Educated in the upper area of Barcelona, at the Sant Gregori school, heir to Catalan humanism, Guillem Vilella Falgueras (Barcelona, 49 years old) is called Guille Milkyway because he was always in the clouds.
He has lived in Sant Cugat del Vallès for 25 years.
We arrived to interview him and the studio was flooded.
He has keyboards stacked like in a store.
He also has a tidy collection of vinyl, almost all instrumental: records from the first half of the seventies, psychedelia from the late sixties or library music, “the kind they use for news openings,” he says.
And he adds: “It is not exclusive, but it is much cheaper.”
He makes himself known in the lyrics of his songs, mixing melancholy with euphoria.
“I went bald when I was 20 years old.
I have that advantage.
Today they tell me: Guille, man, you are the same.
When faced with a bald person, people only see the bald head.
Of course, that doesn't change."
What did change was his life.
At 32 years old he dared to be the composer, singer and producer that he dreamed of being while he made a living selling chocolate (Nestlé) in Andalusia.
He did not want a life of competition and unscrupulousness.
“It's our world, but I wanted to decide who I want to be with and who I don't want to be with.
It's exceptional to dedicate yourself to your vocation, but, for that matter, I want to do it my way.
The more that is left in your hand, the closer you get, I think, to happiness.”
Happiness appears a lot in his lyrics.
What is it?
It's like a self-help book, right?
Enjoy what you do.
Do it how you want, not thinking about whether you will like it.
It bothers me to know that I am slow, compared to the speed of the music industry.
And what do they achieve quickly?
Efficiency, more dough and, probably, better results.
I do not defend my artisan production as more authentic.
I defend that it makes me happy.
Are you hesitant because you could have more money or success in the industry?
No. I hesitate because it might sound better.
Since when do you know what you want?
As a child I dreamed of having control of my decisions.
And with dedicating myself to music.
What music did you like?
I arrived recording sounds over songs on a double deck boombox.
But my approach was 100% free.
I went to the stores and listened to Julio Iglesias, Celia Cruz, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols or the Electric Light Orchestra.
Nobody taught me anything.
Not even his family?
Nobody said: “This is good music!”
My mother loved French singer-songwriters and Perales.
Autumn time
I know by heart.
He is the son of a pharmacist.
He did little because he took care of us.
My father had a career in a company, Parera, that manufactured perfumes for supermarkets.
He defended that selling a perfume is selling illusion.
And that the illusion could not only be within the reach of a few.
He was proud to sell Varon Dandy.
I think I have received an education that consists of being able to be self-sufficient, have judgment and not judge anyone.
Gold.
Yes. One boring thing about bourgeois environments is that everyone apparently already knows everything.
They have an opinion about things and people.
It's like a religion: here are the answers, I don't have to worry anymore.
My parents have never been like that.
That's why I don't feel identified with some of the clichés about people who have been lucky enough to have their basic needs covered.
I tell my children: the reason for the welfare state is that everyone can grow up with equal opportunities helping those most in need.
How did you get started?
My favorite radio show was
Passion Flower
.
Juan de Pablos had an emotional way of talking about music.
I brought him my model.
And it was the first one that rang the next day: one of the most important moments of my life.
He chose a record company that hasn't put pressure on him.
Elefant Records released the first
single
from Los Planetas.
Luis Calvo, its director, founded the Benicàssim International Festival.
They start from a maxim: if I am interested in a group, I am interested in it developing artistically as I want.
I don't romanticize risk.
I'm not brave.
But trying to sell in Andalusia as a somewhat obtuse Catalan was good for me to get rid of my introversion.
Is shy?
A lot.
Today less.
I have met almost all my friends at the bar drinking coffee.
I made the effort to leave the cave because I saw that working alone for many hours grinding my head made me insecure.
A detail of Guille Milkyway's record collection in Sant Cugat (Barcelona), where he has lived for 25 years.Anna Huix
His songs are his diary: “The happiest moment is when late, in bed, you hug me and say you want to stay forever and ever.”
Well…, I am a customist in the emotional narration of my life.
I try to avoid metaphors.
I love musicians like Serrat or Divine Comedy, who write stories about others in the third person, perhaps expressing something of their own.
