Pol Batlle: "My mother's diagnosis stopped me completely"

BarcelonaPol Batlle (Gavà, 1992) rescues some songs that he composed when he was able to write again after Alzheimer's overwhelmed his mother.I'm going on horseback (2025), an EP that offers the testimony of a musician who needed a couple of years to figure out what path he was going to follow, both in music and in life. Then came the album. Somersault (2022) and tours with Rita Payés, the singer and trombonist with whom he has two daughters. He talks about all of this during a free moment between his artistic obligations and those of being a double parent, just a few days before the concert at El Molino in Barcelona on June 6.

How are the girls?

— Very good. And very horny. Now it's that moment of total surrealism.

They were at the recording of the video clip of the song He cremated, TRUE?

— Yes. They don't appear in the music video, but they were at the recording because it happened to be Christmas and they came with us everywhere. And yes, they were blown away by the mud and dress moment.

When you posted Somersault, you had just become a father for the first timeHow do you think fatherhood affects your songwriting?

— It affects me directly in the sense that I have less and less time to compose. But that's not the case with that EP, I'm going on horseback, because I wrote the songs in 2018, and back then, neither of them existed. But it's true that I've relaxed a lot more and I make music more calmly. I came from spending ten years with Ljubliana & The Seawolf, which was a very hard-driving and demanding band, and now I'm more relaxed.

Parenthood makes you more aware of fragility and vulnerability, which are two concepts that already appeared on your previous album, right?

— Yes, of course. All of this stemmed from my experience caring for my mother with Alzheimer's. Perhaps that's why I wrote about these things in 2018. Later, with SomersaultWhen Juna was already born, a firmer proposal was made. I've found this little path of small things that gives me hope and light, little things that make us realize that we are fragile, the complete opposite of what they lead you to believe, that you should always succeed and be the strongest. It's something that has been running through us for many years, it suffocates me, and music is a little path to find that breath of fresh air I need. And my daughters have reminded me that the importance is in the detail, in the gesture, in these little things.

The EP's compositions are from 2018. Why are you bringing them back now?

— I recorded the music in 2019. All that was left was to do the vocals, and I had a ticket to the United States to record them in New York with producer Ander Agudo. Somersault, and the lyrics on the EP kept changing. And why did I want to release them now? It happens to us musicians that we listen to music from five, six months, or a year ago and think: damn, I should have done that differently, I don't like it anymore... But with these songs, the opposite happened.

At no point did you consider including them in Somersault?

— No, because they were far from the concept of Somersault, which was a bit simpler, while these songs have more production.

Concerts like the one you will do on June 6 at the Molino will be in a format that is closer to I'm going on horseback that in Somersault?

— We'll be a quartet, with Arnau Figueres on drums, Quimi Saigi on keyboards, and Òscar Garru on bass. This EP doesn't sound like a singer-songwriter; rather, it sounds very different, and I'll try to reflect that.

It's very interesting what you do in Sinking, the way you build a mysterious atmosphere in the early morning.

— I wrote all those songs when I was able to start writing something after my mother's diagnosis, which completely stopped me. I wanted to let go of the frenetic pace of album-concerts-album-concerts. Sinking as Weirthing, well, all the songs except Lost and happy, which is the only one I didn't write, speaks a bit to that moment. I also found it interesting to do them this way, now that most of the music that tries to be mainstream is good vibes, like a musical Instagram. Or it has to be like a hypersexualized Instagram to do well and get people to listen to it. And for me, since I see music as art and art as a driver of change, it seemed more interesting to use music to help myself and, in the process, help others.

Lost and happy It's from Mirlo, by Jaume Estalella. Where does this song come from?

— It comes from the years we played at Pumarejo in Vallcarca, where a musical community developed that was truly remarkable. Everyone knew this song by Jaume, and when we played it, a communion was created that has always moved me deeply.

A few months ago, following the release of the album Soul, from Goat Soup, Gerard Quintana spoke about those meetings in Pumarejo in which Xarim Aresté was also present.

— Xarim and I have an almost family-like relationship. We don't see each other much these days, but we always talk a lot. When I was sixteen, I met Very Pomelo [Xarim Aresté's band] and became a bit of a fan. After a while, when I was about nineteen, we ran into each other at a dinner party and a friendship began that now feels more like a relationship with my older brother, who's away on Erasmus. It's really a stroke of luck, just getting to know him. He's a brilliant little person.

In these years in which you combine your concerts with the tours with Rita PayésWhat have you discovered about music and the music business?

— The music business and music are two completely different things. I'll start with the music. Truly, touring with Rita's entire band has been like the opportunity of a lifetime. They're musicians I admire the most, and finding yourself, within the band and being part of that is... They're musicians who come from jazz and classical, from worlds so different from what I came from, that for me it's been like a university. And what should we say about the industry? I wish it could operate with more humanity-based criteria, because the industry is driven by numbers, and it makes me a little sad. There's a lot of talent in Catalonia, but it's a shame that many somewhat minority projects have to go hungry at the expense of four groups that are earning a lot of money. This feels bad. In the same way it feels bad that there are all these festivals that take advantage of these smaller projects. In an ideal world, I'd like everything to be a little more evenly distributed.

What is your best memory related to music?

— The most powerful memory I have is seeing how a person who can't speak and can barely move reacts when you play a song. No doctors, no pills, no treatments—nothing can achieve this reaction. This is the case with my mother. And it's something that has made me change and consider how important music is as a therapeutic art. This is the most heartbreaking thing that has ever happened to me with music.

And what is the memory, also related to music, that you would like to forget?

— I'd like to forget my first extracurricular music teacher, because he traumatized me. I suppose there are a lot of people traumatized by bad teachers.

Did it ever make you think about quitting music?

— Well, actually, I quit. From the age of seven to thirteen, I didn't want to have anything to do with music. That's the only thing I'd like to forget. Or not, I don't like to forget it either, because in the end, it becomes a part of me too.