Raül Refree: "I woke up after playing the piano and all the keys were covered in blood."

BarcelonaThe musical biography of Raül Fernandez Miró (Barcelona, ​​​​1976), Raül Refree for art, was born incubated between frustrating piano lessons and the speed of melodic hardcore, and also runs through musical biographies of artists such as Rosalía, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Albert Pla and Rodrigo Cuevas. A militant of contrast, this composer and producer soon He shares the stage and records with Niño de Elche. com composes soundtracks for the Javis (in the series The Messiah). Now it is also expressed in a book: When Everything Fits Together: Notes on Creativity (Debate, 2025).

In the book you explain that you were asked to play a Los Enemigos song at a friend's funeral, and that at that moment you understood the meaning of the music.

— A friend died suddenly, abruptly, and I was asked to play at the funeral. From the mattress, of Los Enemigos, because he really liked it. At first, I said no. I felt like it wasn't my place. And a friend, Abel [former singer of Corn Flakes and currently programmer of Primavera Sound] made a suggestion that convinced me 100%. He said: "Hey, you dedicate yourself to something, which is making music, and it has its greatest importance and meaning in these kinds of celebrations. In joyful celebrations, like weddings and parties, and at funerals, because music is a unifying element of the community."

And when you create, have you ever had a moment where you realized that everything makes sense, that everything fits together?

— Yes. I give an example in the book, but I could give others. I was working on the music for The Messiah, the Javis series, and there was a scene that was very important to them: the moment when Montserrat, the mother of the family, noticed that she was beginning to contact God. They had put the Messiah, by Handel, but it was a reference, and I composed other pieces. They told me: "Okay, yes, yes." But we all knew that there was something that didn't fit 100%. And that's when I did a rereading of the Messiah that suddenly we realized that it was that, that it couldn't be anything else. It fit.

You also say you feel comfortable walking the tightrope. What does this mean?

— In the albums I've made over the past few years, I've liked what I decided not to do more than what I ended up doing. Sometimes, the decision not to do something is more important than the decision to do it. Another lesson I've learned throughout my life is to embrace the unexpected and mistakes. Instead of expecting everything to always turn out the same and wanting to repeat what I did one day and that more or less worked, I've found my way to enjoy making music, which for me is a 100% playful act. After the interview, when I'm in the studio working on the soundtrack for the film The black ball, From the Javis, I imagine doing it with a lot of desire for something playful. When you embrace error, you accept that you're walking on a glass floor, which is very fragile, but you can also take it in an interesting direction. I think a lot of the compositions I've made in recent years have arisen from error.

If this book were a superhero story, your arch-enemies would be music teachers and academic musicians.

— I understand that teaching should establish a method that serves a wide range of people, but it never ceases to surprise me that after so many years I still encounter higher education students who decide to stop playing the instrument they're studying, only to become bored with it. I think the playful aspect of teaching is forgotten in favor of technique and the pursuit of something that ultimately homogenizes the player. It was very difficult for me, but I accepted that I was a very poor performer. Even now, after many years and a profession, I'm still quite incapable of doing things the way they should be done. But, on the other hand, I'm capable of creating something different, something new. Often, when people think about my vision of popular music, they think I've broken away or tried to disintegrate. That's not why. I don't confront a genre and say I'll break it in half now. My way of playing it is perhaps listening to Niño Ricardo playing the guitar, and then I play trying to do the same thing and something else comes out. It's my nature. It's neither better nor worse, but it's accepting yourself.

When you've pushed a convention to its limits, it's often been alongside artists who've internalized the convention deeply. For example, Rocío Márquez with flamenco And Rosalía with the ancient songs. You act from a place of ignorance, as you explain in the book, but alongside someone who has a very deep understanding.

— The ignorance I'm talking about is somewhat tricky. I'm not against learning. You can learn in many ways. It's not just studying music, but listening to it. I find many musicians, those who are professional musicians, who stop listening to music. In the end, the most I've learned is by listening to others. I'm a music lover more than a musician.

When you have made these very intuitive explorations, you have received fierce hatred, like when on the tour of Los Angeles With Rosalía, there were people asking for the guitarist's hands to be cut off—that's you. Understanding that musicians and creators always work on a fine line between narcissism and fragility, how do you respond to these kinds of comments?

