The Tyets: "Bad Bunny is our Michael Jackson, our King of Pop."

BarcelonaMataró natives Xavier Coca and Oriol de Ramon, both born in 1998, were still reaping the rewards of the success of the album Epic sun (2023), by The Tyets, who were already working on a new album, Coffee for coffee lovers (Luup, 2025). They chat calmly about the album and the expectations generated by intergenerational popularity.

After this interview, you fly to Miami, where part of the album was recorded. What are you going to do this time?

— Xavier Coca: We are going to make music without any kind of pretension, simply because we want to and we have the contact of Kastelo, who is the producer with whom we have worked in Coffee for coffee lovers.

How did you get to Kastelo?

— Oriol de Ramón: We were introduced to him by a friend of Meri [Lane], our manager, who had worked on concert and festival productions in Miami.

— XC: In fact, he worked at Rimas, Bad Bunny's record label.

— GOLD: And she knew Kastelo, who is Xavier Lloret, a Catalan guy who studied at Berklee and who was signed to work at Tiny's studio, a very cool reggaeton producer. He's a genius and understands the whole Catalan scene, but at the same time he's taken a lot from Latin. Plus, he produces very well and keeps up with us very well, because we're very fast-paced in the studio, and it's hard to find someone you can relate to when producing.

How much influence does Bad Bunny have on your music?

— GOLD: The other day Meri told us that there seems to be an invisible son that links us to Bad Bunny. We had the album ready. Epic sun, and he, a month before, took out I went on vacation, which is an album totally focused on summer, the beach, and good vibes. And now, a month before we took off Coffee for coffee lovers, he published I should have taken more photos, an album that speaks a lot about his home, Puerto Rico, just as we're talking a lot about Maresme, our home. Plus, he always appeared in interviews with coffee.

— XC: Coffee with rum.

— GOLD: Bad Bunny is our Michael Jackson, our King of Pop. He's one of the most important artists of our generation and has a huge influence on us and all young people.

You've been incorporating instrumentalists into your concerts on stage for a while now. Have you achieved what you were aiming for with this move?

— XC: We come from a background A lot aside. In fact, we're instrumentalists. Oriol is a clarinetist, and I'm a trained saxophonist. When we started the project, it was very small, with few resources, and we barely had a DJ, also because it was the easiest way to move things around. But we already had in mind that as soon as we could, we would expand the format separately because it's something that adds a lot, allowing us to make band arrangements in any style... References like Bad Bunny and Ozuna demonstrate how spectacular it is to make urban music with band arrangements.

A few days ago, at the Maleducats Festival, Queralt Lahoz called for more musicians on stage.

— XC: We don't want to belittle the work of dancers, but in recent years, in a lot of urban music, the presence of the musician has been diluted and replaced by the dancers. In some cases, there was even one singer and a group of twenty dancers, and no musicians on stage. People wondered where the music was coming from. After all, you also want to see people performing.

— GOLD: With urban music, it's very easy to go with just you and a DJ because you save on the production costs associated with a band. But over the years, we've found a unique signature with a band, and now we're looking for gospel arrangements for urban music, because we have role models like María Becerra.

Although he's made an album in which, at least in the first part, the house bass drum is very present...

— XC: Yes. In fact, the concert starts off super electronic, without a band, but then everything is arranged.

— GOLD: All the reggaetons in the concert are transformed into rock; they're rock patterns with drums. We saw that the reggaeton pattern is very slow and soft, while rock makes you jump.

— XC: Just like techno, with the bass drum marking the quarter notes.

He trapezoid has been forgotten, then.

— XC: Yes, outdated [laughs]

The Argentine Duki It also has the live band format.

— XC: Another band format that we really like is Trueno.

— GOLD: I think this appeals to different generations. Ours is very accustomed to urban music, reggaeton, trap... On the other hand, the older generation was more accustomed to guitar-based bands. I think we've found a perfect combination: older people feel satisfied because they see rock on stage, and younger people see the urban sound, which is what they listen to at home.

This makes it combine songs like It's raining outside, which has a more pop component, and Coffee for coffee lovers, which is electronic. Or Short tights, which is a quick meringue.

— XC: Everything has a place in our show. After a while of heavy electronica, we move on to more Latin music, and then to Afrobeat or calmer music.

— GOLD: Since the first album, we've tried to cover as many styles as possible because we like to explore and make songs we've never made before.

— XC: If we feel like doing a Venezuelan cuatro now, we'll do it. And if tomorrow we feel like doing indie rock like Phoenix, we'll do a Phoenix-style song.

Speaking of Phoenix, there's another French group that also considers them a benchmark: Justice.

— GOLD: Above all, he's our visual reference. Our lighting technician is a huge fan of Justice's live performance.