I would love to know how to do it, but I think of myself more that way.
“You are going to allow me to safeguard my happiness, / to continue on my path.”
Is love failure a musical engine?
It has been all my life.
It is no coincidence that most music is made by self-destructive men and women.
In music it's cool to be self-destructive.
It's disgusting.
How does one become “an emotional roller coaster” coming from the privileged world that counted?
It doesn't come from the environment or what you have.
She's in the head, right?
I have worked on discipline to not let myself get carried away by a life other than the orderly one.
Talk about my.
I do not defend that it is the formula for happiness.
I built my musical career on two pillars: non-prejudice, which implies not judging anything, neither myself nor others.
And in non-containment, which was a decision for La Casa Azul.
I dedicated myself to this alone because by working as a team we put brakes on ourselves.
I don't want to hold back.
Do you know this tantric sex thing?
Well no!
Free rein.
I want to reach the end.
Music that allows listening pleasure connects with commercial music.
In factories, from Motown to Velvet, they wanted to make a formula that would be a treat for people.
Don't we like to eat something tasty?
Why do we have to add any problems?
I like experimental music, but in what I do, I allow myself to be close.
I enjoy intellectualized debate around art, but that is not art.
Art makes you feel.
There are no fucking tears.
Rock was king.
Then the experimentation.
He assures that dogma is beginning to be outside of music.
I see that generation Z, post-millennial, has less musical prejudices.
Having them is inherent to being human.
The music they associate with their adolescence is what they think is the best.
Be it disco, punk from the late seventies, hip hop or
gangsta rap
from the nineties.
There are always people who say: “This was really good music and not the shit of today.”
When you are criticized, you see everyone who was misunderstood in the beginning and you feel the good company.
“Even if they fire 20 bullets at me, and my head bursts open, / even if beauty runs out, / even if we are going to die (…) I promise not to forget that your light illuminated me when fear obscured me…”.
Who was he promising?
To my partner, Silvia Sanz, the mother of my children.
She had a group and recorded at Elefant Records.
And... I don't know if I've ever told you, but I bought her single.
I fell in love with how she sang.
I thought: can you imagine waking up every day listening to this?
With her he composed 'Yo also', which won the Goya.
She sings it at the end of the movie.
Today he runs a psychopedagogy center.
He is an ideological person.
He goes out of his way to change things.
She says that when she is old she will make a record.
But you fell in love with his voice.
Then you fall in love with the human being.
I have pure admiration for her.
She has everything I lack in her.
She faces things and changes them.
One day I came home miserable.
I let go of everything.
Then I asked her how she was doing.
“There is a child who is a case of abuse.”
She was coming from an interview with her father.
Then I saw it: she has to make the world change for that child.
And I complain that the bass was recorded poorly.
He defends routine and writes about exploiting: “Too much time without losing your mind, / too much ice, too much anesthesia.”
I want to see if I am able to avoid boredom in everyday life.
What leads you to be well is not rational.
There is an interview with Brian Wilson—of The Beach Boys—in which they ask him what he means by his magnum opuses.
And he answers: “I wanted to talk about the sunrise.”
The interviewer insists: “His music is more than that.”
And he answers: “I made the song because I couldn't explain it.”
Is that.
What will last?
The work, neither the interpretation nor the life.
I'm not talking about cancellation.
It is one thing for you to say that you do not want to financially support what violates your moral principles.
But what if the song, or the movie, has already made you cry?
Will you stop feeling?
Its name, The Blue House, is it a mask?
I wanted to make music without exposing myself, create a character by separating work and author.
I came up with a group of cartoons.
But of course, in the live shows I came out and…, and what is this fucking bald guy doing here?
Where is that happy world?
Since 2017 we have had a live proposal that conveys something similar to what I want to say.
But studio and live performances are different disciplines.
Guille Milkyway.Anna Huix
That changes?
The studio is the cinema: you can edit.
Not live, no.
I would make people sit in a room and listen to your album.
It's as if you told Isabel Coixet that she's going to do something different every night with her new film.
There is a hormonal explosion in his music.
'What it feels like to be so young' is an anthem.
