Wolfgang Pérez : “I try to make my music so mercilessly honest that you can find out something about it and heal yourself”

Wolfgang Pérez (Foto: Marisa Eul Bernal)

With his second studio album “AHORA”, Wolfgang Pérez has created a highly emotional, both experimental and tidy work that draws on his Spanish roots and is rich in ideas.

Photos: Marisa Eul Bernal

WWhere were you at, when you started working on “AHORA”?

It hadn’t been that long since my debut album “Who Cares Who Cares” was finished when I felt like doing something new again – and something very different from my debut, where I deliberately didn’t impose any limits or strict rules on myself. With this new record, I wanted to have a relatively strict framework both in terms of sound and content, so this time I decided to write for very specific instrumentation; also because arranging had just become a new passion for me. I decided to write for cello, saxophone, guitar, drums and vocals. This line-up also came about because I really wanted to work with very specific musicians. Partly because of the coronavirus, I’ve been playing a lot of music in isolation, exploring my Spanish roots and listening to old Spanish songs from the early 20th century.

Let’s take another small step back: how would you describe your career as a musician so far?

I’ve always played in bands. It started with a punk band, until at some point it went more in an indie direction. Later came the band GOLF, with whom I travelled a lot and released two albums. During this time, I realised that I wanted to get even more involved with music. So I started to study music and composition. At some point, I started my own solo project. My first album was even closer to my musical past in terms of sound, until new interests and influences gradually emerged.

This was also accompanied by your switch to Spanish, which took place from album 1 to album 2. Are there specific things that you associate with the Spanish language, or ideas that you wouldn’t be able to express in German or English?

Wolfgang Pérez (Foto: Marisa Eul Bernal)

On the one hand, this change of language simply came about because I was involved a lot with Spanish music. But I also enjoyed the fact that the Spanish language gave me a kind of fool’s freedom: I’m a native speaker because my mum is Spanish and we spoke some Spanish at home, but I never lived there and it was never my everyday language, so my Spanish isn’t perfect either. There are also a few mistakes on the album, because I want to allow such mistakes to happen; just as it happens musically to some extent. I had the feeling that I was less afraid of being direct in Spanish. On this record, I started to discover a poetic language for myself – or to try my hand at it – and I just have the excuse that it’s only Spanish and I can’t do it properly [laughs]. That’s the case with many elements on this record: Arrangement, language – and also with the way I play the guitar.

The album title “AHORA” is the Spanish word for now, which in a way suggests improvisation or spontaneity. How much improvisation is there in this record?/strong>

Quite a lot! There are always places where improvised parts appear. There’s also a song that’s simply called “Sketch #1” and consists entirely of improvisation. I just copied an alternative guitar tuning for it, which I really liked, and played around with it. I then simply brought it into the sessions – without having rehearsed it beforehand – and we improvised to it. So the whole way in which the arrangements were created was partly improvised: Often there was already a melody, but no worked-out arrangement yet. I recorded everything and listened to these improvisations later – and then built the actual arrangements from them.

I hear the album as a journey with a clear beginning and a clear end. In terms of both content and music, it’s more difficult to find your way at the beginning until everything seems more organised at the end. In one of the first songs you describe suffering as an integral part of your life, but at the end you sing about opening your eyes and continuing on your way. How would you describe this journey in your own words?

Wolfgang Pérez (Foto: Marisa Eul Bernal)

Healing has always been a great function – or possibility – of music for me. I try to make my music so mercilessly honest that you can find out something about it and heal yourself through it in some way. I’ve always been interested in making myself vulnerable in my music in order to learn something in the process. There are parts of me that are extremely introverted and anxious, but there are also parts of me that are totally outward-looking. It’s about drawing something from a completely honest, uncompromising look inwards – and then putting it out into the world.

To what extent does spirituality play a role for you and your music?

I lived in Brazil for a while, where spirituality plays an extremely important role in the music; that inspired me tremendously. I simply realised that there is a certain depth to pop culture there and that things have meaning for everyone. That’s something I also want to look for in my work.