— XC: Last year's Justice concert at Primavera Sound was the most spectacular concert I've ever seen. And we'd already seen them at Cruïlla a few years ago. That sparked a visual urge in us to try to reproduce, as much as possible, some of the things they did. Aside from the fact that we really like their music, their show is insane.

Do you impose the need to change?

— XC: Because otherwise, we get bored of what we're doing. I remember that, after several months in the studio doing a lot of Latin stuff, we thought we were a rehash and that we needed to change because we can't always be doing the same thing. It was also the time we discovered Fred Again, and electronic music took on a very important role in the things we listened to.

Going back to the beginning, what does Miami represent musically?

— GOLD: Miami is South America in a corner of the United States, where there's a lot of music and club culture.

— XC: There's also a lot of electronic music, but it's softer, so to speak. It's not Berlin electronic music, nor Dutch electronic music.

— GOLD: We had very high expectations, thinking it was the mecca of reggaeton, and the sessions with Kastelo were amazing, but we did two other sessions with two renowned producers that were terrible; things didn't flow, and their way of working didn't suit us. We realized that in the end, it doesn't matter where you are, and that in Catalonia we also have a high level of talent and very good people working. All of this made us appreciate what we have at home.

As Juan Magán?

— GOLD: For example, Juan Magán is a visionary, a Badalona native who has made a name for himself all over the world.

In A little kiss, the song Juan Magán performs with you on the album, has a verse that says: "A gift they gave me for business." Do you have this gift?

— XC: I think so. We've also accepted that we're not virtuosos. Among the few skills we have, one of the greatest is that we're very aware of the project and our artistic limitations, as well as the location and what we want to do.

— GOLD: ...we try to make good decisions.

And how do you handle criticism?

— GOLD: We try to listen to constructive criticism above all.

Are there any?

— GOLD: There are many, many.

— XC: The thing is that constructive criticism is often given to you in private.

— GOLD: We listen to the people around us, our partners, our friends, the people at the record label, because they're the ones who truly know the project. But obviously, criticism hurts your morale.

And this makes you more cautious?

— GOLD: We must be aware that we have a very large project and that we are a very easy target, and in the end, you must proceed with more caution than a small artist with little recognition.

It caught my attention Ass and shit, which is not exactly a happy song.

— GOLD: It's the saddest song we've ever written.

It's a reflection on disappointment with a friendship, right?

— GOLD: Yes, and everyone can relate, because friendships are like relationships: sometimes they end. Often, artists tend to write very global music, that talks about everything and at the same time talks about nothing, so that everyone can relate, but you can also identify with a real story like this, so specific.

You are from Mataró, and the Maresme has always been present in your music, but never in such an explicit way as in the song The Maresme.

— XC: That's precisely where Bad Bunny's influence lies. He talks a lot about Puerto Rico and reclaims his homeland. We decided it was time to dedicate a song to the Maresme region. There's a beautiful line Uri says in the song, which is that we'd like our children to be able to experience this reality. Barcelona stresses us out; we don't like it. We live very peacefully in the Maresme region, and we'd like future generations to do the same.

With a working commuter train.

— GOLD: Yes, that would be great. With a real commuter train and the price of rent...

What is the most unique place you have heard of? Coti x coti?

— XC: In the Philippines. Last summer, we received many videos of Filipinos singing it. They knew it without knowing a word of Catalan.

What are the best and worst things about festivals?

— GOLD: The best thing is that you'll probably discover a lot of people who are already predisposed to discovering artists. The bad thing is that there are also people who are there but don't want to be, because they're really waiting for another artist's show. It's more rewarding to play in a venue where everyone is your audience than to play for 20,000 people, because you don't know who to look out for, or who's there for you, and...

— XC: And it's technically complicated, because often you can't even do a proper sound check. But, hey, in the end you're sharing a bill with artists.

What is your best memory related to music?

— GOLD: For me, the most exciting moment for the group was when we played at Apolo. After the game, we went backstage and found all our friends, our partners, the whole crew, with a cake, with a epic sun which said "It's going to be an epic tour."

— XC: Uri has said the beginning of that tour and I say the end, after filling two Sant Jordi Clubs with sold-out, with 10,000 people. It was very, very heavyBecause you had 5,000 people every day who had paid to come see you, and everyone was willing to give it their all. It was very exciting.

And what memory would you like to forget?

— XC: That Festiuet... Now we have the budget to bring a full team, to bring duplicate items, to ensure nothing fails technologically, but before everything went so well for us, we had many technical problems. I remember that day, when we hadn't even released the Coti x cotiIt was one of the first times we played at a festival with people we admired like Oques Grasses and La Fúmiga. And we played for five minutes. Everything fell apart, and we had to sing. a cappella in front of 5,000 people. But luckily, we've always had a strong following and a great capacity for improvisation, and we pulled it off. But it was a real blow. It was a turning point for me to say: guys, we have to get serious because these things can't let us down.