Mauricio Mesones: “There are people who think my name is or my last name is Bareto” | INTERVIEW

“I am happy. I’m really very happy, I’m doing well, I’m working hard “, is the first thing he tells us. Mauricio Mesones from his home, during a brief pause in the preparations for the next concert that will close the 2021 season of the Gran Teatro Nacional on December 7.

“The fun of this project is that we started 2019 and I did not expect that the welcome and affection towards this that I put together very quickly would be so cool, so spontaneous, so fast”, confesses the artist. In fact, for last year they had agreed shows in several cities of Peru, but everything fell, due to the pandemic and the quarantine, and all the work had to be rethought. That, paradoxically, in the end ended up benefiting his new album. “I don’t know if we could have achieved what we have achieved with Tropical Travel if we had not had this health problem. That has helped us to be able to record, to rethink various things, to have more time to compose better “.

Interestingly, the quarantine gave you more creative space, time to develop and test more things …

Yes, we became more solid, it helped us a lot in the concept of the album. It helped to be able to do a more careful curation. When I started to conceive this album, I thought: “I’m going to make a tropical music album, but it should also be fusion. Who is the ideal person? Martin Choy. Martín has set the tone for Peruvian music twice, with Los Mojarras and with La Sarita. What Peruvian has not heard “Triciclo Peru”? Those guitars are yours. Or “Guachimán”, “Danza la Raza”, those recordings are guitar arrangements by Martín Choy. So, what we proposed with him was not to make the typical tribute album to Peruvian cumbia or Peruvian tropical music in which we record a cover, we put a crazy guitar in it, we add drums and we say that we are doing fusion. Where would the new be? What we did was start listening to a lot of music. The musical culture that Martín has about folklore, tropical music or rock is also very rich, very strong, and I have always liked it. At one time I was a performer, not a composer, and in order to perform better, I tried to do research on who had composed the song, who had sung it for the first time, on what basis it had been composed, the influences of the song. singer to do so or the composer to create it. So that started to lead me down certain paths. Thank God, since I was already a singer in a group that was known, like Bareto, the doors were opened for me to meet old people from the cumbia.

And what was the process?

What we did with Martín was to start listening to the different ways of playing tropical Peruvian music and, based on that, start composing. So, while we started to work we listened to things and defined sound directions, identifying if it was from the north, jungle, etc. That’s where the name of the album comes from, “Viaje Tropical”. But more difficult than recording it and composing it was putting the songs in order so that the journey could be felt without making it long or heavy. The album takes you from one place to another, Ricardo, but it doesn’t bore you, you know it’s cumbia, Peruvian tropical music. The songs are completely different, it is an album with a concept and with a very careful curation.

Was this album already spinning through your head before you parted ways with Bareto?

When I was still there they made us a proposal for a musical of “Pantaleón y las visitaras”. So, of the songs that are in “Viaje tropical”, I suggested two or three of them, but they didn’t listen to any of them. Anyway, I really liked a song. It was an instrumental love melody for a scene between Pantaleón and La Colombiana. They didn’t stop me ball. Later, when I got to Martín, I showed him what I had and there, shaping it, “La cumbia del amor” came out. Originally that song was instrumental. But it would be mean and irresponsible to tell you that everything just comes out of my head. All this album, all the songs, we have worked with Martín to pure egg. The compositions are Mesones-Choy.

How do you feel things are going? Do you confirm that starting your solo career was the best decision you could make?

It was a purely private decision. What happens in the dressing room is going to stay in the dressing room. You know i’m fine old schoolRicardo, we have known each other for many years. I prefer it to stay there. Now, the decision was not intended, but I think it was the best for my personal development, because I have felt that I have grown as a musician, as a performer, as a composer, as a creator of music and a show. The ideas began to emerge in an incredible way and I think, now that I put it in the long term or I see it calmly, that I should have left before.

What were – or are – your expectations? In the local market, cumbia is probably the strongest genre and there is a lot of competition throughout the country, not just in Lima.

This is a project that is a little over two years old. So, go out and say “Wow! We are going to break it, now yes, we are going to be on all the radios and patatín, patatán”, it is not. If I think about many of the things that musicians expect when they first make their records or their productions, I already did. I am not a new product, I am a novel product. But this album does seem new and novel to me.

Where do you make the difference between new and novel?

Seeing me on stage is not new, but seeing me with a new band, which sounds like a bitch, is novel. I am not only with experienced people, but also with young people, boys who have been my students, who I have led from hookahs along the path of cumbia. And what I explained to you in the first cycle I explain to you now that we work together. Everything they see now confirms what I told them when they were beginners.

How do you see the phenomenon of cumbia in the country? Do you feel that it really is the genre most listened to by Peruvians?

I think so. On the way we must define what kind of cumbia we are talking about, yes. In some way, you may be doing Peruvian cumbia, northern cumbia and what Agua Marina does is not the same as El Grupo 5, or Armonía 10, or Los Caribeños or Los Yaipén, all being from the north. If we start to investigate, Chacalón himself said that he did not play chicha. And there are those who say that he had his own “chacalonero sound”, completely different. Many who call themselves salseros or rockerazos. I know them, I have seen them (laughs).

