Raimundo el Canastero, 36, has the epicenter at Athletic Club. What weight does that have in the group?
Julen: This is where the group emerged. In Estella there has always been a great fondness for music. In the gaztetxe there was a music room, so many groups have emerged and we have played a lot in the streets. Estella is of great importance in setting up the group.
Imanol: And also when it comes to making music, right? The references we introduce are quite local. For example, Madero's song is a chorus of what Estella's batukada played.
Julen: Also melodies, and above all jargon.
Mikel: I would say that it is noted in the nature of the group. Estella's people are a little indifferent and the group too. People who laugh at themselves, who may not give importance to the things that are important…
Imanol: And, on the other hand, as for the possibilities offered by Lizarra… Most musicians think there are few possibilities, and I think that in part that is good for music: less and less possibilities, more desire to do things.

And what do you give to Estella?
Imanol: Headlines [everyone laughs]. No, we give fun moments to the people who are close to us, joy at night, when they come out of juerga you can notice that you hear a little different music…
Play: And what we said, because in the lyrics we talk about things about Estella, if you hear a song that talks about your people, it always makes you more graceful. [Mikel] As the black says, we don't give much thought to what we say. We wrote, for example, about going to Berri (Bar de Estella).
Mikel: I was initially insecure or afraid… that the Roma wouldn’t want the Roma to run some who are not. And from the beginning, they've been very happy, they come to all the concerts, they've told us many times to do things together.

It is taking place in recent times: a new music group is created, and within a few days it already has a lot of followers and some associated concerts. It's happened to you. How is that possible?
Julen: Lack of judgment of people [laughing].
Imanol: I think it's because they're cases that we know. Because there will be many groups that have started ten or fifteen years ago and are not so well known. It's simply because you know what you've been made known.

And why are you one of them?
Imanol: Maybe because of our condition. Music occupies an important place, but on the other hand what we did was something different: fifteen people playing the runba and doing what we wanted. We didn't start it.
Mikel: In our culture, when I've heard the runb in the txosnas, he's always been a soloist with the guitar. You're surprised to see our case with dozens of guys, piano, wind and everything. The pandemic also influenced, people wanted to leave the house, the juerga… And our musical style has to do with that.
Julen: And I think that the moment we created the group, there was a great welcome at the state level in this style: C Tangana pulled out El Madrileño, Omar Montes also started…

Fifteen people or fifteen men (except Amets Aznarez)?
Imanol: Yes, fifteen men.

And that?
Imanol: We have talked about it, but it is, we cannot do anything. We tried, he came to try Andrea, but he left Estella and there was the thing. Things are like that, natural. We do not know girls who sing flamenco in the surroundings of Estella or Pamplona and who do well. We haven't tried it, but we don't have the doors closed.
Mikel: After all, it has been a group of friends.

Who do you make music for?
Julen: I think we haven't thought much, right? [laughter]
Imanol. No, nothing...

Do you think people take you more seriously than yourselves?
Imanol: Yes, a lot more.
Mikel: When you did the record, you noticed a lot of things. They said we had taken the samples from a Miles Davis album.
Julen: And that Miles Davis was me playing the trumpet at home. Some super handsome readings, but we haven't thought about it.

Maybe that's going to happen with Chill Mafia, right?
Julen: Ours is not so media, but it is. We make music to have a good time, because we like it, without great pretensions.
Imanol: We can do something with what we have. Today I've made macaroni with minced meat.
Julen: Because I had macaroni and minced meat.
Imanol: But those readings are like Arzak came to say I've made an emulsion, I don't know what.

Do you think this trend is especially in the Basque Country? Find more layers than everything has, look deeper than what it has...
Imanol: Yeah, because we're full of complexes, right? There is also that chauvinism. Some think that “as this has been done in my people will surely have a serious tone.” Or because they want to do “very interesting critical analyses” about youth. If you're old, you don't understand the life of youth as youth understands; it's happening to me as well.
Mikel: And that also makes people want to do things that are different from force, and it's very happy.
Julen: There are so many intellectuals in Euskal Herria, among them, because there is money. If your concerns are from other places in Spain, then…
Imanol: You do not know the musical environments of Murcia or Albacete. Your press doesn't come here; ours is beyond -- well, maybe we're flirting.

What does Murcia paint here?
Imanol: Well, we think our scene is hostile, but we don't know the scenes from other areas. Perhaps in Murcia something very important is being done, but there are not six newspapers to write the analyses of those songs. Or they don't think their groups are the grandest. They're more humble, young people make music, and it's already there. We here give him a special aura… I don’t know, perhaps because historically it has also been a powerful area in terms of music.
Julen: I think this intellectualism of art is more common here than elsewhere, because there is money.

Just because there's money?
Julen: That's just why we don't. And I know what you mean, and I agree with that. What I mean is that culturally here we go one step further, because historically there has been more money.
Mikel: There may be more desire to complain.

