Diego Torres with María Laura Santillán: “Little by little I am recovering my freedom”

He is one of the most popular Latin artists. Renowned in the world for his songs. Songs that cross entire families, which continue to be valid over the years. But there are also always new songs. And a creative desire to browse, to investigate, to mix rhythms and genres, to record with new and established artists.

— One of the things I really enjoy is when I sing live and I see parents with children, grandma, grandpa, teenagers and grown-ups in the audience. Reaching a wide range of people is good. That concern that you say is part of the desire to renew yourself, to enrich music. In this latest album, “Atlántico on foot” there is even a charleston, sung with Florent Pagny, an important artist from France, with a huge career. And a reggae with Natiruts, a historic band from Brazil. I love that diversity.

- Where is your house today?

— Buenos Aires and Miami. Miami and Buenos Aires.

— Two houses, the same importance.

- The same one. I open and they are my houses, I have my mate, I have my underpants (laughs).

- Address?

— Argentina. Suddenly I spend a few months here on tour and then I have to go to Spain for a couple of months or to Central America, or I do a television program in Colombia, as happened to me before the pandemic. My life has always been like this and I'm used to it. For me the blow of not traveling, of storing the suitcase and everything was...

— How long did you go without traveling due to quarantine and the pandemic?

— A year and a half.

“And what did you do during those months?

— Psychological treatment (laughs). It was a good time to go back to therapy. Cook a lot. Father's chores, take and bring to school, to sports, to dance school.

- Did you get depressed during that time?

- I went through all the states. At first it was “it's good”, I stop a little, I stay at home. And then the months went by, things got complicated, with loss of affection, loved ones, work and you say, and when does this end? And strains and strains and strains. Our primary work is concerts. You make the records to sing live and meet people, all suspended. There were moments of sadness, of depression, of saying “what do I do? Shall I wear a bar? Should I wear a restaurant?” Something I have to do, my life was always working, moving from one place to the other, in the studio recording, or touring, or participating in something as an actor going back and forth, training. The sport helped me a lot at that time, go for a run, bike, swim. I would wake up lost in the morning and run and swim. Sport changes my mood.

- You got off, you got angry, you didn't know where to go. Until everything started to settle down.

— All borderline situations, as you say, require us to reinvent ourselves. I had to make this album with my partner Yadam, who is a musician and arranger from Cuba, in a small studio. Writing, composing, working on production, arranging, sharing ideas. Filming what it was like to make the album made us want to make a documentary. We did everything between us, at most someone came to help us, but we loaded the irons, the tripods, the cameras, the microphones, we saw locations. Then you become more self-sufficient.

- You learned a lot.

— I started to put a lot of things into practice. I always felt like an integral artist. And so I sent myself to direct the videos as well.

— After that year and a half is there anything that changed forever?

- I broke up. Imagine that this is a drastic change in life. It's like a hinge in life.

- Do you associate it with the pandemic?

— I don't know if I associate it or it's in the context where it happened to me. A number of emotions happened to me in the pandemic that were difficult to sort and accommodate. That's where therapy comes in. As the therapists say, you have a drawer and in the drawer you throw everything and you have everything very messy and suddenly the world stopped and you say “oops, look how this drawer is. Why don't I start tidying it up a little bit?” On a personal level it meant and meant many things. On a professional level, what I was telling you. In “Dawn” I talk about it, the world will change from now on.

- You said it changed your personal life forever. Did you live it with an open horizon or as something that needs to be closed and is it very painful?

- You live emotionally like a very big wave that you surf and that sometimes throws you to hell And below there is coral, and the coral cuts, bleeds and hurts and hurts. Everyone has to do their process, it takes a while. All those difficult moments surely teach you more than the good times. They make you meet yourself in the background. And from the bottom, maybe resurface.

— It looks fantastic like that, but it must be super painful.

- No, it's just that as I tell you it was super painful and it doesn't stop being so. And I am very emotional and then things have an impact and the instrument is very affected by the emotional as well, the instrument of the voice.

- Does the throat close?

- The lump in the throat, exactly. And the anguish in the chest makes the voice go down.

- Is it still happening to you?

— That heals with time, with exercises, and with the healing of wounds.

- Your daughter Nina goes to school in Miami. How do you organize to see it?

— My daughter started school here in Buenos Aires, then moved there. And so he became accustomed as parents to being gypsies, traveling from one place to the other. I really enjoy being a father, I love it. It is an inheritance that my father left me, he took us to school at five every day and to play sports on the weekends. And I really enjoy wearing it and bringing it, watching movies, reading, drawing. Children offer you a new door in life and a love that never stops growing.

— Does the song “To feel free” also have to do with the pandemic and separation?

“Yes, it speaks of that freedom that we have lost. How we get along with loneliness. We find it hard to find ourselves alone, it scares us and we get filled with things that keep us entertained. And when we close the door... no one can escape from oneself. Yes, the song reflects that spirit that one is going through and living.

— In the photo of the album “Atlántico a pie” you look like Jesus opening the waters. Jesus with his dog.

- (Laughter) Yes, when we were making the choice of the photo on the cover that picture appears with the birds in the back, the loaves were missing, and we said “this is the picture”, and it was undeniable to feel that yes, it looks like Jesus, and well, what do you want me to tell you, I have long hair, I have a beard, it's not that you give it to me as a mystic... that there is hair, which is the most important thing (laughs), so I celebrate that. But no, let's get to the important thing, Atlantic on foot. When I was writing that song, that phrase appeared to me and I said “ugh, this is the title of the album”. I felt that by not traveling, one could use the metaphor of crossing the Atlantic on foot, as Juan Luis Guerra says, “The Niagara by bike”. To say “my freedom of thought is still free” and through the songs I say and sing, I send a song to another colleague and we sing together, the songs travel and carry their content, their message. I am a Piscean, I am from the sea, I like to walk with my boat all the time, I throw myself into the sea and enjoy myself. Many people like Miami because of the shopping centers and amusement parks, what I like is the feeling of living in the Caribbean. See a dolphin, jump into the sea, enjoy rays, sharks...

