“All feelings have their opposite and are part of us”

Jairo Zavala turns personal contradictions and collective confusion into the driving force of “Fury and calm” (Calaverita, 26), his new job. Recorded in Mexico City with Camilo Lara, the album vindicates small gestures, individual responsibility and hope as forms of resistance.

(You can check their tour dates at the end of this interview).

Fury and calm are not necessarily opposing forces. Sometimes they need each other, complement each other and even confuse each other. Jairo Zavala, at the head of Depedrohas found in that contradiction the starting point of a new work that looks both inward and towards the world around us. “I would like my days, my family and dinner, with the world outside, to always be serene and stable, but they are not. Neither as a father nor as a citizen. That’s how we all are. These dichotomies have a very powerful engine for reflection and have even helped me give the name to the album and a song that tries to tell what happens with those two concepts,” explains Zavala. It is not about choosing one of the two, but about learning to live with both. “We are a set of things. Just as every action generates a reaction, all feelings have their opposite and are part of us. I want to think that, when we mature and become adults, we are capable of holding those feelings, using them and even enjoying them. But it seems that we are not capable,” reflect.

“The person who every day has the courage to get up, overcome their own misery and put on a smile seems very brave to me.”

To build that sound universe, Zavala decided to leave his comfort zone and move the recording to Mexico City. There he found the man behind Instituto Mexicano del Sonido, Camilo Lara, a friend and producer, with whom he has worked at Soya Sauce Studio. The leap involved facing musicians, dynamics and possibilities that I did not control beforehand. That’s precisely why it was stimulating. “Places are important because of the people who live in them. We are social beings and we have to get together with the groups and actions that please us the most. In Mexico there was Camilo Lara, who is a great friend. He told me that we should go there and that we would work with people I had never worked with. I told him: ‘Wherever you say’. I went there and I am very happy with the results,” account. The trip also left its mark beyond the study. The scale of Mexico City contrasts, according to Zavala, with a way of relating that still allows space for conversation and shared time. In a huge city, stopping to talk to a stranger can be an eye-opening experience. In that normality, Depedro finds a form of heroism that deserves to be told. “The person who every day has the courage to get up, pull out of his own misery and put on a smile seems very brave to me.”

Depedro It also requires reviewing our own attitudes and the way we relate to those close to us. For the musician, social change cannot be separated from personal transformation. The way we treat others, everyday decisions, and the ability to recognize our mistakes are all part of the same process. “There is a lot of personal work to do. There is no more beneficial change than what we make in our immediate environment. If all people change something in that environment, in the end we become a better group. It is about assuming personal responsibility to do things better with the people we have next to us. It is not an obligation: it is a right that we have to earn.”

The emotional dimension of the album also appears in “Va a llover”, a song that features the participation of Iván Ferreiro. The theme addresses love from the awareness that no relationship remains immune to difficulties. “When I made the song, I hadn’t finished it yet, but it sounded like Iván. I sent him the demo and told him that I was thinking about him. He replied that we should do it together, that he loved it, but then he didn’t have time. When I finished composing and recording it, I sent it to him again. With Iván everything is very easy. We have a relationship for many years and he is a person with a capacity to understand, share and be generous that I admire a lot.”

The variety of musicians and instruments involved in the album could have dispersed its personality. However, Camilo Lara’s production contributes to maintaining a balance between the identity of Depedro and the new nuances. “Although there are many elements, Camilo does not let the album lose its identity. He has a very deep look and knows that, as a producer, you cannot distort the person you work with. She has to continue being herself. He has helped me a lot with the melodies. Sometimes you have a melody that is a little static and he manages to give it more dynamism so that it excites.”

When asked what feeling he would like the listener to be left with when finishing the album, Zavala does not hesitate. The answer points to the horizon that he tries to keep open even in the darkest moments. “Always hope. In Spanish, hope includes waiting, but also expectation. And it increasingly shares more space with personal work.” In that combination lies a good part of the meaning of “Fury and calm”. Hope does not appear as an immediate solution or as a promise that things will end well. It is a willingness to continue working, to take care of the links and not let the noise end up taking over everything. Fury can point out what needs to change; calmness, perhaps, allows us to decide how to do it. Between both, Depedro Find a place from which to continue singing.