with what’s ahead, and if you’re not completely satisfied, you start overthinking what’s happening, what needs to be changed, why yes, and why not. And the way I’ve navigated this path, I believe, is somewhat captured in the songs in Detergente’s albums, which are written chronologically. The process, as I see it, has been something like a vital boredom and exhaustion that led to bewilderment, where I was asking myself a ton of questions - and little by little finding answers and mechanisms that maybe didn’t resolve the issue but at least gave me some peace of mind. And also, very importantly, it’s the process of realizing that things are the way they are and aren’t going to change much, and it’s better to accept that than to fight and get angry about what will never happen. And even though there’s a certain emptiness in life, it seems to me that it’s a feeling we can all experience just by thinking for a moment about the real lack of meaning in our existence. I think only the one who has never stopped to reflect on these things can say he is happy. The rest of us might have moments of happiness, but they’re always surrounded by a sea of disturbance and, above all, the everyday grudge, the vague routine. And I think the main deal at the end of the day, is to be aware of this and do whatever it takes to get through it as best as possible for you, whether it’s to sex, or drugs, or religion, songs, plates of rice with milk, or whatever anyone may choose. More or less, that’s what the mankind has done throughout its entire history.
Q: Oh, it obviously look like huge amount of work - to answer the questions this way. So I start thinking maybe three questions is too much?
A: You may ask whatever you're going to. It's like, just this question is a tough one.
Q: "Resumen Ejecutivo" is the first Detergente Líquido song marked "explicit" on Spotify. Starting to use swear words in a song—what can you tell me about that? Was it like revealing another facet of your persona, or a joke, or something else?
A: The issue with labelling “explicit” isn’t our fault. I don’t think we’ve ramped up the level of swearing in general. We’ve always used swear words because we use them when we talk. We've got a song called “I’d rather be ignorant to knowing if I’m an asshole”, and we also used the word “asshole” in “The Wind Turbines”. And the word “shit” shows up in a bunch of our tracks. We don't write songs for sappy Walt Disney movies. What was happened is that in the past we were always the ones to decide whether a song had explicit language or not, and we always said no because, for me personally, that label is bullshit. If the words are in the dictionary, they can be used. There are no good or bad words. It's only the people who make good or bad interpretations, and they’re the ones who should carry an “explicit” label for themselves. But this particular album was processed by an aggregator, not us, and they decided to put this label on it.
Q: So, Alberto, I've got to tell you that, thanks to my Sporify account is based in India, I already get the access to the album, 4 hours before the rest of Europe, so I'm listening to it right now. For my ear, it sounds way more cohesive than [your previous album] "Contumacia En Primavera", way more "as a whole".
A: This was exactly the idea to make it sound more as a whole. From the mere moment we got these songs we wanted them to be the "tool kit"-type of album, not just another set of songs. When you listen, you may notice those details and small things that are repeated from one song to another and like. Though I think we've kinda stopped halfway. For the next one I've got the idea to make it even more cohesive, haha.
