The Pinker Tones: "Catalan avant-garde artists have always had to migrate to be appreciated"

Barcelona (CNA).- The native Catalan band ‘The Pinker Tones’, once a hometown favourite, are now filling up venues throughout the world. They are scheduled to play with The Black Eyed Peas this Saturday in Cornellà, and The Pinker Tones band members Mister Furia and Professor Manso are topping the charts throughout the Americas. The band has recently caught the attention of many when they gave away 50,000 copies of their new album entitled ‘Modular’. In an interview with CNA, Mister Furia explains this action as well as the band’s recent success; they will play NYC’s Central Park next week.

Our way of work has always come from our previous experiences in the industry, which haven’t always been completely satisfactory. Now with our new manager, Mark David, we have launched ‘Pinkerland Records’, an English sub-label that allows us to control artistic questions while maintaining our independence in this globalised world.

How would you explain that you have received greater success abroad than in Spain?
There is constant development in Catalan art that is historically repeated. Catalan avant-garde artists have always had to migrate to be appreciated. We like to think that there are thousands of ways to initiate a career and that there are still many roads left for us. And that doesn’t worry us. We have spent much more time and energy outside of our home and this has a tendency to invert itself. An example of that is you and I right now.

America might be the place where you have had the most success.
Yes, in America we are a crossover group, a mix between Latin and Anglo-Saxon styles. Lately we have been experiencing something difficult over there, which is uniting the public of Hispanic, Black, and White origins.

Did you ever imagine becoming so popular?
What we hadn’t imagined is our recent step, from an alternative Latino music classification – with Manu Chao, Molotov, etc. – to simply Latino – Luis Miguel, Shakira, etc. Furthermore, being among the top 20 Latino rankings in the entire world. The truth is that we don’t know what will happen when we unveil our new tour there. Our first big test will be on the 10th of July, in Central Park in New York. The showcase will represent this year what the band ‘Calle 13’ did 4 years ago. This day they became superstars. When they stepped down from the stage, everybody wanted to hire them. We were thinking, “one day we will play here…”. And it seems this day has arrived.

How would you describe the production of your music to someone who isn’t familiar with the electronic scene?
People have a preconception that electronic music is something that DJs do in some parallel universe. This misconception is not good. There are so many varieties of style and ways of doing things in our world, which in our case, revolve around pop-rock. Yes, many of our songs have an electronic base: there are samplers, synthesizers, and drum machines. But it’s not just the tools. We are musicians and composers. In the new album, we have composed a large part of it with acoustic guitar and piano.

You have changed studios five times, spaces which you continuously baptise as ‘Pinkerland’. What are you hiding? Why so nomadic?
Pinkerland is a mental state. It’s like an imaginary country, our own world of creation, a journey between us. It’s a space where we can always return to, where we produce albums, a likeable place. Like you said, we are nomadic. In this spirit we make every album in a different space. Maybe we are slightly vampiric, because we have never repeated a studio for any Pinkerland disc. We are actually looking for a ‘Pinkerland 5’ right now.

You just played the Sónar Festival, and it was not your first time. Would you consider it one of the few Catalan platforms that has given you support?
I think the spirit of Sónar is very similar to that of The Pinker Tones. Both the level of the festival and its performers represent a state panorama, especially in the Barcelona and Catalan music scenes. Sónar maintains a completely independent spirit as well as cordial relationships with its sponsors. On the margin of this, there is also a personal relationship.