Dabadaba stands are full of fanzines, comics and cassettes from all classes. The Guillotine Festa, the self-publishing meeting of Donostia-San Sebastian, will last until noon on Sunday, June 11, and until evening. People are jumping from table to table. Some, wanting to turn around the drunkenness of the day before, drank a vanilla shake and others, more happy, took the marianito. An unbeatable panorama for the direct of Oki Moki, as the two members of the group have always had a close relationship with the world of self-publishing and even Paula Estévez is one of the organizers of the festival. At 13.30 p.m., they have climbed to the stage after the performance of Fascist Fog in Bilbao, and they have crumbled the album in just over forty minutes, including some new piece. Four days before, these questions were answered by sitting on the terrace in the same room.

You started to give concerts in February, and since then you've played a lot. With what sensations do you walk?

It's been hard for us to find the right sound. We have the batteries recorded on a pedal, and it's very different what you hear on a stage or on a test site. The sound of the first two or three concerts was quite a mess. We wanted to look for that dirty dot, but we went on: the batteries, when amplified, emitted a slightly chaotic sound. So we re-recorded, cleaner, and then more comfortable.

Do you refuse to take a battery?

We don't rule it out. However, we have a practical spirit. In France there are many such groups: two instruments with the voice equipment integrated into the loudspeakers. They adapt to the area, they can touch anywhere there is a plug: in the corner of the door, on one side of the stage, in the corner of the street… that we like.

I have the feeling that the news of Oki Moki has been spreading mainly from mouth to mouth. I mean, you haven't done great promos.

Not especially, but much more than we have done so far in other projects. Doing a Facebook account, uploading photos from time to time… that’s a great promotional job for us. It is true, however, that concerts, interviews and unsearched articles have come to us. We've been bought some songs by Bandcamp from the United States, and that's great. Knowing that there is a person who flips with what you do at the other end of the world is a satisfaction and gives you reason to continue working.

And what feedback have you received from the audience?

In the few concerts we have played we received good feedback. It seems that that duet format of Oki Moki has helped us reach out to people, and that they are songs made in the spirit of summer days. The other day, a sneaker enthusiast told us he had heard the cassette ten times. We heard people we didn't expect. They know what world we're coming from, and that's why they listen to our songs without prejudice.

How do you create songs?

Normally, we first take a melody out and record it with our cellphone. Pulling this fragment, we gradually complete the song, leaving the lyrics to the end. When you're clear what sound to look for or where to play, everything is easier. We have the very defined style, we both know what we want.

Is there no danger of falling into comfort if everything is so bogged down?

If we were a different group, more experimental or more, it could have been negative to have the style so defined. Going out of comfort would enrich us, because every song would be an adventure. It's often very interesting to know where you start to create something and where you end up. On the contrary, this is a good formula for the group concept that we have. In the creation process, we have fewer surprises, but everything is easier. Ours is honest music and without great pretensions.

Beyond music, you notice that affinity. Both are graphic designers, both come from the world of self-management…

Yes, we come from the same world and when we create it we have very similar tastes. That does not mean that we have not had conflicts, but in general we are both calm, easy to carry and flexible.

What have you had conflicts in?

For example, when deciding how much we show up in the video clips. We have always been in that world behind us, organizing concerts, outside the general public, always in the background… and teaching a lot gives us a point of vertigo. Now, however, the tensions have originated in making a video, because one may want to publish without considering the planes of the faces and the other prefers to hide the faces just in case. But everything goes well. Oki Moki is a personal project of both, created at home and recorded at home. We have also made videos between the two, so it is logical that we explain them to each other. The figure of the person goes along with the figure of the group. In addition, for us success is not related to fame, to sales, to money. We relate music to people’s knowledge, to sleeping in homes of strangers… So, it may seem like a greatness, but many times we have felt – (Aritzek) Strange people on a tour of France, for example – that there is still hope in humanity, that not everything is lost: people have taken great care of us. That fills us up, not selling stacks of cassettes, going out in magazines like this, or getting likes on Facebook.

Video clips have great aesthetic consistency. The images marry very well with the music.

In recent years we had left the audiovisuals and we wanted to try them out. They look like very visual songs. We recorded them in the summer and they capture that joyful summer mood. If it had been a darker style inwards, it would be harder to take it to the video. We really like post-punk, we did some songs of that tone at first, but in the end we changed pitch. In the United States, there are many groups that have that taste.

Minor Threat guitars and Cloud Nothings melodies come to my head as you hear them.

Yes, in the United States there are a lot of groups that, despite being from the punk world, have ended up doing something more poetic, a very happy and melodic music. In Euskal Herria, we don't know about that. There are some that make garage pop, but they don't come from the punk world. Here's where pop and punk live in two extremes: if you put a little melody in the punk world, the prejudices of always come out; and instead, pop world groups have always sought success, they've had that commercial air, far from the underground scene. We, on the other hand, came from the gaztetxe environment and wanted to do something melodic and joyful, but keeping that underground attitude. In the area of Florida, there's that spirit: take an acoustic guitar and two snippets of percussion, enter a garage and make some amazing feasts, throwing everyone in the head. We were in a festival like this: wrapped up in nerd people, singing all crazy. And we thought: “More punky than this!” Of course, musically it wasn't the punk male here. Just the opposite. He was much more melodic and joyful, and even though he had political letters, he would spread the joy of living, rather than self-destructive nihilism.

It is true that the attitude to which you refer did not extend much in the vicinity – perhaps you could mention the Jotakie or the M. Why can that be?

In Euskal Herria we went from the morning to the night of the singers of Ez Dok Amairu to RRV. It is true that there are groups, such as Zarama or Hertzainak, who occasionally approached the pope. But it was mostly the nihilistic roll of RIP, Eskorbuto, etc. The one that came in the strongest, and if we talk about stern, the groups that come to mind are like Van Gogh's Ear.

Which groups of your environment feel closest to you?

Musically, nobody. From the postural point of view we can cite the groups that have been at our site: Petra or Rome. Or Bilboko Killerkume. At Getaria’s gaztetxe we always try to schedule musicians who bet a little bit more or less risky, and in Bilbao the two of the Killerkum are organizing concerts along that line. In addition, we got along very well with Vulk and Sofa, among others.

Why did you get the cassette?

Today music is heard through the online platform, the CD has also become obsolete… We start listening to music on the cassette. As a young man, we shared cassettes by mail with unknown people. Later, we created the Kriston Zinak stamp and published small editions of 50-100 copies with recordings of several people who were rehearsing on the premises. In short, cassette is a long-distance analogue format, one of the ways to physically freeze your work forever. It's got that collector's air and it's also cheap.

You have also created the Paulini Records label. With what purpose?

We usually bring to the concerts a small suitcase with fanzines, ribbons, etc. And we want to publish the material that we create from now on with the Paulini Records cap. With today’s resources it’s very easy to be a musician, a videotor, a producer… The world of trap music is the clearest example: people see four Youtube tutorials and are able to make big video clips.

So, are they good times for the Do it yourself movement?

On Sunday [refers to June 11] we organized here the Guillotina Festa in Dabadaba, and we realize that more and more people are encouraged to self-edit fanzines or their music. But, on the other hand, the account also has a fashionable point. Suddenly you find someone who has made a single fanzine asking for help for it. Or people with a very high lifestyle in the world of self-publishing. Or you walk through Kursaal and you see that they've organized a market of that kind. The institutions have also endorsed this tendency to keep small details in the acts… They are good times in terms of resources for Do it yourself, but there is also a tendency to empty the movement of meaning and to keep the superficial.