Punk... is
teenager,
similar to what reggaeton is today: something generational that breaks with what came before and implies that the generation that precedes it does not understand it because if it is understood it will no longer play the role it has to play.
The tension between
establishment
and counterculture occurs because the
establishment
always wants to appropriate the counterculture and eat something that it began by rejecting.
When the
underground
becomes
mainstream,
another counterculture appears.
It is always like this: rejection and assimilation.
Is there anyone free to give their opinion on music?
In 2017 I was teaching at the
Operación Triunfo Academy.
My environment said: “They don't know anything, let's see if you teach them.”
The majority had a lot of judgment, which does not mean having knowledge.
Did Nina Simone or Aretha Franklin have much musical training?
Is it the knowledge of music that defines artistic talent?
It gives you tools, but having read a library does not make you a great writer.
What makes a great singer?
The risk.
The elf, the spark they call it.
In 2008 they put on
Save Eurovision
and Rodolfo Chikilicuatre goes.
I entered because I love Eurovision.
But I panicked.
She had a fever of 39 during the performance.
We were favorites and… I was naive.
But… I met Raffaella Carrá.
Chikilicuatre was a bet by a strong communication group, a great
show
.
We are not talking about the values of Spanish society.
And, furthermore, I liked David Fernández—the actor—super well.
Is applause a drug?
It is gratifying to see people happy.
But... if we do something to be liked... Art, no matter how minor, is done for you.
Does it have to be true?
That speech is dangerous.
From the formula, when there is no truth, exciting things also come out.
The entire Motown label, the Supremes… Or Abraham Mateo with Ana Mena [starts singing 'I want to tell you'].
I want to believe in authenticity, but I hesitate because I have cried over songs created by machinery.
Surely you have been excited by things in which artificial intelligence has participated.
It is not new.
Wonders of music history were created in the Brill Building in New York.
In the sixties it was organized like an assembly line.
And gems like Carole King or Glenn Miller came out.
Do your children like your music?
Well..., they like it tenderly, especially Nico, the eldest.
At 14, she sees that it makes me happy to dedicate myself to what I like.
Has music saved you?
In terrible moments.
Can I ask which ones?
Don't people with children live through terrible times?
I have never taken drugs.
Drink more than they should.
But I have had depression although I don't like to expose myself.
“No more Myolastan, / no more doxylamine…”.
That song is funny and I couldn't get out of bed.
Hypochondria expresses itself in many ways.
Bottoms out.
Also in the relationship with my partner.
It was complicated.
In two years I was cured.
Although one does not cure phobias.
“You, who decided that your life was worthless, / who leaned toward always feeling bad…”
It's my form of anticipatory anxiety that leads to depression.
There are people who have it backwards: the glorious past that will not return.
I feel that all the catastrophes are going to befall us.
On a global, personal level…
"I'd rather not talk.
/ I prefer not to disturb.
/ I prefer not to criticize…”
To avoid the problem I don't face it.
I don't judge, but he fled.
I don't want to sell my soul.
Don't bother.
Of course there have been quarters in which I have not made ends meet and I have had to request credits.
But I have tried to take responsibility for my happiness.
In the lyrics it goes from vulnerability to arrogance.
You might think that because I quit some jobs.
In the fall [on October 11] we played at WiZink… And I think… What if we don't sell out?
I have been trying my whole life to expect, instead of disaster, wonder.
I am proud that
The Sexual Revolution
was the song that opened doors for me because I deeply believe in its message.
If we cannot express ourselves freely, we will not achieve anything close to happiness.
One of the things that leads me to anxiety is that, if I don't have everything, I prefer to have nothing.
Silvia tells me: I can only be happy with the maximum.
He wants to live in the cherry.
Clear.
And the cherry on top is the exception.
I look happy in the total explosion, but I know what comes next.
On that album I tried to explain it with a song called
The Big Lie.
There are two ways to play Tetris.
The one where you put easy pieces.
And the one where you prepare everything so that when you get the very rare piece, eighty rows fall at once.
That happiness is infinitely superior to keeping your position in check.
But there is a risk there.
You have to learn to value small happiness.
The key is to make small things seem big to you.
That's what I'm on.
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