“All the people we have called have issues that fascinate us”
It is difficult to define Twenty-one. With“The art of losing” (23) were consecrated, with “The Ballad of Delirium and Balance” (25) we discover a much more conceptual facet of those from Toledo. Now, with “The Last Dance of Delirium and Balance” (Warner, 26), we find a much more experimental Twenty-One.
I meet Diego and Yago again more than a year after our last interview, this time from the privacy of our respective homes in the middle of a rainy day. Let’s get straight to the point: “The Last Dance of Delirium and Balance” He rethinks the songs from his latest album, but leaves them completely at the mercy of friends in the industry. “’The Ballad’ and ‘The Last Dance’ had as part of their narrative the exploration of possible paths, of the lives you have not lived and, making a fairly simple metonymy, the most fun thing in the world was (thinking) what songs these would have been if other people were the ones who defended them”explains Diego.
Taking this condition to the extreme, the collaborations – which include bands like Rufus T. Firefly, Repion or Puño Dragón – have had complete creative freedom, “On an album that is as lyrically confessional and intimate as ‘La Balada’, when you involve people to get in, it’s good—or it’s more interesting—that you let them truly be a part and get involved to the point that each one wants.” Furthermore, in the case of bands with many members, like Puño Dragón, they tried to include all the members in the process. “Many times doing the collaboration means that the singer comes and it’s over and you never end up getting so much of the energy that another project has.”
“The realization that what you have done in your house means something to someone fills us”
The idea is born “of admiration”: “All the people we have called have topics that fascinate us. And they are also very different proposals from ours, in one direction or another,” Iago explains. “They did something that was very far from where the song was and they looked at us as if to say ‘Are you sure?’” Diego remembers. Well of course yes. “We wanted to explore this universe more. If you want to enter, here you go”those from Toledo invite.
This reinterpretation includes unreleased songs. Some of them already accumulate thousands of listens on platforms, but there are surprises. “We have recorded one more song and it is only on vinyl”they advance. A physical edition that has been conceptualized and drawn by Diego with the help of Ainhoa Azabal, “who makes sure that the format is always perfect”. Although, on this occasion, the vocalist has encountered an extra difficulty. “I was working with a paper that doesn’t allow much redrawing. I had to burn a lot of paper to work. And the carp on the cover… There are seven versions of carp that have different chromosome values,” he jokes. Furthermore, they explain to me that it will be a double vinyl with “La Balada” and “El Último Baile”. “They both come precisely to give everyone peace of mind that nothing is left out.”
This last dance, they clarify, is not an impulsive whim. “We were clear that we wanted to do this before finishing ‘The Ballad’.” In fact, on the album “There are things that give clues to the album to come. It’s a lore album,” synthesizes the singer. However, foresight has not prevented them from headaches. “May and June have been the worst months of work that I have had in the history of the band. (…) You can afford to stop dead if no one is waiting for you or if a lot of people are waiting for you,” Diego develops. They, luckily, have a great community that always responds. For their latest releases they have been playing with their followers, as happened in “Make a wish for me”, which they played live at Playa de Aguilar because “It was born there. It was the biggest mistake we’ve made with a song, but it turned out very nice.” They also explain: “If the ‘Past Lives’ clip is a mask party, what do we do to present it? Well, a mask party.”
This endless number of ideas is born from the will of those from Toledo to “know if there is someone on the other side.” “We live in an era in which streaming takes you away from the crowd through a screen and you only know if people are alive when you test it live”Iago explains gratefully. “The realization that what you have done in your house means something to someone truly fills us”they confess.
We just chatted and I can only ask Diego and Yago, after the last dance, what happens with Delirio y Equilibrio? “That we are going to finish the trip with them and then we are going to let them rest,” Diego summarizes. They will touch what is left and change course. And with this, Twenty-One concludes a journey of “two and a half years”. “I think that the next time you see a Veintiuno poster with rooms and such, it is possibly because we have something new to say.”
