Nacho Vegas: "It cannot be that fascism ends up seeming an option as legitimate as any other"

BarcelonaThere is a gratifying solidity, in Nacho Vegas (Gijón, 1974) from the album Vidas semipreciosas (Oso Polita, 2026), recorded in Catalonia and with collaborations by Albert Pla and Rodrigo Cuevas. With a rock that touches on folk and melodic song, he crafts a repertoire that includes some of the best songs from the Asturian musician's career, also in Asturian. Furthermore, it includes "memory capsules" with the voices of victims of political and labor conflicts (Javitxu Aijón, Anna Gabriel and Adur Ramirez), because, after all, he is "an internationalist red, son of Cristina Vegas, anti-fascist", as he sings in Fíu. This Saturday, May 30, he performs at Sala Apolo in Barcelona (9 PM), well accompanied by Miren Arbaiza, Joseba Irazoki, Hans Laguna, Manu Molina and Ferran Resines.

Listening to Vidas semipreciosas I found that it shares some emotions with the album the album Resituación (2014), especially with the choral emotion that was in songs like Polvorado.

— Yes, it could be. The other day I was thinking about it, when they asked me if Vidas semipreciosas was a more political album. The songs on each album belong very much to the place and time when I write them, to what happens in my life and to everything that also happens when I open the windows and see the world I live in. And I think there are indeed things in common with Resituación. Both are very marked by the social climate. In Resituación, the post 15-M, which for me was a breath of fresh air. When the indie circuit was constricting me too much, being able to play in other spaces and with other people opened up another perspective for me. And now conflicts like the one with the 6 of La Suiza, which was very present in Gijón, has crept into Vidas semipreciosas. In addition, of course, to the social climate we are living in, with all this empowerment of fascism and the far-right. Yes, it is a more political album than the previous one, Mundos inmóviles derrumbándose (2022), which had a more confessional tone because we were coming out of the pandemic, which turned us inwards.

Six sparrows is the delta song where everything you develop on the album converges, but the key is Wolf time, in which, despite this empowerment of the far-right, you urge to resist and maintain hope.

— Yes, active resistance from any trench. As Anna Gabriel says later, it is important to be there, in "the trench of dignity, on the right side of history". And above all, it is important not to normalize things that are aberrant and that should continue to seem aberrant to us. Fascism cannot end up seeming as legitimate an option as any other.

25 years have passed since you released the first album, Actos inexplicables (2001), which included a song about your father, El ángel Simón. 25 years later you write a song about your mother, Fíu.

— In principle there is no direct relationship, but it is true that once I decided to include Fíu on the album, I did think about the arc that was drawn from one to the other. They are very different songs, of course. El ángel Simón is a song of mourning, for the death of my father, and written when I was 24 years old. And Fíu is a tribute to my mother, to all mothers in general, who have had this very hard, and so necessary, job of raising and caring.

How is she?

— Very well. Except for a hip problem she had, and from which she has now recovered. She has a partner, a man who is a love, and I see her happier than ever. She had my siblings and me when she was very young, when she was 22, 24, and 26 years old. And recently she told me: “You are what I love most, but if I were to live again, I wouldn't have you so young.” For her, having us was like losing her youth, and I think she is now living a new youth: she travels a lot, I see her very happy. She has just turned 76, but I see her better than ever.

Culturally, 2025 was a very difficult year for Asturias, due to the deaths of José Luis Cienfuegos and Fran Gayo, architects of the revival of the Gijón Film Festival; of the writer Xuan Bello, and of the musician Jorge Ilegales.

— And also Damián Barreiro, who died unexpectedly at 41 and was very important for Asturianism and LGTBIQ rights. They held a tribute for him in which Rodrigo Cuevas sang. It was a terrible year, yes. Fran had been unwell for a while, and even if you expect it, it's still hard. And with José Luis, which was indeed unexpected... All of it makes you aware of fragility.

From the outside, perhaps we are not able to see how important they were to Asturian culture.

