Christina Rosenvinge: «Music is a vital and playful exercise, even if I write very dense lyrics»

– It has been a long time since I came to play in San Sebastián…

– Yes it’s correct. I think I haven’t performed in San Sebastián for seven or eight years, although I have visited the city for other reasons.

– On this occasion he arrives to present ‘Los verses sáficos’ live, the album where he has recorded the songs he composed for the theatrical project ‘Sappho’. What can the public expect from this concert?

– This is a project that makes special sense live because I am explaining both the figure and the reason why Sappho is so relevant right now. With this album I have tried to remove the prejudices we have around classical poetry, which has that aura of being somewhat mystical and academic, and which scares away the average audience a little. But when you really get into reading it and analyzing it you realize that it connects a lot with popular culture. Sappho’s poetry in particular is loving, very focused on the first person who suffers from love, it is very fun, entertaining, very sensual and also current, because it sings about love between women. So it’s something that really sounds very contemporary.

–And how would you define the style?

– When I composed these songs I wanted to reconstruct, return Sappho’s poetry to popular song, which has a very wide range of styles. So I had a lot of fun doing an exercise of imagining what style I could go towards. For example, I created a song that sounded more like Spanish folklore, such as ‘Wedding Song’. I have transformed another poem into a rock song, more radical, avant-garde. Another became a power pop, much more electric. Another is a very delicate, almost lyrical song. But apart from the songs that I adapted for the play, I continued working on this topic and new songs came out. It had become a personal project that eventually became an album and now a tour.

– He was a youth idol in the 80s, and since then he has been forging a successful career. What is the secret?

– In reality there is no secret, because when you do something you like, you have a lot of fun doing it, it amuses you, it awakens your passions and you can’t stop doing it. This isn’t really a job for me, it’s something I would do anyway.

– After succeeding alone in the 90s, you went to live in the United States. What did that period mean?

– For me it was a trip to expand my studies. I also had the opportunity to come into contact and have in my band some of the musicians who had influenced me the most, and to write in English. It was a very crazy idea, because I did it right when I had just had my first child, so I didn’t get to tour as much as I would have liked, but it helped me gain a lot of knowledge. I have really learned music by doing it, I have not studied at any time. I have done it a bit in the old style.

– Did you always know that you wanted to dedicate yourself to music?

– No… really my first vocation was dance. But when I was a teenager I was in contact with the circles in which the movement that was Movida was beginning to be born, with many concerts and very fun people. I guess that intersection had a lot to do with me getting into music.

– Many consider her a benchmark of independent pop rock. Do you agree?

– Yes, absolutely, because I haven’t really dedicated myself to ‘mainstream’ music, although it is true that I had tremendous commercial success at the beginning of my career with ‘Chas! And I appear at your side’, that he put me on the map. But then I have preferred to be more free, to be able to experiment and do different things and dedicate myself to popular song, which is basically a long-term career in which you can be very free and do many different things.

– What have been your references in the musical field?

– For me, the classic singer-songwriters of a lifetime, with Leonard Cohen at the helm, are an example of what I wanted to be, with songs in which the word is as important or more important than the music. And that is what I have wanted to claim, the power of the sung word, because they are songs that when well written remain in memory forever. In San Sebastián you have a wonderful example, and I think not valued enough, like Rafael Berrio. For me he was a master of the sung word.

– Your name also appears associated with feminism, and for many women, in fact, you are a symbol…

– It is a pride to have been an inspiration for many women who later picked up the guitar. They have told me this both in Spain and in Latin America, that it was very inspiring for a generation to see me in the 90s singing songs in first person with a guitar in my hand, making rock, something that seemed to be forbidden to women. I am very glad to have played that role.

– You have sometimes said that during your career you have felt misunderstood. Maybe because she was ahead of the times?

– When you break out of the mold, although there is no mold prior to you either, but it is a bit what has happened to me, you have to face many prejudices, suspicions, distrust, you have to overcome many obstacles. In that sense, I have felt that I have had certain difficulties that if I had been born a man I would not have had. Some added difficulties to a musical career that is already not the easiest in the world. But above all it has been due to the lack of precedents, because there were no previous examples that had followed trajectories similar to mine. I have had to fight against a lot of mistrust and many clichés.

– We talked about her musical career, but she has also worked as an actress and has even made some forays into the field of literature.

– Writing song lyrics is a literary discipline that depends on music, it is a dual language. That’s why it was logical that sooner or later all these musings and all that would appear in a book, which was ‘Debut’.

– And your role as an actress… have you left it aside?

– No, actually I just finished filming a new film, ‘Balearic’, by Ion de Sosa. But really my role as an actress is something much more accidental, I don’t deliberately look for it, but I love cinema and I have many friends who dedicate themselves to making films and write roles that are designed for me, as happened in ‘Karen’.

– On Sunday you perform at the Victoria Eugenia, but what other projects do you have in mind now?

– Well, at this moment I am composing a new album, preparing a trip to Latin America in the fall, I have finished this film, and I have also created the music for another Mexican film. I can say that I am in a fantastic moment. I do a lot of different things, I have the luxury of choosing what I do. Lately I have had several very fun years, with very challenging and fun projects. For me, music, above all, is a vital and playful exercise, even if I write very dense lyrics, as in my previous work ‘A blond man’. I always say the same thing, that you can deal with topics like this when you do it from a very playful position with music.