Interview mit Pablo C. Ursusson von Sangre De Muerdago

We are talking in special times – I hope you are doing well despite the Corona situation!
Thank you for the interview. We are healthy and have a comfortable place where to live so we can’t ask for more at the moment. I hope you are doing well, too!

What is the current situation in your country as far as that is concerned?
We live in Germany, I don’t know how different the situation it is at the moment between Saxony and Bayern but here in Leipzig it has been relatively relaxed since the Corona outbreak, at least compared to the realities of other countries like Spain or the US. But as things have been going on throughout the last months, it feels like everything can change in a matter of hours.

When did you realize that Corona would also affect your life, your activity as a musician and therefore SANGRE DE MUERDAGO?
During the first days of our last spring tour, which was cancelled just after 4 or 5 concerts.

What has changed for you and the band since then?
The live appearance situation has changed dramatically for the whole world of music, art and culture. We have played only two concerts since the pandemic started and things don’t seem to be gettting much better any time soon regarding that aspect.

Did the Corona situation also influence the creation of your new album?
I guess it did partly, we started recording before the tour, and were planning to continue recording as we would come back home, but the situation changed our schedule too and we continued with recordings in the beginning of May 2020.

And how do you think it will influence the success of the album? After all you can’t play a tour …
No idea to be honest. It is quite clear that we can’t tour in order to support and promote the album, but on the other hand we have finished it and we wish to share it to the world now, and we hope that it lights up the paths for those whose lives have darkened because of the pandemic.

Your last European tour was together with Heilung – how did this combination come about?
It was the work of our booking agency Doomstar, we were offered the opportunity to perform in a number of concerts with them and took the offer gladly.

This band looks very special, a bit over the top, while you look extremely down-to-earth, with little fuss. How does that work together – did you get along well backstage?
Yes, we got along beautifully and we shared many great moments throughout the tour. Heilung are a very large number of people and crew and for that reason we got to connect with them at different levels and while we got to make beautiful new friendships and experiences with some of them, with others we had much less contact, but this is totally natural due to the amount of people involved.

In these concertless times, do you have a funny anecdote from this tour for us?
Well, in Vienna we had a magical jam together, the whole Sangre gang with many of the Heilung family. It was a really beautiful session from which we keep a nice recording. We kept going on until curfew …

How and in which situations does music like yours come into being – do you also write it on tour or just at home?
I would say in unawaited moments, usually when spending time with the instruments and sometimes new melodies come up.

You have many very special instruments in your songs – how do you get to play these instruments, where do you find them (or build them yourself) and how do you learn such unusual instruments?
We play some unusual instruments like the nyckelharpa, the hurdy-gurdy or the pandero cuadrado. But these instruments are not that uncommon in the folk music world. They are usually traditional instruments from different parts of the world. We grew interest towards them in a natural way, investigating and researching on different musical traditions you can find the most amazing instruments and musics. We have learned to play them by ourselves, just spending time with them and slowly getting an understanding and learning the possibilities they offer.

Your new album is called „Xuntas“ – which means „together“. The song is about friendship, solidarity. When one looks at how little solidarity is shown in the Corona crisis, but also in the refugee crisis, one might think that these terms have lost much of their meaning nowerdays. What do you think?
I couldn’t agree more. Our aim with the message of this new album is to address love, afection, care for each other, respect, friendship and solidarity as very essential values in our lives. We have a large number of hard and unprecedented situations to overcome in the near future, and this can go on at different levels of suffering for everybody. I’m not only talking about our own species but about all the species sharing the planet.

The news currently contain so many negative things – what makes you personally positive, what gives you positive energy?
The focus on the values mentioned in the question before are are a good start, each one of them are primordial to me. The moments we spend in trance or in an ecstatic state are also a good inspiration, be them through music, creativity, meditation, company, solitude, or however they can e reached.

For the title song you could win Steve Von Till as guest singer. How did this collaboration come about?
Some years ago we attended Steve’s solo concert in Leipzig. I’ve got to know on that day that he had been enjoying our music himself. I’m a big fan of Neurosis since the early days, and as well, a good friend of mine has toured as a roadie with Neurosis for years so we also shared some common friends. We kept vaguely in touch after that but during the last couple of years we’ve reconnected a few times because of different reasons. Steve told me last winter that he would love to play some concerts together when possible one day, and I believe that was what made the idea of the collaboration pop up in my head one day when we were already recording the album. I can’t thank enough for the honour, it was a chilling moment to listen for the first time Steve’s track singing in Galician.

The album was mixed and mastered in the Fire Vessel Studios with Tobias Häussler and Georg Börner – two metalheads, so to speak. How did this collaboration come about?
The Fire Vessel are our own studios, which we run since 2019. We have worked with Tobi in the past a good number of times, including the recording of our previous two albums. We were involved together in other recordings of other of our music projects as well, always with a good turn out. We are friends and understand and like each other and that’s a great advantage at the time of working together in the production of an album.

Tobias Häussler, Heilung and Steve Von Till come from the metal world – do you have any other overlaps with the scene, maybe you even listen to some metal yourself?
I have been playing lots of heavy and fast music throughout my life. I come more from a DIY punk background but have played usually on the heavier side of music from hardcore punk to crusty rockandroll to black metal in bands like Ekkaia, Cop on Fire, Antlers…

Thank you very much for the interview. To conclude our traditional brainstorming – what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of the following terms
A hobby of yours that has nothing to do with music: Archery.
Donald Trump: Throw up.
A positive insight from the Corona era: The feeling of stillness during the months of March and April.
Neurosis: Trance.
The first drink you order when you walk into a bar: Beer, but I don’t frequent bars.
Black Metal: Abyss.
Your current favorite album: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
SANGRE DE MUERDAGO in 10 years: In the woods.

Thanks again for your time and answers. The last words are yours:
Thank you for the interview and all the best to the whole team!

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Publiziert am 6. November 2020 von Moritz Grütz

Fotos von: Afra Gethöffer-Grütz