Catalan band Els Catarres has brought with them, to Chennai, their trademark happy-go-lucky style of music at the recently concluded Global Isai festival at Phoenix MarketCity, the last leg of their first Indian tour. The pop-folk band trio — comprising vocalist and frontman Èric Vergés, Jan Riera Prats on keyboard and trumpets, and Roser Cruells, on the bass — hardly ever stay still on stage; their energetic dancing, combined with fast-paced vocals and breezy guitar riffs, had the crowd dancing despite the songs being in Catalan.
“We started out as an acoustic band, but then we experimented with all styles. The one thing that has remained common throughout is our friendship, that reflects in all our songs and their lyrics,” says vocalist and frontman Èric Vergés. Èric has known Jan since he was six, and Roser Cruells since his school days. “We were 14 when we started playing together,” says Èric. “The beauty of our band is that we’re such different people!”
While Èric, who writes most of the songs, is more into indie music, and Roser likes all things jazz, Jan is the one with a finger on the pulse of the mainstream. “He knows what’s popular, and what will work in a song,” he says. Jan, like Èric, started out with guitars, but then took an interest in the accordion, then the keys, and the banjo. “I know a little bit of everything. But I’m a master of none,” quips Jan.
“Our process of making a song is democratic; almost like a negotiation. There’s this push and pull to reach a middle ground,” says Èric. “We have such different tastes that if all three of us like it, it means most people will,” he explains.
Nine years ago, while playing in small Catalan bars, they never imagined they’d be doing an India tour some day. Their big break came in 2011, with ‘Jenifer’, a song they wrote as a joke, becoming an overnight hit; currently, it has 4.8 million views on YouTube. “Jenifer is this funny song about a Catalan boy who falls in love with a Spanish girl. A Romeo and Juliet type of situation,” he grins.
(The Catalan region has long demanded for independence from Spain, and today, the Catalan pro-separatist movement has gotten even more intense, with Spain heading for yet another general elections in April, because of the issue.)
Overnight fame
For Els Catarres, the instant fame changed everything: “One week we were nobody, the next, people were stopping us in the streets to take photographs.”
Then came the process of realigning themselves to the idea of being an official band. “We learnt a lot of things, but mainly that, one hit song doesn’t mean you’re successful.” There were constant fears of being written off as a one-hit-wonder, or ‘so last summer.’ “We have earned this space in people’s hearts, and now we had to work harder than before to keep it,” he says.
It was on this subject that the band took a workshop at Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music, for amateur musicians. Fame comes easy and cheap; but staying in the game, navigating your way through the marketing maze, all the while staying true to your art, is the real challenge. “What worked with us was that we weren’t very young — in our late twenties — when it happened. We had a decade of experience with not going anywhere,” he says.
Come November, the band will be performing with the 1983 Symphonic Orchestra in Barcelona. Only after that will they start composing for their next album. “We always take year-long breaks between albums, to make sure that our music style evolves, and remains fresh,” he signs off.
