What would the Andrés Calamaro of today, aged 61, say to the 37-year-old, the age you were when
Brutal Honesty was published?
“The same thing I would say to any singer: talk less and sing more”.
Andrés Calamaro published
Honestidad brutal
in 1999, an album of 37 songs and two hours and 21 minutes long, an overwhelming and visceral work where the musician, in a state of grace, pours out the anguish of his soul for that broken time.
It was recorded for nine crazy months and in four countries.
It cost the singer a divorce and considerable weight loss.
His scale stayed at 57 kilos.
"Wonderful.
It's nice to buy clothes when you're so skinny.
And he bought it for a million pesetas [we are in 1999, the euro had not yet arrived]”, says the singer today.
Suppliers of psychotropic substances were also part of the album, and not precisely to change a microphone's place.
Hearing stories about the making of
Brutal Honesty
the strange thing is that they all ended up alive.
These days the album is being reissued in a big way
,
just the way this insatiable artist likes it: the original album with 62 additional songs.
It's called
Brutal Honesty.
Extra gross
.
Much has been said about the excess that this work entailed in all areas.
Calamaro himself called it "a battlefield," his
Apocalypse Now,
Francis Ford Coppola's epic 1979 film, and the wild shooting of it.
After 23 years, the Argentine artist has had time to find the meaning of what he was looking for with this excessive recording: manage the mourning for an ended sentimental relationship, experiment intellectually with excess or inflate his own ego?
“We discovered the objective as we went along.
We do not start with a plan or a production design.
We finished a tour, showered with happiness, substances and good company, Lemmy style,
of Motorhead.
I had some verses written in a notebook, we went into my brother's home studio [Javier Calamaro, also a musician] and we recorded for a week.
Then we continue to rent studios, sometimes two at the same time;
between rough hedonism and nine more months of professional recordings.
The ego dissolves with setbacks and LSD.
I have lived seven or eight military dictatorships, with public opinion against, the police, justice and harsh cancellations of the last century.
Ego
is a seedy word that psychiatrists don't even use, a bourgeois cliché."
Andrés Calamaro, who is on tour in Colombia, answers questions by email.
He argues: “I'm terrible at oral interviews if it's not on the radio;
an interview that is printed and read well can be answered in writing”.
Calamaro on April 9, 1999 in Santiago de Compostela, opening for Bob Dylan.
LAVANDEIRA JR (EFE)
One thing is unquestionable in the making of
Brutal Honesty: it
was respectful of the traditional rock and roll lifestyle.
That which the reader imagines with a difference: the objective was not to sleep, to chain nights in the studio, to finish one more letter, to add a keyboard to that chorus, to record version 48 of
Los airplanes
.
“What we did exceeds the imagination of
This Is Spinal Tap
[the famous movie that exaggerates and parodies the world of rock].
Endless days and nights without Las Vegas, recording music without bothering more than the neighbors who, not once, tried to expel me under explicit threats or complaints to the police.
Some of those who were with the musician have said that they feared that one morning he would not wake up… the few days that he slept.
"They exaggerate a bit, I come from a long-lived family," he answers with irony.
And he adds: “We prefer an intense life without depriving ourselves of anything.
Furthermore, in 1999 we were advised by Antonio Escohotado and Baudelaire, nothing could go completely wrong.
We grew up in a rough time to be teenagers, now we want to prolong youth throughout life.
Anyway, I'm pretty moderate.
The excesses were a season of a few years: addicts know that something that can end is not really worrying.
I know my limits, I am a teetotaler and I do not smoke marijuana grown in a bathroom with electric light.
I am a
gourmet
and already was 25 years ago”.
In addition to a few kilos, the singer lost something else during the recording: “I had a divorce that cost me a lot: the money in the bank, the properties and a Mercedes Benz.
Then I paid my expenses out of pocket, how naive.
If I did it again, I would make Warner pay for the parties."
Calamaro had broken up Los Rodríguez in 1996 to go solo.
High Dirt
was published in 1997 and made him one of the great rock stars in Spanish.
