What kind of show will you offer on Saturday in Faktoria?

I'm going to work solo with the guitar and the voice. I have a wide repertoire, I don't know exactly what I'm going to play, but the songs of all ages have been interpreted differently. I have the album made like this, alone, and I always put some songs in it, because that gives a lot of flexibility.

It will be the first concert after the state of alarm.

Yeah, but I've been playing for some time. I started receiving proposals 11 months ago and at first I was against it, but then I thought better and I started giving concerts in June.

Conditions have changed a great deal. People need to keep their distance and communication becomes different. In any case, it has been a stimulus. At first I had doubts, but once I started I gave some concerts.

People are thirsty and I also need them to act, because if not, it seems that everything takes a different direction.

The truth is that I attach more importance to the Saturday concert, because I have not played in Laudio and Aiaraldea for a long time. It's always a joy to come back.

How has the pandemic affected you? Looks like you're a person who lives looking inwards, has that been an advantage or a problem?

Everyday life has helped me maintain balance and keep my feet firmly anchored in the earth. The need and daily routine help not to lose the roots of family and friends.

Citing his friends. Recently Joseba Sarrionandia has returned from exile, have you been together?

Yes, we've been together and I've seen it very well.

With Joseba you were in Pott, and many of those who were in that project – also Bernardo Atxaga- have already become myths of Basque culture. Did you have that ambition when you started the project?

Hum!.. We had met rather oddly, each with his own thoughts, but we had no pretension. I think, or I'm sorry, I had tremendous luck, because at that time it wasn't easy to find the listener that you needed. In any case, this group has been rooted in some way in the works that have been created in the future individually. It was precisely because we attached great importance to creativity, and that laid a solid foundation.

In my view, in those years we were completely indifferent. We didn't have strategy, we just worked creativity and our gaze, supporting each other, reading and criticizing. As a single musician, I think it's something I have to keep in mind, I had the attention of others for the songs I was doing.

We have retained a great friendship for years and subsequent work has given importance to what was then, otherwise it would have been forgotten.

You had Pott's collective support, but then you've been on your own for almost your entire life. That’s how you’ve published several albums and worked in many corners of the world. Still have a lot to do?

For me, this is a great lesson. I am very clear that I am very fond of music and I always look very high. I've met incredible musicians and you never get to the level you want. It's a lesson you do little by little.

I've done a lot of things, but I have a lot to do. What I have to do is incessant, I'm sorry. It's true that when I started publishing albums, I did it in very harsh conditions, for that kind of song. What was most widespread at that time was the Basque Radical Rock, but I've always felt supported, what my greatest friends were going through in this kind of group and for me was absolutely normal.

My proposal was not for large environments. I've never felt injustice for that. In the environment we were in, my songs weren't for a broad audience. Now it's the other way around, the veteran protects me. This is this world, it has no rules, it's about going to the bottom by pulling the rope and learning more.

It's been a while in London and New York. What got you there?

As I said, I'm very fond of music and I often put myself in the listener's place. We have already mentioned before the changes that have been made by the Basque listeners and that have been great. With regard to language, for example. At that time, when groups like Danba worked, the environment was different. The environment on the street has also changed, and I don't have trouble being there either, as a listener.

Speaking on a label, I was and am, to a large extent, very English-speaking. We're from the rock generation, and I wanted to know what those singers were saying.

I had learned French and now I realize that I knew the French song more than normal, but our generation is very fond of music from England and the United States.

We admired everything and wanted to know what it was. That's why I went to England. I went to America much later. We have been colonized by Anglo-Saxon and American worlds in different films and musical styles, but we were ideologically suspicious of that world.

By chance, I went to New York, and knowing it, I decided I had to go back to New York and spend a lot of time. I was stunned and it wasn't how I believed. I really learned a lot. My admiration, after all, was the reason, to see the musicians I liked.

He asks a couple insidious questions. I've told you before that you're a myth, in a way, and that has its advantages and its drawbacks. How did you play the song Dead Lendakaris Pasta Goggles? I think it's made of love.

And so do I. I didn't know them and I found out about that song because when the album came out, I was called to the presentation. I don't remember why, but I couldn't leave.

I see myself far from myth, but I realize that veteran has those circumstances. I love these things, it has its grace.

I don't know if he was so graceful that Patxi Lopez said he liked your music and that he did karaoke with the song Take care of what you love.

I thought about who was behind that, who was the counselor? I do not think I would say that explicitly. I remember an interview at the beginning of my career, at the Popular Radio in Bilbao. So we heard a lot in Bilbao. I got an interview and the announcer, who is currently still on the radio and has a great name, told me at the exit: "Young, you know, to talk about you from now on, even if it works for you." It's a paradox with which I take these things. Curiosities, I don't think it matters.

Do you have any message for those who will be in Faktoria on Saturday?

Continue with the intention of the factory. That's my message. In these years we have lost very interesting projects for the Basque singers: Plateruena in Durango, Beikozini in Ondarroa,... It is very gratifying that a project of this kind is being launched in Aiaraldea, and that is what the concert wants. I think people will appreciate it as much as I do.