Now that you are making a sonic tribute to Peruvian cumbia with the compositions that you have worked with Martín, who can you say are your main references?

I can tell you what I listen to the most: a lot of Chacalón, Los Destellos, Los Ilusionistas by Walter León, Grupo Génesis, Grupo Guinda in its early days, Manuel Mantilla as a composer and some early recordings. Now, if I’m talking about singers, I’m not going to name just one, but, for example, not because I have recorded with him, I find the interpretive power and sweetness that José Quiroga from Agua Marina has incredible. In other words, singing like that and playing the bass, continuing to sing for so long, with the timbre with which he does it, is tremendous and it was a very strong influence for me. On the other hand, I would have made a monument to Carlos Ramírez Centeno. He has sung what he wanted, where he wanted, in the groups he wanted and scored hits. He records “Quinceañera” with Los Destellos, “Colegiala” with Los Ilusionistas, and so on. As a soloist he sang beautifully too.

What do you think was the best thing that the years with your previous group left you and that can be useful to you until today? How is the Mauricio Mesones today based on the experience acquired?

It would be mean and miserable to tell you that I did not learn anything and that I did not have a good time, because I have had the opportunity to play on big stages, in many countries, at big festivals, and I have been able, as an image and as a singer, to penetrate the people. (laughs) They greet me from afar “Speak up, Bareto!” “Mr. Bareto!” (laughs) It doesn’t bother me, because it’s people’s affection. So yes, I had a good time, I was able to get to know Peru, I was able to listen to a lot of music, I was able to meet many people, my country, that if I had not done it I would not have the album that I have now, because I would not have known the sound of Peru. . I traveled a lot in and out, I was in big festivals, I have sung at the Montreal Jazz Festival, in Japan, Russia, Estonia, in a lot of far away countries. But what is the use of having done all that if no one here finds out? That’s the side that I did learn. You have to know what you communicate and what not, and how you communicate it. In fact, I run my own networks. If someone writes to me, you can be sure that I will reply. I have generated a very strong and beautiful bond with my followers. I feel that, for that reason, since I started doing face-to-face shows, they have all been sold out in a very short time.

There has been a long hiatus, but the reactivation finds you full of projects and music …

Yes, in 2020 we released about 8 singles. When I was just starting this new project, they invited me from many channels and told me to go to sing “Cariñito”. So, somehow I realized that I also had to update the catalog, because there were some songs that had been known with my voice and it seemed interesting to me that I sing them and play them now as I really would have liked them to be played. and with the contribution of the Chinese Choy. The videos we have released, such as those of “Ya me cured”, “I follow you” –with Moisés Piscoya doing sign language-, “La Distancia” or “La cumbia del amor”, have also given us great joys. In addition, I already have four albums right now: the one from 2020, Viaje Tropical, in addition to a live album that has not yet come out, the one that will be from the concert at the Gran Teatro Nacional that we are going to record on the 7th and the Viaje Tropical 2, which is already It is in mockup. I think that it was the best decision to carry out this project, it is a beautiful project. And you know what, Ricardo? It is a project that I think really reflects what the Peruvian is like, who takes the shit out, falls down and gets up again the next day to continue working. Everything has happened to us in this project. And I believe that we have worked in the worst moment of humanity. We have not stopped and we have continued working, composing, producing and doing the madness of releasing an album right now.

We have talked about the collaboration, the arrangements, the composition. And your band? In a recent interview with this same newspaper, you called it “A tank.”

The group is a tank, well (laughs). Do you know what happens with that group? When you play with someone you trust, you can really do what you want and what you must, instead of filling in the gaps. If I fall, I know they will pick me up. This live album is like that. This is also the case on studio records. “Viaje Tropical” sounds like a bitch, although each of us has recorded it from home. Each one his instrument, the engineer in the studio mixing, with me and Martín nearby. He’s a jerk. I was also able to have the participation of José Quiroga from Agua Marina, singing and playing the bass in “When You Calm”. It already has all the power. After that, I don’t want anything else in life (laughs). I have a very strong friendship with the Quiroga family and recently they invited me to sing with them in Sechura, for their 45th anniversary. They played “When you shut up” and I went up to sing it with them. It was a dream come true. Besides, no one will ever be able to tell me that I only do covers. This album has brought me many joys. I’ve never experienced playing a concert and having people sing your song. So all of that is part of learning about things that, in some way, push you, drive you and make you keep improving. I think that one of the characteristics that I have is that I can and I know how to read the public quickly. That serves me a lot like performer, because in the end 90% of the show is made by the public and their response, at least for me. There are a lot of people who sing very beautifully and much better than me, I have no doubt, but I do know what I am worth when I stand on stage. With this group we have a very interesting line-up, it is very cool and I am proud.

Mauricio Mesones presents “Tropical Journey”

Date: Tuesday, December 7

Place: Great National Theater

Address: Av. Javier Prado Este 2225 San Borja Hour: 8 p.m.

Tickets: Joinnus (bit.ly/3o3hHBd)