- Do you swim with sharks?

- Yes, yes. It's okay, most sharks don't attack.

How do you take care of your hair, Jesus Christ?

- I sincerely gave up the haircut and the hair grew, when you have long hair you need cream and all that kind of thing...

- They're like quick now the men.

- I'm not a sexual meter, I'm more hypo.

— The hippies leave their gray hair.

- There's no dye here, nothing.

- You turned 50 something.

- Yes... let's not remember that. I feel like a completely young spirit, I used to see a person of a certain age... and now I don't feel that. The boys also take you to play again.

- Why doesn't your niece Angela sing on this album?

— It didn't happen, but I'm working somehow on your new music project, I put together two very nice sessions with my team in the studio.

- You are his Cachorro Lopez, say?

— And yes, I am his uncle, we are very dear and we share a lot. I see Angela as an adult, mature, focused, I have a very nice relationship with her. We were living together, door in between, and I am very happy with what she is doing and being able to accompany her, then if we sing together it will be seen, surely yes.

- Are you helping her grow?

- You don't need to. I'm going to be honest... she is helping me much more to grow up, I have some dialogues... the other day we were in the van and she said some things... and I said: “Who is writing to you what you're telling me?” That suddenly one of your nieces comes and says “but uncle, look at this, think this”, very clear reasoning, very adult, very constructive. I learn a lot more from her than she does from me.

— Are the closest friends today musicians, actors, athletes?

- Criminals... scammers (laughs). I have friends, it is an inheritance of my old man, of all colors, flavors, on one side, on the other, I love being like that. I have lifelong friends from school who are like a treasure, they are the ones who have known you since childhood

- I'm from having great friends, in my generation it was weird. In Argentina we have a very important, very deep cult of friendship, we give ourselves to friendship, it is not something trivial, it is not something like “what a nice shirt you have, see you”, we tell ourselves the intestine, the pancreas. I have a very strong thing with women, I come from a very special mother. Mom since she was 11 years old has been working as an actress, she stood up to my grandfather. At that time being an actress was a dubious profession - “I am going to be an actress at 14 and I will continue and I will continue” -. For me it is always equal to equal, men have to assume female roles as women have to assume roles that were once related to the masculine and that are now part of women's rights. I have a big Oedipus, don't I?

- Did you start to enjoy being single?

- Yes... Quiet, yes, trying to get along with my loneliness, with my spaces, in process.

— Are messages answered in the process? Are you more saved or more open?

- No, do you mean with strangers or with my daughter's mother? No, no, no. Very quiet. Really the most important thing is Nina and getting along well, we love each other very much with Débora, she is a great woman, I deeply admire her, her life story, what mother she is, it gives me peace of mind to be here working and recording with you. I know my daughter is in the best hands, I think she thinks the same way.

How do you stand in front of this country that doesn't start? It goes forward, it goes backwards, it doesn't take off.

— It gives the feeling that we are bogged down with the same problems whether one government comes or another comes. That makes us lose our way, it doesn't let us project. We are more concerned with fighting, in refeeding this rift, than with understanding each other in our differences. We are children of a marriage that is lived fighting, our lives drift and we have to grow adrift. The young generations, my nephews with different opinions, have ideals, they want to change, they are committed, they want a different Argentina. The thing is that the Argentine does not have a middle ground, the Argentine who is worth is great, and so we have great personalities in the world of science, sports, the arts. Now, the bad Argentinian is very bad, and he is capable of doing a lot of damage. I think there are people here who are professional at doing harm, there is a lot of ambition, a lot of selfishness and a lack of sense of community. A lot of people want to do things right, they're honest, but it feels like the people who have the most talent to hurt are the ones who have the power, the ones who interfere and end up ruining your life. People think that we artists are Martians. We are not Martians, when I do a concert inflation influences. People think I get off a helicopter, come and sing and leave. No, here is work, rehearsal, preparation, production, expenses, per diem, everything.

— A lot of people want to see you at upcoming concerts and won't be able to buy a ticket.

— I make a draw, give possibilities, put cheap tickets, expensive tickets, what will happen when the concert arrives, how much will the services cost, we are all affected by projecting. A young boy today can't take out a loan, he can't project to 15 years or 20 years with a reasonable interest rate. You're building a little castle and one comes and it makes you... (it blows). When you are several decades old you say “again? Again?” Add to inflation, insecurity, going out and getting punched.

— You are going to sing in Capital, in Rosario, in Cordoba, in spite of everything.

— There is a site that plays old TV shows. There is a program I worked on, “Us and the Others”, with Rodolfo Beban, Silvia Montanari, Florencia Peña, Gloria Carrá, many of us were just starting at that time. In one scene, Beban talked about inflation and the dollar in the 89s, 90s, the same problems. Someone who stumbles over 40 years with the same problem has to go to the doctor.

- They're a lot of people, I think.

— They are a succession of someone from different political sectors. That's what I see, it's “this again.”

— In May, are we going to sing and dance when we go to see your shows?

- There is everything. You try to give people different emotions. Sing, dancing, laughing, getting excited. That is a label that naturally appeared on me, not that there was a marketing department, I listen to diverse music since I can remember.

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