"We have recovered the chemistry from the beginning, as if time had not passed"

The Cruïlla Festival in Barcelona will be the setting for the commemoration of twenty years since the founding of Delafé y Las Flores Azules. Oscar D'Aniello (Delafé) and Helena Miquel (Las Flores Azules) separated seven years ago. In addition to the presence of Dani Acedo as the third axis, who until 2010 was Marc Barrachina, the Cruïlla performance will now also include the members of Las Trompetas de la Muerte, who accompanied the group on the tour for the album Vs Las Trompetas de la Muerte.

The group was born two decades ago, in November 2002, and since then they have provided music for advertising spots and created an emblematic discography with titles such as El monstruo de las ramblas, En la luz de la Mañana and Estonosepara. The party promises to be an electric evening of melancholy.

--- Helena, what has been the spark that made you, seven years later, return?

--- I left the group in 2015 and Oscar D'Aniello and I have remained in contact. During the pandemic, he asked me to put my voice on a video he prepared, and he often told me that the door was open. In 2018 I had twins and I didn't feel capable of doing anything other than dedicating myself to raising them, but last Christmas I decided to call Oscar because I really wanted and had the energy to make a song.

--- The return was your idea then.

--- It all arose from my need to recover my artistic facet and recover the creative part that I had relegated. I realized that it was a part I had inside and that I had to bring out. I saw that need when my daughters were two and a half years old, and the person closest to me to make it happen was Oscar. With him, we have lived beautiful things.

--- How did you get to work?

--- We started working on a very experimental song, but right now it's something half-done and unfinished and we don't know what's going to happen. We got encouraged and started to see that everything fit and that twenty-year date, which we hadn't planned, came up. Things got big from starting a song together.

--- It must be very difficult to concentrate so many emotions in a single concert.

--- We made a list of possible songs to be part of the repertoire, which are the ones that reached people the most, and we immediately realized that it was very easy to create this repertoire with songs like El poder del mar, El indio or 1984. It is a repertoire shared with the public.

--- Will there not be a second chance for songs that have gone more unnoticed?

--- The idea of the tour was a celebration, and, therefore, we did not consider approaching any song again. It is a celebration of greatest hits, although, as Oscar has released solo albums as Delafé, we do play a couple of songs from his solo career. And we added the new Aquí ahora.

--- Aquí ahora is...

--- It is the reunion of two people. It is a parallel to what we have been able to experience and represents the excitement of returning. A smile comes to my face when I think about it because it is something very dear. That reunion and return was much desired.

--- What result will the public see?

--- It is a very festive and nostalgic celebration. On stage, we are accompanied by practically the entire band that accompanied us ten years ago, a tour that we enjoyed very much. It was the first tour we did as a band of three. We added this group of drums, wind section, guitar, backing vocalist and we enjoyed it so much that we decided that now we had to do it with a band and have as much fun as we did then.

--- What changes will there be in this band?

--- Everyone remains except the backing vocalist Juliane Heinemann, who had a tour and could not join, but we have found a charming person, who is Núria Moliner. Ramón Rabinad will also not be on drums, and Salvador d'Horta will be in his place.

--- Looking back, what has changed musically in you in these twenty years?

--- The group hasn't changed that much because we've always done what we wanted. We continue to do what we want and we continue to maintain the enthusiasm. If I left the group at a given moment, there was a lack of motivation, but I have experienced the reunion with great enthusiasm. With Oscar, we have recovered the chemistry from the beginning and the chemistry we have on stage. It's as if no time had passed. We continue to work in the same way: Oscar does the lyrics; Dani, the music, and I the melodies. Doing Aquí ahora there has been a bit more of leaving space for others and the will for everyone to participate a little more in the creation of the song.

--- How do you sound now?

--- We have reached the culmination of managing to maintain the essence of the group and taking advantage of everything that connects us with the public, which is the most melodic pop, Oscar's most melodic way of rapping with the melancholy of more pop music. With the album De ti sin mí we disconnected from people and we must learn from that, although we are super proud and would do it again, but we don't want to go there because that album disconnected us.

We continue doing what we want and we keep maintaining the illusion. If I left the group at a given moment there was a lack of motivation, but I have experienced the reunion with great enthusiasm

--- What is the way forward?

--- We must go towards what connects us, like Enero en la playa, but with more current sounds. You have to be faithful to what connects you with people and songs like Enero en la playa have all the ingredients: some intensity, pause and explosion. We wanted to go a little more in that direction.

--- After the tour, do you have a roadmap?

--- The clear initial idea on the table is to hold a celebration of fifteen concerts. That's how it's planned. As the end of the tour approaches, we will know how we feel and what we want to do. Then I think we will find ourselves, how we are experiencing it and what we want to do. We don't know if we'll feel like it. Starting the tour thinking about making an album was not what we felt at that moment and everything just emerged. We were very happy to go on tour. We will talk about this when the last two concerts approach. We will sit down and say what we should do. We will assess if we have energy and strength. Our lives are different than before, and we all have families.

--- The Barcelona music scene has also changed a lot. How do you see it?

--- Yes... one of the good things about the scene is that it is now very powerful and people who are starting out are much more prepared than we were in our beginnings. All the bands from the late nineties and early 2000s did it as a hobby, and it was not our profession. Now people come out very prepared from ESMUC and Taller Músics. Also, social media today can make you reach many people, but it is also a lottery. What has not changed is that there is still a lot of precariousness in the world of music. There is a lot of richness in groups, but those who manage to live professionally from music are few and everything is still very precarious in terms of salaries.

--- Your audience has also changed. What have you found in the first concerts of the tour?

--- So far we have seen people in the audience who have grown up with us. Some concerts have been during the day and they come with their young children. I have been able to see that the people who followed us ten years ago are still coming to the audience, and I am curious to know if at a festival people who may have discovered us now will come to see us. I am curious because there is a lot on offer that day and at the same time you can reach many people who come and have never seen us live. Our live show is very energetic and can always be a surprise for those who have never seen us.

What has not changed is that there is still a lot of precariousness in the world of music. There is a lot of richness in groups, but those who manage to live professionally from music are few

--- Have you recovered from the coughing fit that assailed you in Madrid?

--- How annoying! You wait a month for a concert and you get a coughing fit. It got irritated by the smoke from decorating the stage, it was cold, the change in temperatures... but nothing to worry about. I suffered for four songs and had to control my voice a lot to avoid more accidents. It's traumatic when this happens to you, but it's a silly thing.

--- What mistake would you not make if you started over?

--- I think the only thing I could say, and it hurts to say, is that when I felt the need to stop, it could always have been decided that we all stop for a year and reflect. It was a moment when we had ten songs ready to record and I didn't feel strong enough, and Oscar felt the need to continue. I understood him and he understood me, but we couldn't agree and didn't find common ground. We were at very different points in our lives. I wish we had found another formula that would have compensated both of us. It happened that way because it just did, but artistically I wouldn't change anything.