Leiva: "The album caught me between breaking up with my partner and starting another relationship."

Barcelona"When I come to Barcelona, I like to walk around here, near the sea," says musician Leiva (Madrid, 1980), looking out over the Parc del Fòrum from the heights of the AC Barcelona Forum Hotel. He's escaping the frenzy of the city center and would like to escape some promotional obligations. "After a year and a half quietly at home, all this talking to the press is an abrupt process, all this talking to the press," he adds. However, he doesn't shy away from any questions about the album. Giant (Sony, 2025) and the tour that will take him to the Palau Sant Jordi on November 8.

Renewed hopes?

— Yes, because you lose them along the way. After so many years on tour, there comes a time when I start to feel like everything is becoming mechanized, that it becomes routine, and I start saying the same things in concerts. I can clearly identify when I start to feel like a bit of an imposter and need to take a breath to regain my enthusiasm.

How much does it weigh on you to have so many people depending on you? I mean, if you get tired on tour and say enough, a lot of people are out of work.

— This is the biggest hurdle I face. It's what weighs most heavily on my shoulders because my families are always involved in my decisions. Perhaps I'd be less involved, but, of course, it's necessary to strike a balance between the people you support and what you want. In my case, it weighs especially heavily on me because they're also friends. I work with lifelong colleagues from my neighborhood. Balancing what I should do and what I want to do is probably the hardest part of my job.

That's why the song where you talk about feeling like a fake, Leivinha, you make up for it with the song Neighborhood?

— Yeah. Neighborhood It talks about something very important to me. I've lived in the same neighborhood, Alameda, for 44 years, my whole life. I wanted to write something and make the neighborhood a symbol on this album.

Do you think the album Giant it can be yours Brutal honesty [Andrés Calamaro's album]?

— Maybe so. I hadn't realized it until I started talking to colleagues in the press. There is, indeed, a degree of commitment to the more explicit and confessional aspects of the texts, much greater than I thought. Seen that way, it would be my Brutal honesty, which was a super important album in my generation and in my neighborhood.

I was mentioning Calamaro because in your songs, loss, resentment, and love also appear quite starkly...

— When the ground moves, that's when things with the most honest and authentic aromas bloom. It caught me in a transition, between the separation from my partner—we were together for seven years and grieved deeply—and starting another relationship with another partner. The songs on this album emerged from that coming and going. It was a great place to write.

Regarding grief. I wanted to ask you about the one you explain in The dust of strange days.

— I say I'm going through a strange period of mourning and I don't see myself in the market, because I don't see myself capable of relating to other people yet.

Musically, what have you wanted to do that you hadn't done before?

— I don't identify any musical explorations. I did want to record the album with the spirit of doing a couple of takes with the whole band playing. Many songs are recorded that way, devoid of production. But it's not an album from which I expected new things.

It's striking how you use choruses, especially at the end of songs. Like a coda.

— That's something different from my other albums. I wanted to do these things that were done a lot in the sixties and seventies, like in Hey, Jude of the Beatles: using codas, which is something I hadn't done before and I really wanted to try. Neighborhood It's there too. I'm happy, I like it.

He riff of Shock and adrenaline Is it a tribute to...?

— It's a riff of Sweet Jane, by Lou Reed. Sometimes, when you get a riff and you see that it sounds a lot like a familiar one, you let it be. But there are also times when you enjoy it as a tribute. In the song Angelo dead There are some transitions that sound like Joaquín Sabina, and I thought, "What do I do? Do I leave here or do I embrace it?" And I decided to embrace them. It's okay. I don't try to convince people that they're mine. These are moments when I like to lay my cards on the table and say: this is part of my life and I'll enjoy it.

Also noteworthy is the collaboration of Robe Iniesta (Extremoduro) in Free fallYou've had a very close professional relationship with Joaquín Sabina, and now you're joining Robe. You're establishing a kind of genealogy of myths.

— It's nice to have the opportunity to see two people who play in the same league at work, and see the vast differences. There's been a lot of discussion with Robe because his involvement has been enormous: he wants to be very present in the decisions, the sound, the words, the verbs... Joaquín hates work and just wants to laugh and spice everything up with a sense of humor and zero solemnity. And the other is a workaholic and is focused on working and taking everything very seriously. It's incredible how different two people who are so close can be.

