At the end of the interview, held on the terrace of a cafeteria in the upper area of Barcelona, one of the clients wants to say hello to Alejandro Fernández. He tells her to go ahead and that he voted for her in the last autonomic elections. “Oh! It was you! ”, jokes, sarcastically, the leader of the Catalan PP, confident that the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the national presidency of the party will give him a second chance to make up for that electoral disaster.
You come from Tarragona.
I always come and go, I'm used to it.
Hasn't the provincial youngster complex suffered?
Not at all. I don't feel like Paco Martínez Soria in The City Isn't for Me.
Yes, but your party seeks the support of the gentlemen of Barcelona... Aren't you an outsider?
The truth is, no.
You are passionate about rock, what are your favorite groups?
There are so many that they would not give for an interview. First sixties and seventies rock (The Velvet Underground, The Doors, Neil Young), then I had a period of sinister British rock (The Cure, The Cult, The Sisters of Mercy), then The Smiths, then I really liked the grungy. I still like it obviously...
And didn't you have a heavy period?
Yes, in adolescence. Between the ages of 14 and 18 he was an absolute fan of Metallica and Judas Priest. Then I started listening to other things. Then you also change the aesthetics.
I mean, the mane...
I was not heavy with long hair. I had medium-long hair, but I didn't get to wear the typical heavy hair...
So there wouldn't be much trauma there...
No, no, no, none (laughs).
And of the groups of now?
Well, I'm starting to worry. I am realizing that I am getting older, because more and more I listen to singers who are already dead, like Mark Lanegan, one of my great idols, who died a year ago.
But some will...
Yes, of course, I really like Queens of the Stone Age, but I admit that sometimes I read the music magazines that I bought when I was young and many of the groups I don't even know who they are anymore.
There are studies that indicate that musical tastes stagnate in the thirties...
Can be. It's hard. But on the trip that we just made as a family we have been three thousand kilometers listening to Los Brincos, because my little daughter likes them a lot. So what a regression.
Where have you been?
In Salamanca, Porto and then Asturias.
That's where your family is from, right?
Yes, every summer we spend a few days on vacation in Asturias.
And what do you do?
Normally my summers were a lot of mountain crossings. But this one, due to my serious knee injury, touched the flatter coastal path.
What landscapes seduce you?
In Asturias, Somiedo and Peña Ubiña, and the Camín Real de la Mesa. In Catalonia, the Montsant and Prades mountains.
What have been your greatest peaks?
My challenges are of moderate difficulty. I have climbed several peaks over two thousand meters. In 2004 I climbed Monte Perdido in the spring. I thought there was no ice and I ended up in a place called La Escupidera, where 50 mountaineers have died. There I got scared. Since then I've been very careful.
What does he look for, and in any case what does he find, in the heights?
I will not say that I have mystical experiences, but it helps me a lot to clear my head.
Returning to music, what do you prefer: to continue as a rock star in Parliament or to open for Feijóo in Congress?
(Laughs). As I demonstrated singing in Parliament, I have always had a rock star vocation. But that is not necessarily transferable to politics.
So, you see yourself following...
No, no, I'm not saying that. You never know what you are going to have to do. But I am very comfortable in Parliament. It's my job and I take it very seriously.
Let's go to the dance. What do you think of the controversy over the Finnish Prime Minister's video?
It has been written about me that I was a great dancer when I was young, which left me stupefied because I was not aware... As for Sanna Marin: on the one hand I am an absolute defender of freedom and privacy, so there is a part of the harassment that he has suffered that causes me rejection, because it is petty. But it must also be said, and she has already taken note of it in a bitter way, that when you assume a public position you have to be clear that you can no longer do them, because the institution and the country you represent are at stake. Not just your own image anymore.
Let's talk about books, what have you read lately?
My favorite novelists are Michel Houellebecq and Don Winslow. But mostly I read essay. Roger Scruton, Anne Applebaum and Michael Ignatieff, with whom I feel identified in many things...
Ignatieff, a Canadian professor and politician, is not exactly a conservative thinker...
Let's see: I wouldn't place it on the left as we understand it here, but on American social liberalism. But it is not his ideology that excites me, but how he writes. He has a wonderful book, which is Fire and Ashes, in which he explains the experience of his failure in politics, considering that he had always been a successful man.
Let's go to the cinema...
I am able to watch the same movie 25 times and I have a huge collection at home. I continually revise classics like those of Howard Hughes and John Ford. And as for the modern ones, I really like David Lynch and Peter Weir.
