Night owl and epicurean character, composer and singer, at times a poet or prose writer, inveterate soccer and martial arts.
The Mexican Leonel García began the century by entering the lives of thousands of young people together with the Argentine Noel Schajris, with whom he formed the duo Sin Bandera: songs of love and heartbreak on a melodic background that covered them with success, gold and platinum.
In May they released their latest album,
Frequency
.
But the Mexican has paralleled a solo career that he accompanies on the guitar, which will be heard at the end of the month in Madrid and Barcelona.
He is no longer the most handsome of the gang, he says, nor the one who went out to flirt by profession.
At 47, his periscope has turned to home, wife and son, and it shows in his song lyrics.
The warrior has returned home.
And he has realized that there were corners that he did not know.
Ask.
Night sybaritic is said.
Expand.
Response.
If I said so myself, it was a bold day.
Yes, I like the night, I am definitely a night owl, my productive hours are at night and until dawn, I have been like this all my life, it is inheritance, too.
The night makes me feel very vigorous.
It is the silence, the ideas, my space.
P.
And what about sybaritic?
R.
I have learned to live well, eat well, have a good time, enjoyment, friends, family.
I give myself space for this, which is what gives meaning to the work.
In Europe they have more of a culture of joy, vacations, here [in Mexico] we are more infected by the
workaholic
than the Americans.
P.
Doesn't this night thing pass with age?
A.
If you can sleep in the morning, no.
P.
At 47, you say that you almost feel the crisis of 50.
R.
You already feel old age, oh, it's coming.
Aches and pains.
The body begins to show signs of everything you did when you were young, it takes its toll on you: the knee that I broke playing tennis, the digestive system that I destroyed with everything I drank as a child... It is also a reflection of what you feel Maybe you won't have to live anymore.
I am already a father, I am not the young man who was eating the world, there are other priorities that sometimes cause a crisis of identity, of masculinity.
It manifests itself differently to each
Q.
And how do you transfer it to the profession?
A.
My lyrics are being affected by it.
Now they also count my relationship, the details of the home.
The emotion at this age comes from other things, from small rituals, objects, cats.
Change the perspective.
As a young man, success and happiness have other faces, that of audacity and exploits;
then it becomes more personal and intimate, and so my lyrics have become: details, small words, accommodating my career and being with my family.
Don't get sick, go home.
Leonel García Núñez.Mónica González Islas
P.
Looking back at the family when you are 50 years old.
It's not okay.
R.
It's terrible, but yes, you begin to realize that this is the joke, and that the balance between work and home is going to give you harmony.
P.
The pandemic discovered places in the house that he did not even know, he says.
Isn't all this something macho?
A.
It is.
Yes we are.
We are evolving.
As a child they tell you that you are the one who has to go out and work and provide for the house.
Then you learn with your partner what she also wants to do and you have to balance.
Of course it's sexism.
But I love that it is evolving and how we men are confronting what we were taught and this new reality, and seeing how we can balance this without driving us and you crazy and not hating us so much.
Q.
Do you think we hate them a lot?
R.
No, but sometimes yes.
Q.
Do they deserve it?
R.
Yes, sometimes yes, especially historically.
We have to fight against the information that we bring rooted.
Q.
When artists speak, everything is “wonderful”;
the concert, wonderful, the trips, wonderful, the audience, wonderful, is it really all that wonderful?
R.
Yes, it is wonderful, obviously it is not perfect, but the reward you receive is so great that you forgive everything else.
Getting up on a stage and seeing the excitement of the audience, the energy, the feeling of success.
But, obviously, it has its issues, tiredness, there are days when it is exhausting and a challenge to stay in a good mood.
P.
But what sad lyrics and songs do you do… And on top of that you say that you like people to suffer a little.
P.
Yes. And it seems super healthy to me.
More than happiness, the moments of transformation are those of suffering, where one learns.
That pain is change and growth.
I love that people suffer a little to realize where they are stuck.
But I try to ensure that there is dignity in the characters of my songs, it is no longer that old Mexican-style suffering of 'I need you, I can't live without you, I'm going to cut my wrists'.
Q.
Does sad music sell more than happy music?
A.
Right now, no.
Definitely, the general public wants to have fun, they don't want to think about sadness, they want to party, perrear, flirt, meet people, talk about sex.
It's okay.
P.
In parallel to this new music, many groups have their success by appealing to nostalgia, resorting to old songs.
R.
Without a doubt, nostalgia is very powerful, I always have the theory that people listen to music that reminds them of their best moments, which are usually between 15 and 25 years old, and they listen to music from when they were that age.
To me, as a band or as a singer-songwriter, I don't like to live much of that, I know it exists, we can't deny it, we know that, in part, they come to see us for that, but we always think of making them listen to other things, subjecting them to a little suffering, that they have to learn new songs.
P.
Korean and Turkish soap operas triumph.
What music would you put on them?
R.
I think that the manufacture of these telenovelas is better than the previous ones.
They look like movies or series, no longer soap operas.
We can use more contemporary, urban, electronic, R&B music.
This is no longer as cheesy as in the eighties, when we watched soap operas, I put music to some of them.
There is a modernization in Turkish and Korean products, they have to do with students, they can have younger music.
Q.
You really like soccer.
How about a critique of what is happening?: more than 100 people dead in Indonesia, dozens injured with a clean kick in Querétaro.
R.
Soccer is a miniature representation of war, which we men have in our genes.
We ancestrally inherited a matter of me against you, my nation against yours, my neighborhood against yours, it is my tribe and I will defend it to the death.
If you exacerbate those feelings you reach tragedy.
We have to eradicate that, because it is true that one feels the frustrated warrior that he brings, the one that you will never become, because he didn't even touch you to go hunting a rabbit.
But there you have your katana, and you show your cousin the new pistols they invented, even if you're not a fighter.
I like it and I'm attracted to it.
I suppose that all our ancestors had to do it... Soccer represents it, the battle, the passion, a lot of sadness, frustration, social anguish is vented in the stadium, and if there is not the correct security,
nor the correct message and you let two factions face each other, you enter into tribal behavior, it is no longer a human being thinking, we are a tribe and we have to destroy, it is a collective madness.
After attacking someone, in solitude, you will surely go into shock and say, what have I done, but being there you become one more of the horde.
P.
It is being recognized.
R.
Yes, you do recognize yourself, that's why we have to be very careful with the messages we give, keep insisting that it's sport and how much it can resemble art.
Q.
You will not take the katana to the stadium?
A.
Not at all.
The other day I almost cut my finger trying to use one.
I practiced a long time ago, but not anymore, I don't want to break my nose.
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