— This line between the two is interesting. It sounds great in interviews to say, "I've got a very measured ego, I don't have an ego, I don't know what." And I think, "Wow, you don't have an ego? And how do you do it?" Because ego is absolutely necessary, precisely in these moments of fragility. It's like a lifeline; you're in a storm, and you can grab onto your ego. If you don't believe in yourself, it's very complicated. My relationship with the most orthodox or purists has been complex. And in flamenco and traditional music in general, there are a number of people, who I think are very necessary, who decide that things should be maintained in a specific way. For example, they want to keep flamenco as it was in the 1970s, as if this were the original flamenco, and they forget how the ancients played. And the most striking thing is that, as Pedro G. Romero told me, and as others have, my way of playing, much less orthodox, much dirtier, much more punk, connected with the flamenco guitarists of the 1940s, who played with a greater focus on the voice, less on technique, less on dynamic, emotional virtue. Purists now see me as a foreign body, as someone doing their own thing, but they don't criticize me anymore. But there was a difficult time, it's true.

It's interesting about ego and punk. Let's start with punk. How do you remember those early years of playing with Corn Flakes, a band of hardcore melodic? What's left of that Raúl?

— I think there's still a lot left. In fact, I learned the foundation of who I am today. Sometimes I listen to things I did back then and realize I wasn't able to communicate what I wanted; I didn't have the tools yet. But I see things I wanted to say that aren't so far removed from what I'm saying now.

Raül Refree is as much about what you've done under your own name as it is about all the work you've done on other people's albums. I'd like to give you a brief rundown, especially so you can explain what they've contributed to you. For example, Albert Pla.

— Albert is the paradigm of a personality who, above technique and the established, is the person who prevails and is exciting. He is a unique stage animal and a tremendous transmitter of emotions. Let me tell you a story. Los Javis, when it aired The Messiah, had in mind something called the New Year's Concert: a concert in which the scenes of The Messiah are happening in real time with the actors, and the corresponding soundtrack is performed with orchestra and heart. It was performed only once in a theater in Madrid. In rehearsals, one of the songs we played was Religious experience [Enrique Iglesias' version]. We were doing it with a core of 60 people, a byte of string, a lot of people... and Albert appears, who was singing the song. I start playing the piano, and Albert begins to sing, but softly, softly, whispering. I saw the people in the core uncomfortable, looking at each other: what's going on here? They didn't understand that someone could start singing like that, and that caused the core to suddenly sing completely differently, much softer. And when Albert started, it was like a liberation for the heart. I mean, Albert drags with his way of doing things and his personality, like great artists drag everything else.

Silvia Pérez Cruz, with whom you had a very intense musical relationship.

— We played with Silvia for ten years. I learned a lot from her, and I hope it was reciprocal. We made the Las Migas album. Queens of the snitch, we did the project Immigration, we played live for a long time before recording, we did theNovember 11 we also did Grenade, which is surely the culmination of a very intense relationship, because we understood each other very deeply. And well, like all intense relationships, they don't last forever. I always told Silvia this. But I'm very happy with the legacy we created. Silvia has a spectacular voice, and I think she's also a musician with a very powerful creative mind.

Rosalía?

— There's a story I like to tell with Rosalía because I think it's very beautiful. We were introduced by the journalist and composer Luis Troquel, who was sure we had to meet. But I was with Grenade At that time, Rosalía didn't have any idea of making a record with me either. We started meeting: she came to the studio maybe once a week, and we spent the afternoon together listening to music. We didn't play. We spent months watching YouTube and putting tracks on Spotify. She showed me a lot of music, and I showed her things I liked, but we didn't play. We became musical friends with no interest in making an album. One day, I had lent her the CD. And see a darkness, Bonnie's Prince Billy. And super spontaneously, she started singing and I started playing. We finished, and we just looked at each other, and we felt that connection. And we said: "Well, we have to do something about all this."Rosalía is a contemporary artist with a very clear concept, and, apart from being incredibly talented, she understands that everything is linked to a concept, and that the artistic concept is very important. I think she's never given up on this. She's achieved something very complex: reaching the public without losing that artistic power.

