Estopa will bring 'La maketa' to the Olympic Stadium

"It is a project that speaks of our prehistory, when before being Estopa we were David and José", the Muñoz brothers explained this Tuesday at the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Barcelona, where David is studying the second year of History. The project in question is a double album that recovers the thirty or so songs they recorded with two guitars and vocals in the years 1996 and 1997, before releasing their first album with Sony. It is what is known as The demo and which until now was circulating illegally on the internet. "These are recordings that were not registered; therefore, we were not getting paid. I regret being so materialistic," say the Muñoz brothers.

That repertoire will nourish the corresponding tour that in 2027 will visit the Estadi Ciutat de València on June 12, the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona on June 18, the Estadi de la Cartuja in Seville on June 26, and the Riyadh Air Metropolitano in Madrid on July 9. Tickets for the concerts will go on sale on November 17 at 10:22 p.m. There will also be a pre-sale on October 18 for people who have pre-ordered the album. "We don't do pre-sales for bank clients, but rather to reward the people who like our songs," say David and Jose, one starting the sentence and the other finishing it.

The demo (Sony) will be released in different formats on November 20th. "Yes, the album will come out on the fucking 20-N. I asked if there wasn't any other date, and Sony said no, that it could only be the 20-N," says David Muñoz, aware of the difficulties of making a release like this in the middle of an electoral campaign. Before that, on October 16th, the song will be available on the platforms Weirdo, "a song matryoshka" from which other Estopa songs came out like Red wine and Tragicomedy, "a very good summary" of what Estopa are, just as Jose Muñoz explains. "Thanks to songs like Weirdo we are here —adds David—. We made it with six hands: me, who was 16 years old, and Jose, who was 14, and Antonio Abad, a childhood friend". Thirty years later, they have located this third author with whom they had lost contact.

"The demo is a first-rate historical source on Estopa", says David, looking at professor Manel García, who teaches the subject Thinking History, of which the eldest of the Muñoz brothers was a student last year. From that early period, Jose highlights El llanto del poeta, "a mix of Maria Ostiz, Lluís Llach, and Rosa León" which was the first proper song they ever made.

The songs on The demo are those they recorded "with the mini-stereo" with their parents acting as "microphone stands", but also those they produced in a studio in Sabadell. "They won't give us the Grammy for best sound", jokes David. "Mom is one of those who throws everything away. In fact, I've run out of comics —recalls David—, but she found a tape that said David and Jose, 1997, where the sound is a bit better, and she had the intuition to keep it". "Mom found the mother demo", says Jose.

From those thirty songs, Sony chose a dozen for the first album by the Muñoz brothers, Estopa (1999). "They were chosen by a gentleman with a mustache and glasses... with good judgment. In fact, the first album and the second, Destrangis (2001), were nourished by the demo", explains David. Other songs, however, did not have a place on subsequent albums and have remained unreleased. That is to say, a good part of Estopa's most iconic songs, those that occupy the most relevant space in concerts, were already in those "paleolithic" recordings, as David remarks.