Malaga, Spain – Argentine rock singer-songwriter Miguel Mateos He regrets that artificial intelligence is advancing in the field of art and predicts that within five years it will be replaced by a hologram: “I would say within ten, but this is going too fast,” he says two weeks before starting his first European tour.
The first stop on this tour will be the Spanish city of Malaga on April 26, after which Mateos (Buenos Aires, 1954) will visit Mallorca, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain before traveling to Berlin and London on May 7.
The singer, in an interview with EFE, defines himself as “diverse” and “multifaceted” because he tries to “do everything” and avoids betting on “today’s” music, which is characterized by being “simple, with the same tone and the same form”, especially urban music.
“My new work is a wave of fire”
The artist, considered the head of Latin rock, presented his latest album in August 2023, recorded live with an orchestra at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and titled 'Miguel Mateos sinfónico'.
“It is an excessive project because you don't know what it is. It is a wave of fire to see fifty musicians playing together.” This is how the composer defines this new project of 95 minutes of music that, despite its symphonic nature, never “separates itself from rock”, based on the drums and double bass.
Among the song list of this new work is 'First flight to the infinite', an excerpt from his first opera, 'The Three Kingdoms'.
'The Three Kingdoms' is a dystopian idea in which the artist divides America into two great kingdoms, the southern one, with an Inca monarch, and the northern one, led by an Aztec queen, who unite to receive the invader, Christopher Colon. With this project, Mateos wants to send a message: “One has to fight for one's land and for its independence.”
An intelligent public
Miguel Mateos defines his audience as “intelligent” and intergenerational: “In my concerts I see up to three generations represented and that flatters me, it means that I am doing things well,” he argues.
Furthermore, he considers that landing on European stages for the first time is quite a “challenge” and an “experiment” because he does not know what reception it will have, although he believes that his style “crosses the ocean” because Spanish “has spread throughout Europe.” .
In his more than four decades of professional career, the Argentine composer has accumulated five million albums sold and around one and a half million monthly listeners on the Spotify music platform, with the song 'Obsesión' as the biggest hit, with 82 million listeners. listens, followed by 'When you grow up', with 34.7 million.
Regarding whether he has a preference among his long list of songs, the artist acknowledges that he could not choose between any of his works: “Sometimes I have been self-critical about some albums, but I have learned to love them all equally.”
Mateos compares it to the feeling a father feels when he has several children: “It would be unfair to have preferences.”
Opening act for important artists
Miguel Mateos has been an opening act for artists such as Prince, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, Shakira or even Queen, musical group with which he shared the stage in its beginnings, at the beginning of the 80s, a stage that he remembers as “very difficult” due to the dictatorship that Argentina experienced between 1976 and 1983, which led him to be in the dungeon with colleagues from the conservatory in which he trained.
“They imprisoned me and many other colleagues because we had long hair and some authored poems,” he explains.
Mateos has been on the scene for 42 years, since he started in the famous rock band Zas. “I left Zas because I had the need to be a soloist, to create my own project,” says the singer, who admits that he continues to maintain contact with his former colleagues after more than three decades apart.
The composer defines himself as passionate about the piano, an instrument he has been playing since he was little, a hobby he inherited from his mother. Additionally, he plays the guitar, harmonica and keyboards.
Regarding his voice, he acknowledges that he has learned to sing with experience: “I really sing better as the years go by.”
Mateos, 70 years old, admits that before being a singer he is a composer and that he will only retire from the stage when his body demands it. And he warns: “Of course, when that happens, I will continue composing.”