Interview with Russian Red: “I wonder if a guy who feels sexy would be called a ‘provocateur'”

Lourdes Hernandez He was 15 years old when he first picked up a guitar to play Beatles songs, calmly and without pretensions. At that time he did not imagine that his first demo would reach 70,000 views on MySpace nor that, from that moment on, his life would turn around. Under the name Russian Red she began giving concerts in venues and, with them, came the event that placed her at the crest of the wave, Primavera Sound in 2007. That young twenty-something person embodied a phenomenon that ended in collapse: she released her well-known first disk, I love your glasses, She agreed to be wherever she was wanted – magazine covers, films, advertising campaigns and festivals – and signed for a multinational until she said ‘enough’. It was a knock on the table that came literally after four albums and an overexposure that squeezed her without respite.

In 2014, during a concert in Seattle, Lourdes walked off stage and brought her tour and career to a screeching halt. Thereafter she started a new life in Los Angeles, where she married Zach Leight. Together they bought an old church, renovated it and used it to organize weddings and events. Several years later she published her book THESE WORDS LEAVING MY BODY (2020) and returned to Madrid to star in the film Ramona (2022). A decade later she returns to music with her album fall in love again (Boy sound). “If there is one thing that works in my favor, it is that I am not so young anymore, and I think that there is an approach that society has towards me that is totally different from what it was ten years ago. I can tell you that now,” advance to Informalia. We spoke with the singer about her fifth album, an evocative, mysterious project full of reflections and fantasies about love and desire.

Did falling back in love with the profession first involve falling in love with yourself?

Completely. Many factors have influenced. The first, that I returned to Spain after the pandemic, when I had been in Los Angeles full-time for ten years. In Madrid I started working as an actress and spending more time alone, and suddenly I realized what it meant to be without my partner. I began a kind of recovery of myself that I associated with my individuality, with my own drives… And I realized how legitimate it was to be connected to me. Although it sounds a bit controversial, this took me on such a beautiful journey that I didn’t want it to end, and that’s why I made this album.

You mentioned Ramona, Andrea Bagney’s film. The character you played reviewed his own desire, although in a conflicting way. Did it influence you in any way?

The first project that inspires me Ramona It is musical, but above all audiovisual. Before releasing this album I made another one that hasn’t been released yet, and there is a movie, let’s say, of which the album is the soundtrack. But the character of fall in love again and Ramona couldn’t be more opposite. Obviously, there is some romanticism in both of them, but Ramona is a person who does not dare, while the character on the album is the complete opposite. What Ramona did give me was a different way of being in life. I started seeing it like a movie.

What’s it like to live in a movie?

It has a lot to do with being in the here and now. I relate to desire from that place. Ramona helped me a lot to connect with that because, every time we crossed out a scene in the script, I felt tremendous pain. Every day that passed on filming I went home a little sadder, so I began to enter into life as if it happened between scenes. I left one behind, crossed it out of the script and that put me in the present moment. On a shoot, if you are not attentive during the scene, you do not find out many things. On a spiritual level, that made me wonder if in my life I was connected to what was happening to me.

I think they have a lot to do with it. To desire you have to be willing to know yourself. Everything in life is an investigation, and desire leads you to open many doors. It is very expansive, like falling in love, which is different from love.

Do you prefer love or infatuation?

It’s possible that I’m a little addicted to falling in love… But I think I’ve already managed to settle that.

To what extent does being in love get us out of control?

I don’t know, but it seems necessary for that to happen. It’s so important to lose control… Feel like I’m leaving and then return to myself. I like that.

Do you have a good relationship with control?

When it comes to working I always say that I am not professional at all, because I don’t like this thing about the career, the industry, the manager, the journey, the steps that have to be taken… But when I do something, I do it with incredible discipline. . I give everything I have, which is a lot. And if there is something I am grateful for getting older, it is realizing that I have a lot to give.

Ten years ago you got off a stage and said: ‘this is it’.

