Few people have the virtue of always being associated with a smile, a good word, a joke (not always friendly), situations in which Pablo Carbonell always seems to find himself. The veteran and versatile artist, at 60 years of age, continues to be involved in a thousand cultural battles, be it writing, acting or playing with Los Toreros Muertos, his mythical band with which he returns to Catalonia after four years of absence to perform tonight at Sala Sarau from Badalona. Unable to sit still for a moment, Pablo Carbonell attends to La Vanguardia while he walks the dog and passes acquaintances on the street.
You return to Catalonia four years later. What have you been doing all this time?
It's easier to say what I don't do, I write, I do theater, I play and I also walk dogs, right now I'm walking one. I am very excited to return to Catalonia where we are not only going to Badalona, but also to Sant Feliu and Tarragona, a super Catalan weekend. I am also very happy with the formation with which we will tour this year. I have put the usual bassist on guitar and I have added a new bassist, Albert Anguela, along with the drums, with which the forcefulness is going to leave people very freaked out.
Do you have two guitars?
Actually, the bassist has always been a bassist-guitarist, he played the guitar more than making solid bases, he was a hallmark of the group. But yes, we went from a quartet to a quintet, people are going to dance a lot more now.
How does the public receive you?
With us the public really wants to have fun, they know they are going to see a concert that is far from the normal pattern, something that one does not know very well how it will end. We have a very high tendency to spread out, our concerts are anything but formal. We do therapy at every concert, if I don't end up cathartic none of this makes sense. If a concert of the dead Bullfighters isn't crazy, they should give them their money back.
What do people do at your concerts?
They come a lot to flirt, they take advantage of the fact that there are many pretty girls and they go to see if they throw the cane around, that's what usually happens. Los Toreros muertos is like a marriage agency or a separated club. I know you're kidding, but I can count dozens of couples who have come together at one of our concerts.
Does the band also flirt?
No, not the band, we are all happily married and very faithful.
Are you still working with Don't tread on me because I'm wearing flip flops, the fusion known as Bullfighters with Flip Flops?
Yes, we have done three songs already, and this month they record in a studio, they send me the work and I finish it off in Madrid. So far we have published Agüita agropop, Escuela de idiomas inventos and Yo no mi llamo Manuel Sánchez, and now we are going to record Va a faltar hielo, which is the title of the tour that we will start now.
He doesn't stop doing concerts
And when I stop it's to do El crédito by Jordi Galcerán (Friday, April 21 at the López de Ayala theater in Madrid). The theater gives me a lot of life, it excites me, in fact the Dead Bullfighters is theater. But coming out only with your truth and turning a text into life seems fascinating to me. I know that rock'n'roll is something that, at some point, maybe I won't be able to do, but theater I will always be able to.
What do you think of the new satirical groups like Los Punsetes or Ladilla rusa?
I have listened to a song by Ladilla Rusa that I thought was great, but I listen to very little music. My life is so noisy that I only listen to things that give me references like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Seals; I don't listen to new music. I was a very happy child because in 1972 I had already listened to all the Beatles records, and I almost knew them by heart. When I want to remember that time I listen to them again and I am very comfortable, it is my happiness. Actually, my favorite sound is silence. I have the influence of the great Wyoming, when I saw him for the first time I said "I want to do that", but my favorite bands of our time were Total Sinister and Derribos Arias, which were anarchy, total chaos.
As a child you had bullying problems. Has the situation changed?
My parents moved to Huelva, and I ran into a group of macarillas who bitched at me because they were envious of me for how handsome I was, the cross of the handsome! Violence is the language of the mediocre and it must be pursued, people have the right to live in peace, without harassment. Before we kept quiet and the teachers did not intervene, but I want to think that society as a whole rejects this. Before there was more fear, the other day I heard a phrase from Paco León, "too much fear for so little danger", and it is true that usually in these little groups when you attack one of the members the others are scared. Although defending yourself violently is not the answer.
His daughter Mafalda is doing well in the cinema
He has done a small role in Captain Carver. We have precisely changed her school when we saw that something in her grades was not working, not because she was being bullied, but we knew that she was not comfortable there. She is now in a school with another teaching system, based on group work, and she has already done better directly.
If I created a group now, could you call it Dead Bullfighters?
If they didn't let me they would have to put up with it. For our fantastic, ironic and humorous music it was fine, although if we had been a punk band we wouldn't have gotten anywhere. Calling ourselves the Dead Bullfighters is almost an obligation but it gave us problems when we did it, we almost got kicked out of the company. They didn't understand why we gave ourselves a name that was a shot in the foot of our career, but I loved the name. It wasn't politically correct, but neither was our musical proposal.
