Josep Pedrals: "There was a lot of life, it was a kind of mini-village of summer residents where many things happened"

An August 11th many years ago is the protagonist of the song of the same name by Els Nens Eutròfics, the music group that Josep Pedrals had. The song, which intentionally begins with a 11/8 time signature, tells of a day of vacation in Montserrat. And it is that the poet and rapper is very clear that Montserrat is his favorite place in Catalonia: "I hold it dear because as a child I walked the entire mountain". That is where he spent all his summers until his early twenties, and as an adult it has been a place to take refuge and go to write: "When we were younger we stayed there for two months and in August we coincided with the group of friends, which was changing, those of the first and second fortnight. Even now, every June we meet with the group". When Josep was seven or eight years old, his father, who was already retired, was the one taking care of him and his sister, and his mother would go up on weekends until she settled in for vacation. Pedrals liked these vacations of staying in one place, living there and feeling like you belonged there.Explains that over the years Montserrat has been changing and expelling people, only one and a half buildings of cells remain, and there used to be three. The type of public is also different: “Now there are tourists, foreigners, who are passers-by, nothing to do with the people who used to come up with their packed lunches and have lunch on the Sant Miquel path”. He recalls that there was a lot of life, it was a kind of mini-village of summer residents where many things happened: they organized hot chocolates, burnt rum, bicycle races, a scary route along the degollats path… “It was fantastic,” he assures.

In the mornings, their father went to mass while they did their homework, but they also went on excursions in the Natural Park, played ping-pong, and went to the library of the La Caixa Foundation: “I was happier than a lark, it was one of the coolest places, I spent my afternoons reading, I knew the library by heart”. They had some half-finished cabins and once they found an abandoned pot of paint, they painted a section of the mountain that is still there. Pedrals explains that the monastery governed cycles and set rhythms: the bar closed at six in the afternoon, the choirboys arrived at the end of August, the day before the Assumption of Mary was Vespers with an incredible celebration, and in August there were choir conducting courses. “In the evening they practiced with the people who were vacationing there, we called them the singing sessions. After dinner, everyone gathered in the square and they taught us canons, we did choreographies and learned a lot of songs, not just for mass,” he recalls.I still feel that Montserrat has a kind of special energy that other places don't have, beyond the religious aspect and La Moreneta, there are the UFO people, the mountain is full of strange shapes, and this kind of conglomerate, he says, seems like it's going to explode.