I was so little that I didn’t know how to face my traumas. She was running away from them. And I think that is the fundamental reason why I left the profession. It has more to do with an internal dislocation or misalignment. If, so to speak, life were to hit me like it did at that moment, nothing would have the same consequences. Today I know who I am, where I am and what my speech is, which is changing, because nothing is definitive.

You defined your relationship with the industry as “toxic.” For a relationship to be healthy, it is necessary to set limits. What barriers do you put in the profession now?

I feel that very intuitively, and from pure innocence, I have always been very clear about my red lines, and investigating them is fine. I have many barriers with my mother, for example, but in other areas of life I am very good at managing myself. I read people very well. I give myself to research and negotiation.

You will go on stage with Álex de Lucas, Amber, Luichi Boy and Ganges, who belong to generations after yours. Have you been keeping up to date with the Spanish music scene during your time in Los Angeles?

The truth is that I have been very disconnected, but in these last three years I have reconnected a lot, and in a very organic way. I met the band like that. I met Luis at a party and we started recording. The album came out like this, thanks to his help and that of Carlos René. I’ve known Álex for a long time, and so has Amber. Ganges is a more recent discovery. She comes from a scene of girls who have groups in Madrid, they have a great time… I was the one who contacted Tere, who will be the one who will open all the concerts.

You say you’ve never wanted to tour so much, and look, you’ve given concerts…

The thing is that now I am at a moment in life where I can take advantage in the best of ways that I once had a career. It had never been ten years since he released an album. The singer in me is one of my characters, and I want to give free rein to that part. Before there was no distinction between me and Russian Red, and making it has helped me a lot.

What separates Lourdes Hernández now from Russian Red?

I really think Russian Red is more obsessed with falling in love. She is the tragic romantic, the eternal teenager, the girl who is super in love. And that, before, when I was young and invented Russian Red, was the bread and butter of my life. With Russian Red I want to experience certain emotions through music.

There are creators, like the writer Olivia Sudjic, who complain that they always associate their characters with themselves, as if authors were not capable of creating figures with their own personality and experiences that are foreign to them. Have you ever felt like this?

To begin with, women are asked questions that men are not asked. The other day, for example, a guy told me that he had returned to music ‘more provocative than ever’. And I told him that he wasn’t trying to provoke anyone. Sometimes I wonder if a guy who feels sexy would be told that he is provocative. When a woman does certain things, they are called provocative, and she seems super strong to me. Now that is provocative! And although the industry has changed a lot, it is true that there are still things to do. Women in the arts are better than before, but things still need to improve.

“They ask women questions that they don’t ask men. The other day a guy told me that I had come back more provocative than ever. I told him that I wasn’t trying to provoke anyone.”

For example, a button: Rosalía was criticized for the lyrics of Hentai and Aitana for her dances on stage.

Yes, there are men who still feel provoked by these things. That’s why I think it’s also important to change this discourse through art.

Zahara did it in her last works. Also Natalia Lacunza.

Yes, through music is how the message penetrates the most. Art is super transformative, not only for those who create it, but also for those who consume it. I am very much in favor of conquering spaces without asking permission. You don’t have to talk about doing it, but do it and that’s it.

But do you think it’s easy? For example, Vicky Luengo recently denounced that artists are required to promote a Me too to the Spanish, as if that were simple and would not have negative consequences on your reputation or future work.

Yes, totally, because processing collectively is super important, but to do so you have to go through a very critical process. And by critical I mean crisis, and by crisis I mean change. It is a difficult time, yes, but we must get through it.

“I am very much in favor of women conquering spaces without asking permission”

It’s time to say goodbye. What will your audience find on the tour?

I am very happy with the concerts, because, as they are in theaters, I have invented two acts. First one thing will happen and then another. For me there is a ritualization of the singer’s journey through her drives, her doubts, her falling in love, her fantasy… I call on people who have some kind of block with desire to come to the concerts. . Maybe you can look in that mirror.