Recovering the ego. On the cover of Grenade Your name and Silvia's appear. And on the album with Lina, both names are also present. However, on Los Angeles Only Rosalía's name and face appear, and the interviews were now only done with herHow did you take it?

— This was my decision. I could have put my name on it, but at that moment, coming from playing Grenade With Silvia, from such a powerful duo that had had such an impact, I felt like a new voice could be a big burden. And I also didn't want anyone to think I'd replaced one voice with another. It was my idea. Look, let's get the full weight off the plate, so you're able to start clean, and we put my name out there, even though the back cover photo shows both of us. It was good to get the full weight off what I'd done before.

With other artists, you've had a producer relationship in the most conventional sense. For example, Roger Mas, Els Pets, Cocanha... What positive things have you taken away from these experiences? And what wouldn't you want to repeat?

— Roger Mas was the first major artist who asked me to produce a record for him [Domestic mysticism[in 2006]. It was very important for me, and I learned a lot for many reasons. One, precisely because I think I did things right and wrong. Perhaps things wrong that I've learned since then that can't be done. You have to adapt to the artist's speed of assimilating what you're doing. And at that moment, I think I went at a speed of decision-making that made him feel a little out of touch with what was happening. And maybe that album sounded a bit external to him. That's why, when it came to mixing, he said to me: "Listen, Raúl, I'd rather do it myself." And I understood. I've always been careful that the other person felt comfortable with what was happening. I like to think of music as a shared journey in which you reach unexpected places, which sometimes aren't easy. And it has to be very intense, and you also have to be very psychologically aware. But I've learned things from each of the artists and albums I've made, and that's very important. These are things that have impacted the things I've done in the next step. In the end, no matter how much I've worked for other people, they're still albums I've put my all into.

In the book, you recall your natural shyness. You also explain that, even when you're leading a personal project, you also attach great importance to a tour you did with Josh Rouse, and the one you later did with Lee Ranaldo. Does not leading relieve you of some of the burden?

— Absolutely. I remember one of the last concerts with Refree singing. It was at the Auditorium, and it wasn't full; there were maybe half the people. And I thought, "I'm tired of that, of putting in that effort, of leading something that is so difficult sometimes." Over time, I've come to understand that with my approach to music, free and unafraid of experimentation, this happens: there are concerts with 200 or 300 people and others with 1,200 or 2,000. I've accepted this, but at the time, I thought I was tired. And suddenly I started playing with Josh and then with Lee, and being able to tour extensively in the United States and Europe, but without suffering... I enjoyed it because I love playing, I like the music I was playing, and I didn't have to worry about interviews, or whether there would be people there or not, or whether the numbers would turn out.

What's your best music-related memory? And what's the one music-related memory you'd like to forget?

— I'll start with the second, which is easier. My mother tells me I always remember the bad things. I don't know why, because I remember many good things. Bad memories include those endless piano lessons where I was unable to do what they wanted, and the person sitting next to me couldn't see any talent or interest in me. I would arrive at lessons without a clear score, but with an idea for a very simple little song that perhaps wasn't very important, but then a kid brings you a little creation, and maybe you have to animate it. And I remember that not only was this not liked, but I would get booed and told I wasn't good enough for it.

In the book you talk about a bad experience when you were about eight years old, when in music class you decided to do a piece of the Mikrokosmos, by Bartók, but when it comes to playing it, it doesn't come out.

— I can't do it, and the cold sweat starts. At that time, I couldn't imagine that what was happening to me then is what is happening to me constantly now, and it creates something new and works for me. For me, going on stage for a long time was synonymous with suffering. Miles Davis said that creation shouldn't be suffering, but something playful, fun. And for me, doing a concert meant suffering and getting sick the day before. This is perhaps the worst part. And surely the best part of making music now is when I manage to free myself from my body, from the stage. It's a bit difficult for me to explain because it can sound very difficult. hippie, but it happens that you free yourself from the ego and you end up placing yourself in a kind of disembodied space. I'm telling you, it's a bit hippieBut sometimes I'm live and I have a real trip; I forget I'm playing in that place, that I have people there in front of me, and I'm simply reacting to something I feel. With Paco, Niño de Elche, it's happened to me several times that I've gotten up after playing the piano and all the keys are covered in blood, splattered with blood. How powerful can this trip be, where this disembodiment causes you to not even notice the pain?