Ginestà: "We are the young people who tied the 1st of October, in Urquinaona and in Can Vies"

BarcelonaThe brothers Pau and Júlia Serrasolsas (Barcelona, ​​​​1994 and 1998) speak with the calm of someone who has done the work. At least they are happy with the success of the album. My life (Halley Records), which has been extended with the EP Just live (Halley Records, 2025): four songs, including Let go of your hand, the post-breakup duet between Pau Serrasolsas and actress Laia Manzanares. And, of course, happy to have sold out all the tickets for the concert at the Sala Apolo on March 21, within the Guitar BCN program.

What did he want to tell that he didn't tell a year ago on the album? My life?

— Pau Serrasolsas: We wanted to make one in addition to the album. It is not conceived as a change of stage or sound, but as a closure. In the first part of My lifeIn the first part, we explained the traumatic relationship of a break-up, and in the second part, being reborn, feeling good again. And now living fully again. If we had nothing to tell after a year, we wouldn't have released anything and we would have waited to make another album. In fact, it's the first time we've made an EP, but we wanted to explain that we're at a point in our career and our life where we feel very liberated.

That's why I started with Just live.

— PS: Exactly. This song is like a symbol, and it also gives a name to this new stage, which is not only linked to what we publish, but also to a live performance that will be somewhat different and will have greater intensity and strength.

Last year It was precisely about preparing a live show up to what I wanted to communicate.

— Julia Serrasolsas: Yes, and now we have it. Also, adding these four songs has given us a lot of impetus when it comes to changing some songs that we had been doing for a long time in the same way. We want to bet on a much more musical and experimental live show, with more dynamics, because there are also moments to go deeper and get emotional. And to have more space for the band, something that is being lost quite a lot in the current scene. We are getting used to live shows that are somewhat suffocating and it is cool that within the dynamics of the live show there are moments of rest.

Talk about "living and not thinking."

— PS: To live and not think is above all to not overthink. And to be intense, but in the good sense of the word. Sometimes we are very determined with things, we are very intense, in the sense that we get lost in our thoughts and we don't draw any positive conclusions because many times we try to find solutions in places where they are not or in things that you can't do anything about because you can't solve them yourself. To live and not think means, above all, to look ahead and not destroy yourself.

— JS: Yes, and be decisive.

It's one thing to tell about a breakup with songs that everyone can interpret as having to do with you or not, and another thing is to make it as explicit as you do now, Pau, in the song. Let go of your hand, which you sing with your former partner, the actress Laia Manzanares. Can you explain to me exactly how it went? And what did you think, Julia? Because I understand that you will have to sing it live.

— JS: Yes, we are already looking at it, how we sing it, but with Ginestà we have always abstracted ourselves from the character. The song seems amazing to me, very necessary and a gift for all the couples who are breaking up or for couples who have broken up and realize that perhaps they can still do things right and make love appear from the other side.

— PS: Laia and I broke up in March 2023, and I wrote the song a few months later, in October, when I was already feeling better. We had met a few times and things were getting back on track. Although I wasn't great, I was fine. I wrote it and put it away because it wasn't the right time to propose it to her, far from it. A lot of time still had to pass before I could propose something like that. And then, around June 2024, she published a song with Grupis, the group she has with Eli Casanovas, and I was amazed because I didn't expect her to start making music. After a few weeks I spoke to Julia and we decided to propose it to Laia. She was very excited, and it marked a different point in our relationship because we met again, we agreed to write and go to the studio... And now we get along great and the song is beautiful. I will say that in the studio it was impressive because you're saying a lot of things. heavy metal and you're saying them bluntly and in front of the other person, and this is where I was quite shocked.

The inspiration of Let go of your hand was it Chavela Vargas?

— PS: Yes, Chavela Vargas singing Have a nice tripI didn't analyze Chavela's song at all, but the first sentence is how it led me to her.

— JS: It's the concept.

In the lyrics of the previous album, the class consciousness that had always been expressed was diluted. Now it reappears in The flies, when you sing "I admit that I think about myself more than I would like. But in the mornings at the rent..."

— PS: "...because I am more my father every day."

Then we will get to the father... "There is no world left, there are only friends, love letters and hating the police," says the lyrics.

— JS: Here the Ginestàs are back in their purest form, but it is precisely because these are very generational things. Who of our generation doesn't think about rent? Who doesn't have things like this, like some childhood trauma typical of a generation of separated parents? And hating the police is also an issue of our generation. We are the young people who tied up the 1st of October, in Urquinaona and in Can Vies, those who demonstrated to reduce university fees and who also gave us a hard time.

— PS: And just a little while ago a police officer wrote to us.

— JS: Hey guys, could you change this sentence? I'm good at it...

— PS: We already know that there are good people, but well...

I was telling you about dad because the song talks about that moment when he recognizes in your gestures the gestures that his fathers made.

— JS: Yes, or ways to make it at home.

You are in this situation already, right?

— JS: Yes, it's been a while. In my case, it's more about mom than dad. Suddenly you realise that you come home and put your shoes on the way she put them on, or that the first thing you do is stretch the sofa cover.

— PS: Yes, the feeling of constantly seeing yourself reflected in her. And also with the generational reflection of having to think that in a year, when I turn 31 or 32, I will reach the age my father was when I was born. But it is likely that, if things don't go very well for me, I won't even be able to consider having a child. Well, also because of the life I have chosen, but also because of how we have had to grow up compared to how our parents did.

Growing up is like putting the sofa cover on properly.

— JS: It's about putting the sofa cover on properly... that is, that you care about this.

What do you expect from the sold-out concert at the Apolo on March 21?

— PS: Apolo is the best club in the world, and playing there is like coming home after three years.

You have always been very generous with other artists you have collaborated with. Who has been generous with you?

— JS: For example, Xavi Sarrià was very generous because he gave us a lot of support from the beginning. And Cesc Freixas kind of sponsored us. Feliu Ventura too. And Lluís Llach, who shared the song ofLove you like the earth...

— PS: But it hasn't happened to people of our generation who were doing better when we started than we were at the time.

— JS: Well, Ropa Estesa agreed to do a collaboration with us.

Estesa clothing, which recently announced that they fold.

— PS: Yes, they will fold in December.

Do you have the feeling that your generation is starting to wear out a bit? There are groups that are already doing so...

— PS: Suddenly people keep coming.

— JS: The centrifugal force that is taking over the industry is difficult to withstand. We are lucky because we are brothers, and because there are two of us and we share the weight. We live outside of fame, and we take very seriously the decisions about when we release music and when we don't. I think there are people who live much more with the inertia that things must be done very quickly, and in the end they end up burning their cartridges.

— PS: We made the decision that we wanted to have a long-term career, and we worked towards that. We don't want to do what everyone else does, but rather something very specific where the lyrics are at the centre and the most important thing is what we want to say. I was talking to Josep Montero from Oques Grasses a few days ago, and he told me that the only way to have a longer career is to do what you want to do and what you feel, and to take it to the ultimate consequences.

— JS: The trend is very attractive, but it is much more attractive to keep the public and change according to what you want.

— PS: And that growth is relaxed.