I've read you do a runba fusion. Why that and not something else?
Imanol: They bought me a drawer, we already had the guitar and we started with that. I learned Runba's compass in a week and so on.
Julen: By chance, I don't know, if you had been given a guiro instead of a drawer [look at Imanol], we would be making cunbia.
Imanol: I agreed with our way of being. What we share is the way I go out at the party. I don't like to be in a bar listening to the reggaeton, I'd rather be out talking or singing with a guitar.

Do you see that what you do can influence politically?
Imanol: Yes, an extraordinary plenary session can be convened three hours after the song's publication [laughing].

I mean, is this the function of your art? Is it a hammer?
Imanol: I think it has that function, but we don't want to have a hammer. I hope it's more or less than that, but not a hammer [laughing]. More than we do, it can be a way to do; another tool in the toolbox.
Mikel: I believe that we are counting on our reality and within it our political concerns.
Julen: We are in favour of the things that we agree, if it is to raise money, for example…
Imanol: And that as workers, we've done our place. We all have another job, and on weekends, we spend hours on this. When I come at 5:00 in the morning to download everything with Txarro I see myself as a worker, not as a singer.

What happened at the Estella festivities?
Imanol: Estella's txosnas have remained central for 28 years. We have always had admiration for the txosnas, because it has been the txosnas that have been the first to play, on a big stage and with a decent sound equipment. Estella's teams have always had room there and that for us has been impressive. This year they wanted to take them out of there…
Mikel: The aim was for them to disappear, as the move to another place was not viable.
Julen: The excuse has been that the taverns had "unfair" competition and that the barracks were not a good model for boys and girls with the barracks next door.
Imanol: But the mayor may be playing bingo with his son. There are two types of people: those who agree with the txosnas (most of the hotels) and those who are the same. The La Bota rock was not allowed to put barraca [barraca is called txosna in some towns of Nafarroa Garaia], the retirees were taken a grant of 350 euros not to bring Chuchín Ibáñez… And many of those things.
Julen: Throughout the year there have also been many demonstrations with the young man. He has been fined over EUR 20,000, there have been a lot of identifications… The police are also doing repression from all over the world.

And in the midst of all that, a beef.
Imanol: Yes. The parties were going to start and we were seeing that institutionally nobody cared that we ran out of txosnas, not even the press. We met two days before the parties and we did everything in three or four hours.
Mikel: It was a reaction, a form of denunciation of the aggression. I understand that.
Imanol: The following day an extraordinary session was convened. They stayed there for an hour, and no one said the words "freedom of expression." They all condemned the letter.
Julen: They took the UPN version and bought it without asking anything.
Imanol: The singer was arrested and cited to testify. And then all the media cell phone. We were called three and the bassist, we don't declare and so far. We anticipate that the case will take place, and that is, we do not know more.
Mikel: Other than that: there have been people who have not understood the message or the tone of the song. The one who hears a song that says that we have to burn the City Hall and that we really want to burn the City Hall is not crazy. They are other codes, but it seems that some do not remember that they heard The Huajalotes, Scar or Eskorbuto.
Julen: We live in the age of political justice and the culture of beef is not understood.

What influence has all this had on the group?
Imanol: Pretty high. If you see that a colleague is not doing the situation very well, you feel that you have to be there, even if you don't think we're guilty of anything that can be prosecuted. But one day he woke up and he saw ten newspapers talking around us.
Julen: And in Estella, being a town, everything expands faster; you know someone who is a friend of the mayor, the concerns of the family…
Mikel: It has not, however, been an attack on us. It is the modus operandi of UPN, always against the popular movement. It was passed on to Chula Potra, also to the Herriko Taberna of Pamplona… On the other hand, it has united the group and taught us that if we are together it is easier.
Imanol: What we find a flipante is the movie they're riding. And all of this can be because no one in the world of culture has positioned themselves in favor of them. What do they have? Two joteros and a pair of bullfighters? People don't like that.

[A boy hit the ball a window of the square five minutes before. The woman in the window has said she would call the police and the officers have appeared recently.]

Imanol: Well, you see what the priorities are in Estella: a ball in the window and then the municipal police.

You will also have received many messages of support.
Mikel: About.
Julen: Itziar Ituño herself also appeared in the pacifier of the Aste Nagusia of Bilbao in favor of the txosnas of Estella.
Imanol: The most beautiful thing has been that those responsible for the Estella txosnas or the youth of the gaztetxe have approached to thank us and tell them that we got with a song what they did not achieve in two months: a plenary to talk about the txosnas and that the account appeared in the press.
Julen: Most people in the town have also given us their support. For example, my neighbor, who is not politically inclined upon us, left me at my door, on the first day of feasts, a bottle of champagne and some pasta, and a little papelite next to me. “A little bitter taste of this City Hall, stop with you” [in Spanish].