Israel Fernández saves his fury for the concerts and shows up to the interview immaculate, with a striped suit, polka dot shirt and two crosses hanging visibly from his neck. He maintains his serious and silent pose while he settles in to calmly answer the questions of someone who has become the reference of the new batch of flamenco singers with two albums accompanied on guitar by Diego del Morao, Amor and Pura Sangre. A duo that this January 18 (9 p.m.) will offer their art at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as part of the Mil·leni festival. Club Vanguardia members have a 15% discount if they purchase their tickets through the Vanguard Tickets portal.
“I have always written, but I didn't believe it because I didn't live it,” explains the singer from Toledo about the origin of these two albums. “To write you have to live, whether it's yours or a friend's or whatever, even a movie or a painting, something that has inspiration and you understand it. When I got a little older I started writing and I believed it, one defends his son more than people.
In his songs he tries to capture what he feels and what he lives, "when I start writing and composing I try to be sincere and what I cannot defend in words, I sing," he states emphatically and concisely, always with family and humility in mouth. Recent successes have not distanced him from his surroundings or his town, Corral de Almaguer, a municipality of 5,000 inhabitants where the flamenco community remains united, "but the older ones are missing, because that's how life is, and there's no need to play in the street, "I don't see children playing in the street and in my childhood we played a lot."
From his truth, Fernández does not stop remembering his people, without allowing success to separate him from his origins, both for the good and for those bad things that he recounts in “The Third World.” “In my neighborhood, which is where I still live, they are very humble people and sometimes I go with a car, a good car in quotes, and I have a problem entering the neighborhood, so I walk because I feel bad for no reason.” , he relates. “I think everyone has to have a minimum, food and a roof, everyone should have that, whatever they want more they should look for it.”
At the age of 8 he was already playing by ear, “without anyone giving me a chord”, a gift that came accompanied by a unique voice that he was aware of from a very young age. “Singing is not learned, it is improved but it is not learned, for that you have to be born.” With these two talents he manages to dazzle all types of audiences by offering himself bare-chested at festivals where flamenco had not entered. “When I am at a concert and young people come, that is my reward, I want them to enjoy flamenco because it is incredible music.” It doesn't matter if they are amateurs or neophytes, everyone is welcome to their performances although "if you understand it much better, you will enjoy it more, but this is like someone who eats and doesn't know how to cook, the important thing is to eat it well, and be grateful."
Without departing from the flamenco that he learned from his elders, Fernández has created albums with character and personality, writing from his “update”, he explains, “it is what I live”. His only rule is to do things “with knowledge, respecting what has been done before with loyalty and truth. Flamenco already has a root, we must respect what has already been done and not destroy it, but rather contribute, restore what is old without breaking the mold.” To achieve this, Fernández contributes his grain of sand as Morente, Camarón or Paco de Lucía did before. “They had the knowledge to do what they did,” he insists. “A soleá has a meter and some verses, a melody, and within that melody, respecting the chords, a derivation can be made.”
His love for flamenco, “my life, my heart,” has not prevented the 34-year-old singer from delving into other genres, as he has done when he covered Bye, I left by Bad Bunny, although he remembers that it has nothing to do with the flamenco. “It's not a palo, the only thing it has is the flamenco sound because that's what I am, I can't sound any other way.” Along this path he has collaborated with Pional as producer of Pura sangre, and with Ralphie Choo, with whom they have published the song Platero, a preview of his next album. “When I do things like this it's because I feel that, in my life, I literally can't handle the pretentiousness.” The Madrid musician highlights his way of feeling and the speed with which they understood each other. “I like the people who contribute, first the person and then the musician.”
His contribution, accompanied by Diego del Morao – “a genius of this century, just like Farruquito” – has earned him two nominations for the Latin Grammys, which he sees as a blessing. “It means a lot because flamenco, the music, even if it is not seen from the outside, it is a constant struggle. I don't want to take the piss, I've never done it because I've seen it in my family, who are very humble and noble people, with a lot of truth", and remembers the lyrics of Caminos y vereas, a tango that talks about "a very beautiful house / of some noble little gypsies / in their beautiful house / that has a mountain on top / and I go to visit because they are simple and noble. “I have seen so much nobility in my family that, humbly, I cannot be any other way. I don't care about the material, although no one is bitter about a sweet, because since I have never had anything and I have always been well, I want to leave true music and express what I feel without deceiving."
