We have been quoted in the roundabout next to the Andoain Marine Mountain Caravans, the coldest day of this year’s winter, with just two degrees under a sun. We wanted to spend the morning in the Garate studies, in addition to doing the interview, to live firsthand Rukula's essay. Jon Agiriano, the guitar of the group, has not been able to explain it, as he is immersed in the end of the cycle work “Image and Sound”, which takes place in the town of Andoain. We have improvised Plan B: we have parked at the entrance of the people and have taken refuge in the Edur bar, which is opposite, for an hour and a half. Then, when they stay to rehearse, the photographer will pick up the moment. On the recorder we hear as much as the voices of our colleagues the builas of the television magazine Ana Rosa and the respiratory noises of the dog Pott. “A video clip of Pirritx, Porrotx eta Marimototots has just been recorded,” explains the Oihan Agirretxe battery. On the other hand, in the current tertulia they will have the presence of the bass player Martxel Arkarazo and the guitarist Aitor Pagola.

Asked about the principle of the Rukula, they have not agreed. “Since the first trial there will be a couple of years,” says one. “A couple? We will have four closer”, another. Arkarazo and Agirretxe remember well the date when the seed was produced. One day, when Agirretxe played the battery with his group of verbenas back then, he found himself in the area of Arkarazo. He looked at Agirretxe and was surprised by an intuition. “I thought I was very good, tu-pa-pa, at the time I thought I would do very well with me, I could give a lot.” In a heat outburst, he decided to take action. From the top watchtower of the battery, Agirretxe noticed that a listener approached him with a paper in his hand. He noticed that the piece of paper had stuck to the battery and started. When the song was over, he was able to read the note: “When you get tired of the verbena, call me.”

“You don’t know what it costs to a drunk to find juerga paper, ballpoint pen and zeal,” Arkarazo jokingly told Agirretxe. The truth is that the headache on Sidra Day relieved him and called him, that they started to come together, and that was the germ of what today has become Rukula.

“I didn’t call him because I was sick of truth,” Agirretxe explains, “but because I wanted to create my own songs.” Aitor Pagola and BEÑAT Irazusta, until then of the Desegin group, joined shortly. Finally, Irazusta decided to travel for a while, and was replaced by Jon Agiriano of the Blaka Team. The first homonymous album was recorded in the Garate studies and a tour was carried out in Madrid, Segovia, Logroño, Mostoles, Durango and la Tosu. Most of the time, Arkarazo had the first idea of the songs. It was clear what I was looking for with Rukula. “In a bunch of rock concerts, I saw people moving their heads up and down, not moving from their place. I wanted to use the power of the battery and the bass so that people could move with us, I wanted to give another joy to the body.”

Destroy musical styles, but that everything was very rhythmic. Instead of doing what is expected of each instrument, mix everything together, so the bass wouldn't give the bass, so the guitar wouldn't give the guitar, but something like a kind of synth. And always look for a dancing touch, but not just a style.” Agirretxe confirmed the theory: “Martxel told me: Are you dancing when you touch the battery? And if the answer was no, then it's not worth it." It seems to all three that all team members are very different from each other, and it is precisely this tension that balances the team. Arkarazo explains: “Aitor is the order, it has things very clear and that gives a lot to the team. But I am a mess. At first we discussed a lot. That can’t be done, Aitor told me often, and I, how can’t it be done?” I replied. Beñat gave him that aggressive punk tone, and now Jon has brought rock chords, pedal sounds, etc.”

Against closed scripts

You often have the feeling that what happens in concerts is predictable. Enter the room, ask for a tragic one, look at the musicians on a screen, up and down the neck, applaud, cry out, ask another, and go home. But Rukula has successfully cracked the reinforced concrete wall between the artist and the audience, as they do not go to the direct ones with a closed script. “In some sections we improvise,” says Arkarazo. “Sometimes I command, other times Oihane can decide to extend another minute, because he’s comfortable. In this way, each direct becomes something different, because we never touch the same way.”

Not only that. The Rukula people ask for a condition whenever they can: hit on the ground, in line with the public. In this way, people are introduced to each other, the roles of the musician and the listener are broken. In this chaos, the concert becomes a party and each party member decides whether to be an active or passive agent. Pagola recalled more or less curious moments: “Once, in a concert, the audience ended between the battery and us (guitars and bass), and us behind, as if we were an audience.”

The team is ready to enter any site. It is enough that there is a plug somewhere so that those of Rukula can touch there. “We arrived, we plugged in the speakers and we know it will be heard well, because everything is well regulated by the sound of the battery,” Agirretxe explained. Remember a related anecdote: “At last year’s Lasarte-Oria Festivities I played Corridor Effect in the great txosna and we later, on a portico of the plaza. But his concert lasted, and then the verbenas started with a group. They started the real ones, and we stopped without knowing where to stick. We were about to suspend the show when we saw another porch around us. We took a cable out of the board and touched it there.”