The album moves on two conceptual levels. On one hand, the situation you described before leaving one relationship and starting another. The other level has to do with the doubts you have as an artist. And as a general summary, is the song? Comets and stars?

— Yes, it is very well regarded. Comets and stars It's the first song that, when I write it, I feel like I have a path and a concept, and that I'm telling things from a very honest perspective. On the album, I talk a lot about everything the job inspires me, about where I am.

"I'm nothing like what you think / I'm too vulgar a reflection of my world of comets and stars," you say.

— Yes, that's what I think. It's not just the liturgy of the stage. It's that you're physically higher than the audience, which distorts people's imaginations about what you might be like. My life is very normal. If they looked at me through a peephole, they'd say, "But this guy does the same thing as me." With the difference and exception that I get up on stage in front of thousands of people. But I've always liked the idea of explaining that this is a product of other people's imaginations. My life is very similar to everyone else's, and I think if they saw me on a daily basis, I would disappoint a lot of people who think I do or that extraordinary things happen to me. My life is very similar to other people's.

But you are dedicated to a profession that is very connoted precisely for the opposite, for a supposedly exceptional life.

— Well, my life has a very exceptional side: I have a series of encounters with very special people who make a huge difference in the lives of others. That's how it is. Not everyone sits down with Robe or Joaquín. Perhaps at 28, when I had a life very connected to touring and a somewhat more... killer, it could be a little more exciting... But today my life has more to do with those walks I was telling you about before.

You'll be playing at the Palau Sant Jordi for the first time on November 8th. You've previously performed at the Sant Jordi Club twice. Are you ready to take this leap to 15,000 people?

— It's a good question that I can't answer. Right now, it's the most nerve-wracking thing about the entire tour, for many reasons. First, because of the size and ticket sales, which are going very well. Yesterday, they told me we had 11,500. If they stopped selling tickets, I'd be very happy because it's the biggest crowd I've ever had in Barcelona. I proposed doing two Sant Jordi Club shows again, and we had a debate with the management office, because I thought I didn't have enough of an audience in Barcelona to do it. But, well, it turns out I do, and I'm exposing myself to a situation that makes me incredibly nervous and dizzy. I've had the experience of WiZinks in Madrid, but in Barcelona, the experience has always been a bit more intimate.

A few months ago Robe Iniesta, a 62-year-old artist, brought together more than 23,000 people at a concert at the Parc del Fòrum., and something very curious happened: part of the audience was over 40 years old, but there was also a lot of very young audience who connected especially with the songs from the latest album.

— This is incredible. When we were in the process of making the song, Robe invited me to a concert in Santander, and I was blown away by what you said. There was a significant segment of the public that connected more with his latest album than with Love, love, love and expand the soulThis means that Robe continues to reach young people. That's enviable.

This reminds me of a verse from the song Giant"Kids don't want sad songs anymore, they just need an iPhone." But hey, kids have Robe too.

— In the song, I paint a broad brush portrait to capture the immediacy of today. The industry tells you to synthesize the message because people don't have the patience. And that really pisses me off because, first, you're underestimating the audience, and then you want to box us into a consumerism that I don't want to, and can't, engage in. I'm already too outdated to try to create 30-second content on TikTok.

How do you deal with the duel between The anthill and The revolt, which are the two major media showcases that artists now have, at least on television?

— I can connect more or less with one or the other personally and politically, but I'm not going to participate in this duel that some newspapers want to sell me, based on the fact that I have a hard time enjoying the part that has to do with the television discussions about my album. It's the part that I struggle with the most and where, let's say, I suffer the most. If you asked me when I feel I'm earning the most, it would be right now.

What's your fondest music-related memory? And what memory would you like to forget?

— I remember something very transformative, very happy, and very fulfilling, which I've struggled to regain since: the first time I saw a band called Doctor Jekyll playing in a garage. There were four kids playing, and something very, very beautiful happened to me. I said, "I want this." It was an incredibly revelatory experience. And a memory I'd like to forget: a very awkward situation about authorship that I experienced with Johnny Burning, which I'd never experienced before and thought only happened in movies. It was so disappointing and hurt me so much...