On the occasion of the premiere of his documentary ‘The importance of being called Ernesto and the bullshit of being called Eric’, the drummer of Lagartija Nick and Los Planetas «Eric» Jiménez has given an interview to Nortes in which he talks about politics and the music industry.
Eric reflects on how the last 30 years of this country can be told through his two bands and their music, and confesses that “any politics is a fucking utopia.” Although he recognizes that both Los Planetas and Lagartija Nick tell the story of this country, he clarifies that, “if they mean it,” it is “in something that does not exist: in defending the person and the human being.”
«I don’t think there is a political program from any party that does that. I think everything is about interests and I think it is very difficult for them, even within the same party, to agree among themselves. Politics has become a completely individualistic act. I am not an anarchist, but I am quite close to anarchism because there are so many contradictions within the ten main leaders of the political parties…” says the musician. «There is religion to not kill us and in music there has to be a label, indie, to sell. “Nothing is real,” he adds.
However, the member of Los Planetas also talks about how, despite the strong criticism of the extreme right in his songs, there are still Vox militants who attend his concerts. «Indie is what has the fascist public in Spain. It’s like that. Indie has been all the right-wing children of this country. Eric says that in many record companies there are “fashionable nerds”, who “are smart, have a lot of cinematographic and musical culture, then they buy the big bag of money and discover that with that they can fuck at festivals.”
“In your house, if it smells very patrician and you have a father who is too righteous, you tend to do the opposite, but deep down, you know that you are part of a dynasty that preserves your right-wing soul inside,” Eric concludes.
