Is it better to do a cover than to release your own song? The Chopkjas open the controversy at the doors of their show on the GTN

listen to The Chopkjas It is going back to more traditional times. There are no compositions that have an extremely computerized sound or that are out of place with the acoustics of the Gran Teatro Nacional. They make use of winds and strings, where the electric bass is one of the few instruments that they added when taking their artistic look towards the punk that catapulted them back to the country’s stages. His virtue lies in his perseverance, but also in a style that, ironically, confuses many due to the presence of various musical genres.

At the same time, the style is clearly Andean, with mostly sad romances created by César Tovar, leader and main vocalist with 40 years in the industry. “Our compositions were mostly simple and romantic themes, experiences of people who know each other throughout a lifetime; sorrows and happiness. Now the process and the rhythm have changed, we release a single, its video clip, and we launch it together with the publicity”, mentions Tovar in an interview with El Comercio. He is accompanied by Arturo Armas (strings and voice) and Christian Moreno (winds).

—How did they start?

Cesar Tovar: It is by a conjunction of wills that we were formed in 1993. At that time, my group went abroad and they left me alone. So, I got together with other young people who had just finished school; I had learned that his group, so talented, was no longer going to continue. I met with them, we discussed it and we decided to work together under their name.

“Chopkjas is an unusual name.

Tovar: Chopkjas is the name of a community in the department of Huancavelica, but it all goes back to the name of a curaca warrior who was killed, just like Tupac Amaru. Someone who avoided being conquered by both the Spanish and the Incas. That is the spirit of this group: musical defenders.

“And hard to pronounce, too.”

Arturo Armas: In fact, Chopkjas is not the original word, but an interpretation that we made and that is [relativamente] easy to pronounce. Before making this change, they called us “Los chocas”, “Las chaufas”, “Las chompas”, even “Los chompiras”; anything but The Chopkjas.

“The singers who do covers have to do the song already made. I simply believe that the singers are already looking for a style and something that identifies them and if they reach the public with great performance, they achieve it”

—In various interviews you talk about the importance of the original composition. What is your opinion about the covers?

Weapons: Yes, we have some covers, but mainly we work and compose our own unpublished songs where César is the main creator.

Tovar: Well, the singers who do covers have to do the song already done. I simply believe that singers are already looking for a style and something that identifies them and if they reach the public with great performance, they succeed. For example, Grupo 5 is not a composer group, it is a group that does covers*, but they have won something very special with the public, they have blended in with them in such a way that their public has identified with their way of working. , Its performance. The singer has also given a good performance. So many do that and a kind of prize arises because it is difficult, for someone who does covers, for the public to follow, but there are others who do succeed, there are cases. It is the same case as Daniela Darcourt or Yahaira, who were criticized for doing covers, but they do well doing it. However, this may not be the case in all cases.

Christian Moreno: In fact, it is much easier for the covers to stick and have significance, since they are songs that one listened to as a child and that are already inside our heads. We can say that each one puts his personal stamp on it in terms of voice and what is in between. But it’s easier for a song that was successful 30 years ago to be successful again. We work from scratch, we create arrangements, choruses and many other details, we don’t take songs from others.

*Editor’s note: Grupo 5 has its own songs, composed by various artists, including Estanis Mogollón and Gian Marco Zignago. Asked if they reaffirm their statements, Los Chopkjas said yes.

—How was playing on national and American stages?

Tovar: We are doing very well and we are received in different parts of Peru together with artists that we have practically known all our lives. One of them is Pelo D’Ambrosio, with whom we once missed a flight back to Lima because of a soup. It happened when we were returning from our concert in Chachapoyas, where Pelo got off the bus to have his soup, with the misfortune that this delay positioned us behind a car accident. Still trying to make it to our flight, the Pelo gang and Los Chopkjas were pushing the cart to clear the road. When we arrived at the airport it was already late, they didn’t let us pass and the plane practically took off without half of the passengers.

Weapons: The United States was before, in 1996, the year in which we traveled to that country for the first time to play in various cities. The bad thing was that of the six of us who went, only four returned, the others wanted to make a life there. Years later, on our third trip to that country, only two of the four of us returned to Lima, becoming a duo. Then one of those who stayed came back and we became a trio.

How are they still valid today?

Weapons: There is the theme of the tunantadas, music that our audience liked very much and which we approached for the first time on the album “Flor de piel”, where we learned to play this type of song listening to Susan from Peru. Although we don’t consider ourselves a rogue band, we are happy that this type of music is currently triumphing.

Dark: What we started in 2009 was the starting point for what is now the riot boom in Peru. From this success is that new groups appear that follow this trend.

—César is from Huancavelica, Arturo from Trujillo, Christian from Lima and the rascals from Junín. Wasn’t there criticism for playing representative music from another region?

Dark: At the beginning it was not accepted that we played punks because we weren’t punks, in addition to the fact that it was thought that we were taking over a musical genre to implement other people’s instruments. After a few years, those who criticized us were already dancing with our new style of rascals. The years kept passing and that music passed from father to son, which makes it a new tradition. We are not creators of anything, we have only adapted to modern times something that already existed.

Tovar: We have put that little seed, our grain of sand, so that new musicians appear. For example, there are the guys from Raíces de Jauja. Now we are happy to listen to their new songs and see all the success they have achieved. I think that in some way our music has permeated many young people because their parents have passed on that musical taste to them.

—In your podcast they mentioned that before it was common to put tunantada or Andean music to get people out of the disco, but now they even ask to put them. Why is this happening?

Weapons: Times have changed. Before it was impossible to find a space on any station, we could only find our songs on pirate radios that broadcast them without our permission; however, they helped to show our songs to more people. Now, thanks to social networks, this promotion reaches more people and many like it: children, adolescents and adults. Another important factor is that our music is passed down from grandfather to father and from father to son. They leave their legacy that does not necessarily have the label of a particular town, but rather it is music that we listen to as children and it reminds us of the people who have inherited it from us.

—What new projects await Los Chopkjas?

Weapons: Now that we are married and with children, if due to fate we leave the country again for the United States, don’t worry: the Chopkjas will return to Peru or we’ll get hit at home.

Tovar: We will continue making music with the same spirit as always, recording songs to continue what we started 30 years ago and keep going, because I would like to reach 60 years of age, but I don’t think I will.

Weapons: For this concert at the Gran Teatro Nacional, people can expect the reunion of the original formation of Los Chopkjas and the participation of Luchito Quequezana, who is a friend from adolescence, as well as Óscar Arzapalo from Raíces de Jauja, whom we watched grow up. and now it is a great exponent. All this will be accompanied with dances of the foremen and tunantadas, because for us that is inevitable.