It was an album of
only
14 songs, elegant rock with hits like
Loco,
Skinny
or the beautiful
Average Veronica
.
After the
High Dirt
tour, frenzy settled in her life.
He broke up with her partner, Mónica García, and
Brutal Honesty began to take shape.
I love you the same
, The planes, I get lost, It hurts more
or
Those kisses
are songs that speak of sentimental shipwrecks.
The album was printed with this dedication: “For Monica”.
When asked about it today, the artist replies: “Choosing between fifty girls —or a girlfriend of many years— is a distinguished detail: respect for an important relationship and the open door to start over as many times as necessary.
Oblivions also appear as honorable details.
before and after
Brutal Honesty
was in a relationship with a very good—and pretty—woman.
What happened at that time was more of a requiem for a seasonal bachelor, a reverse version of 'Estar de Rodríguez'.
Argentine singer, September 29, 1999.Uly Martín
But in such an arrogant album there are many more themes.
Obsessed with Bob Dylan, the Argentine musician inoculated the Dylanian recitation in themes that radiograph a convulsed Argentina in those times (when not) in the torrential
Clonazepam and circus
or in
Not so Buenos Aires
.
A few days before the release of the album, the possibility arose that Calamaro would be the opening act for Bob Dylan's Spanish tour.
The right key was touched and it happened.
The Argentinian played acoustically some of the songs from
Honestidad brutal
, as well as a composition by the star of the night,
Seven Days
(The song, by the way, is now included on the reissue.)
Rumor has it that Dylan was annoyed that the opening act was performing one of his songs.
Calamaro denies it: “That's a story: I asked him personally and he was delighted.
The tour was rough because my conduct was not the best, but we were almost always punctual, we used their operators, we ate with the musicians.
Dylan is reserved, but he was nice to me.
No one even expected me to say goodbye
. "
During those long months, the musician tightened the rope of loyalty.
The volume of his drama was loud and in that trance it's hard to hear others.
He assumes today that "it is possible" that he would have been fine if someone had put the brakes on him.
New Yorker Joe Blaney, who was in charge of production, can report on the complexity of the recording.
In 2014, the journalist Darío Manrique published the book
Brutal honesty or the flight forward by Andrés Calamaro
.
The author contacted Blaney to talk about the intrahistory of the album.
The producer responded, “I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about that recording.
Creating this album was a horrible experience for me, a nightmare."
Calamaro acknowledges that "it was a bit rough", but that "they are still friends".
“We write to each other frequently.
And it turns out that we worked together again, on the reissue of
High Dirt
and on this one of
Brutal Honesty.”
Manrique tells this newspaper about the bittersweet aftertaste that the book produced in him: “The experience of writing a book with raw material as exciting as
Honestidad brutal
It was wonderful: it's a torrential album, full of good songs with dozens of things to tell.
Then the experience was different... First because Calamaro left the project, even with some hostility, denying that it was a separation album and using the argument that I wanted to get into the pink and gossip side, which was not So.
Calamaro just wanted to talk about the musical aspects (“look how this guitar sounds, we used a Fender blah blah blah”), little about the chaotic and hyper-creative recording process, and nothing at all about the lyrics or the inspiration behind them.
And, lastly, I don't know if it was due to Calamaro's explicit indication or because they thought it was what he would want, the vast majority of those interviewed (his collaborators on the album) were cut off when it came to telling things.
'If I could tell you...
The fascinating thing about this album is that there is no straw, an immense achievement considering that we are talking about almost 40 songs.
The variety of styles and a high lyrical level prevail.
You can hear fierce rock, blues, ballads, delicious pop, funk, reggae, some interesting experimentation, tango, Latin rhythms... The voice conveys truth: you just have to listen to the trembling
Los airplanes.
Even the circus
Maradona
,
with the introduction of the footballer himself, led to the best anthem ever composed for the star.
An album that forms a story with basically a message: we all have to live amicably with our disappointments.
After the grueling period of
Brutal Honesty,
anyone would have taken their next step in moderation.
But we are talking about Calamaro: the following year he would surpass himself with
El salmon,
a quintuple work of 103 songs.
The singer kept singing more and more.