— Yes, I was wondering that myself. They were very important and much-loved people. Jorge was better known; he died on December 9th and Robe Iniesta the next day. And I remember that Robe's death went unnoticed by me because in Asturias the mourning was for Jorge. And I realized how much Jorge was loved.

Returning to the 25 years of trajectory: there are things that remain. Alivio, the song that opens the album, begins with the typical rhythmic hammer of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which was already a reference in your first album. At the same time, you have been accumulating new references, such as Latin American folklore, which appears in the second song, Fíu. You are faithful to certain musical codes and at the same time you have incorporated details from other references.

— There are certain musical codes you grow up with that leave an indelible mark. Then you free yourself from prejudices and listen to more music, which you also absorb. And I'm lucky enough to go to Latin America with every tour, even though I approach the more distant references with a lot of respect. Fíu was born as a tribute to Pablus Gallinazo, a very important protest singer-songwriter whom some friends in Colombia introduced me to. I wanted to pay him a very personal tribute and try not to fall into an exercise of style, which is what sometimes happens when you get really carried away with a type of music, saying: "Well, now I'll make a cumbia." Well, I did one on the album Violética (2018), but it was a curious cumbia: the first version was rock, but thanks to Kumbia Queers, who do many versions of rock songs in a cumbia style, I saw that any song in 4/4 time can be done in a cumbia style.

A Violética versionaves Maldigo del alto cielo, de Violeta Parra.

— Yes, and then I had the opportunity to visit the Violeta Parra Museum in Chile, which no longer exists because fascists burned it down twice... There I met Isabel Parra and Tita Parra, Violeta's daughter and granddaughter, and I played with them Volver a los 17. I played it with the 6/8 time signature that I use, because the rhythm they play is very difficult for me. And they told me: "How beautiful, the rhythm you play!" It was very special. My legs were trembling while I played Volver a los 17 with Isabel, a person who has taken such great care of her mother's legacy. Afterwards, I explained to her that I had recorded the version of Maldigo del alto cielo, and she told me: "This is one of the few songs by my mother that I haven't dared to sing because it has very harsh lyrics." I always try to approach these other influences with respect.

In the film Springsteen: deliver me from nowhere (2025), about the recording of the album Nebraska, there is a discussion between Bruce Springsteen (played by Jeremy Allen White) and producer Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong). Landau asks him not to show up at the studio without songs, to arrive with the composition work done. And Springsteen commits to doing so. You do the same, right?

— Yes, arriving at the studio without songs is a waste of money and time. Furthermore, the studio makes me very nervous, because until the songs take shape I see everything very dark. When I face a new repertoire, I prefer to do the first sifting myself, and I try to arrive at the studio with the songs that I think are worth recording. Only once, when we recorded El manifiesto desastre (2008), I remember arriving with a lyric that was still in its infancy, that of Morir o matar. In addition, at that time I didn't demo the songs because I had heard that Nick Cave didn't demo, that he would show the song to the band and that's it... The fact is that it was a song with many chords and a thousand changes, and the musicians went crazy. I regret it; I should have matured the song a little more before arriving at the studio.

The new album has songs with double meanings, like My little beast, which apparently talks about the composition processes but can also be interpreted as a moral conflict.

— Writing a song also means confronting parts of yourself that are sometimes difficult to express in a more logical way, and you have to make an effort to bring them out and tame them as if they were this little beast. It's true that it starts as a meta-song, but it ends up turning into a declaration of love. The meta aspect interests me almost as a formula for talking about other things, because I've done it in other songs. This little beast also has to do with those emotional truths that you find uncomfortable to tell yourself.

My little beast and The wonders are songs that could have been on your second album, Music boxes hard to stop (2003). Even for the musical treatment. I suppose it's normal that when you have such a long career, songs are referenced with your own past.