Rukula is an instrumental group to which lack of voice also helps to adapt to this format. “The voice is a problem if you want to play anywhere, because it forces you to have a monitor,” explains Arkarazo. “In this way you cannot go to the earth.” In any case, at the beginning of their career they intended to include a voice. “My vote was for a voice,” says Pagola. “We didn’t know what kind of voice we wanted. We didn’t want to propose it to anyone.” Arkarazo sees many advantages in the lack of voice. “We have covered the part of the voice with other resources: sometimes the guitar makes the melody, sometimes the bass, we also introduce empty rhythmic fragments, even some screams at intervals... Our wager is very rhythmic. Also, because you don't have letters, you leave everything much freer. Everyone is free to feel with us whatever they want.” According to Agirretxe, having no voice is both an opportunity and a burden. It allows, on the one hand, to make as many readings as it wants, but, on the other hand, obliges the musician to delve into the instrumental parts, to further specify the message to be sent through the instruments.

Instrumental groups have emerged in recent years. In the boats you can see Sofa, Buffalo or Giranice, among others. In Arkarazo’s view, the letters are of “extraordinary” importance. According to him, the fact that Rukula has no letters does not mean that he does not want to transmit anything. “I am very clear about what I want to convey at every moment. We talk a lot when we compose feelings. In part there may be tension, in part anger -- we try to convey those ideas without letters." Pulling them out put the titles of the songs. Many of them are anecdotal, as Agirretxe has explained. “For example, Oilo bus tee [has sung in half a voice]. Before we tried at Martxel's house, at a Usurbil village. They had chickens there, and that song reminded us of the passage of chickens.”

Nomad group

To start with the direct ones, they were not in a hurry. Behind Kant, according to Arkarazo, there is a lot of work that you can't see. “We seem to play very instinctively, but we’ve made a thousand laps to the songs.” Pagola is also there: “It has happened to us, for example, that after two months playing a song, we realize that it is not worth, that it is not right to say what we mean.” “These moments are hard,” adds Arkarazo, “but once you get what you want, the joy is double.” Rukula spends many hours preparing and rehearsing songs. “We are workers,” says Arkarazo, “we make recordings and send them to us, and if we can get together a lot.”

However, they have not had precise routines, as they have never had a fixed test site. From the house of Arkarazo they went to the Gaztetxe of Usurbil. But the need to build houses in that area caused the Gaztetxe to close. They then went to the Garate studios, but when it comes to recording works, they can't act there. They're still looking for a place. “We can’t pay private premises, we don’t have enough to pay 300 euros a month,” says Agirretxe. “Maybe we try that in a month with many concerts we can take a place, but if not ...”. In each trial they have to circulate with the car loaded with guitar, bass and pedals from one side to the other. “We’re a nomadic team,” says Agirretxe, and it’s not just about essays. “Rukula’s life is like this. At the time of creating, live... once we had to go to Baigorri to give a concert on Navarra Day. Aitor left alone, and the other three of us left together very early. We went to Pamplona, trusting that we would arrive earlier. We passed Pamplona, we moved on... and finally we saw the goal at the height of the ends: Bodegas Baigorri. When we called him Aitor, he couldn't believe it. We were in Rioja Alavesa. In the end, we turned and we arrived ten minutes before the concert. It was the first time Jon was playing with us. Flipó.”

In search of a good trial

What they enjoy most is trials and direct trials. Also recording the album, as they understand the moment of recording as a direct. “In this second job, we all enter the same class and look for a good essay,” says Arkarazo. “We made mistakes, but for us the real question was another: Is the song the one that transmits what we want? If yes, it is, we did not touch anything. Mistakes are also part of the song.” Of course, the way it works tends to be ups and downs. Pagola recalled the more or less saline moments of the recording days: “The first day went very well, but in the second we stayed with a song. I went down to eat, I went up again, I changed the strings -- but in vain: I didn't go out. It took us eight hours to record the song.” On the third day, however, the chip was changed, turned positive and three more songs were recorded in the line.

They say they're lost in the promotion of the album, which they're not interested in at all. They have acknowledged that thanks to the friends of the area they manage. Ariadne Aranburu made the cover, as well as two video clips. Or, in the studio, when they were recording the disc, they needed someone to press the Rec button. “It would take about six different people to hit the button,” they laugh. After going through the study, the group is eager to offer concerts and make new songs. This is what Agirretxe says: “We don’t go to the psychologist, we go to rehearse and to concerts. It asks for work, but it complies with us. We are dwarfs, we cannot stand still, and Rukula helps us channel that discomfort into something profitable.”