— Los asombros is one of those songs that required very simple production. It is one of the most intimate songs on the album. When I started writing the lyrics, I was a bit stuck. Then Damián Barreiro died, and one of those sinister paradoxes happened, which had also happened to me in "Mundos inmóviles derrumbándose", when suddenly I received the call informing me of the death of a friend. You are thinking about your own shit, and suddenly a friend with 34 years commits suicide and you are left in shock. This pulls you out of your self-absorption and the questions you ask yourself then are the ones that creep into the song, and they are the ones that say more about you. In Losasombros" there is a musical treatment that may be reminiscent of Cajas de música difíciles de parar", but for me it is one of the central songs of the album because the poetry of Mary Oliver", whom I like very much, is very present, although not explicitly. It is also in Mi pequeña bestia", because there is a poem with the same title. In Los asombros" there is a fragment of a poem that says: “Instructions for living a life, pay attention, be astonished and tell about it”. The capacity for astonishment is very necessary to confirm that we are alive, whether it is to marvel at the beautiful things in the world or to be horrified by the terrible things.

A it's raining cats and dogs write: “Enough complaining”. Have they told you that a lot, this?

— No, they haven't told me much. I tell myself more than once. The songs that start from more painful feelings, I try not to make them entirely painful. And the most cheerful ones, not entirely cheerful. They are always complex feelings that impel you to write a song. For me, songs are gazes that question a bit what is happening to you and what is happening in the world you live in. And in Llueven mosques it's the first time I've put it almost like in a Greek chorus, in a very explicit way. I needed it to be like that.

Don't give up on the hearts. On the record there's also a lot of duplicated voice, a lot of background voice…

— Yes, there is a lot of voice. And I don't know where it comes from. 25 years ago, when I started singing my own songs, I wasn't comfortable with my voice at all. In fact, on the first album I sing a lot for the button of my shirt. I had to learn to make myself heard. Marc Bolan was my reference for doubling myself in different octaves. I also liked what Cat Power did. And Tarta Relena, with those incredible harmonies. All this blows my mind and, within my more standard pop universe, I like some songs to have this slightly choral dimension.

This also brings you to the melodic song of the seventies, which was more grandiose.

— Yes, you mean Mi pequeña bestia, right? When I was writing it, my reference was more Georges Moustaki; I even had the string arrangement noted down at the beginning. There were two ways to do it: take it to the more intimate, almost chanson part, and another was to take it to Sanremo, to this universe that is a bit unknown to me and that was a challenge that interested me.

Then there is the music video, which has this self-ironic touch…

— Yes, well, that was the look of Sara Condado, who I am a big fan of. I told her to do whatever she wanted with me.

You speak of learning to sing. You have also learned to compose in Asturian, and with increasing consistency.

— Yes, it was a pending account. I speak it and I feel it as my own language. I have never studied Asturian, I am not schooled in Asturian, because when I was little the option didn't exist. It was at university when I learned the more normative Asturian. In the first albums I included some songs in Asturian, and we also did it in the project Lucas 15, although there we didn't touch the traditional lyrics much. But it was very difficult for me, and it continues to be difficult, to write in Asturian about things that have nothing to do with Asturias. It is the click that those of us who speak minority languages have to make, and even more so with the degree of diglossia of Asturian, which is still fighting for official status. It's hard to make this click, and little by little I'm letting go. Asturian is a very living language, even though institutional politics turn their backs on it. And it is a particularly good time for music made in Asturias in Asturian, not only for Rodrigo Cuevas, but also for Ferla Mejía, L-R and Llevólul' Sumiciu, which mixes electronic music with traditional Asturian songs. Or Marisa Valle Roso. There isn't really a scene, but very interesting things are happening. I always look with great envy at what happens in Catalonia and Euskal Herria, where there is indeed a scene and a circuit, which is what is missing in Asturias. At least a lot of music is being made in Asturian by younger generations.

By the way, how did the collaboration with Albert Pla on Deslenguarte come about?

— I'm a big fan. I think he feels more like an actor than a musician, and he incorporates that into his songs. Every time I see him live, I'm blown away. I really wanted to collaborate with him and was looking for a song where I could see Albert fitting in, like Deslenguarte, which has influence from his more narrative ones.