Iván Chopper, cultural agitator: “Rock and roll is living without fear of the future or death” | Culture | EUROtoday

There are shirts from animal printstriped shirts, rolled denims, roll clothes pin upvinyls with fireside, comics and books, skulls, playing cards, vampires and monsters of Frankenstein. The Chopper Monster retailer, which provides all of the paraphernalia of that rock and roll department that borders the punk and storage, turns 20 resisting within the coronary heart of Malasaña.

Iván Pérez (Vega de Esinedaeda, 49 years previous), higher referred to as Iván Chopper Monster, runs the location that, along with a retailer, is a cultural, or subcultural hotbed, of the bouquet. But he’s additionally creator of the Espina Festival (free and non -profit, on the finish of June) with which he tries to provide some frenzy to his Berciano individuals, in a area through which the tip of coal mining has introduced the decline. And is a part of the punk rock band the polyps, to hold that very same frenzy in every single place.

Appears in your retailer, the place there are such a lot of issues to look, with a sheet on the chupa cowgirl The basement of Radio 3 and one other of the Garage Wau band and the Arrghs !!! People who’re in the identical garlic. Iván Chopper doesn’t have a chopper motorbike, nevertheless it has a Vespa that’s executed mud. “In the blackout I went down to see if I started and started the first. I was excited. It’s there when you need it. You can trust your Vespa.”

Ask. How had been your beginnings rocky?

Answer. I left my city to make the Coup in Ponferrada and there I found actually rock and roll. It was loopy: there was an unimaginable interest for music and the underground world, and plenty of spectacular bars. El Morticia, El Saloon, El Barracuda … The Freakland Festival, the room El Quijote, compelled step for any worldwide band that revolved by Spain, of this underworld, after all. Even the Hellacopters (sure, after they weren’t so well-known).

P. Why did this world drawn to him?

R. Because it’s cool! I do not know, uncle, it is superdiver. A Sex Museum live performance was essential: I packed my head. What balls was that? Those melenudos sorts, with some mustyons of the host, superpsycodelic, with bell pants … I utterly caught me.

P. Despite the despiporre, he grew to become a pc engineer.

R. Yes, and I reaped in the most effective Indra division: that of electoral processes. It is your entire laptop system of an elections, common, municipal or regional. I picked up all the info that had been arriving on the election night time, all night time with out hitting a watch and attempting to make the programs not pegas the petardazo. Then this method was bought to Latin American nations and I used to be touring there.

P. But rock and roll caught him once more.

R. I made a decision to open the shop after I noticed the chopper bicycles [que parecen una moto chopper] And I attempted to mix each: my dad and mom had been delighted, I used to be the primary of the household to get a race and opened a enterprise in Madrid. But it was unimaginable.

P. The retailer may be very cool.

R. It is what I need, issues that grind. And with pleasure. May one factor be punk or underground It doesn’t imply that it’s shabby. And it has all the time been a gathering level. During an period it was harmful as a result of each afternoon individuals appeared within the retailer with beers and we had been chatting and listening to vinyl … individuals had been altering, however we had been all the time the identical.

P. Did you must cease that?

R. Well, I did not need to put Nazi both to chop it, individuals actually obtained drained earlier than me [risas]. People are disappearing, they’re getting married, they are going to reside in Torrelodones … But go, that many individuals have all the time gathered and concepts have emerged. Like a nineteenth-ethulia. Saving all distances.

P. People disappear … Is this roll already for talludita individuals?

R. I have no idea if there may be an intergenerational aid. But I do know that that is by no means going to die. It has poor iron well being. And there are all the time younger individuals desirous to do completely different and rebellious issues.

P. Has rise up been misplaced in younger generations?

R. Wow, what a query … I feel there’ll all the time be, however I feel we’re very accommodated. We reside higher than the millionaires of different occasions … issues should not simple, they’ve by no means been, however they’re comfy. That makes you lazy.

P. The city and reggaeton sounds?

R. I can not with them, however I haven’t got extra balls to respect it. Imagine if my father places the Ramones, as a result of he’ll suppose it’s a fright. I’m going to show 50, so it’s regular for younger individuals to search for their very own method and ours appears to be a matter of previous explies.

P. This rock and roll has been criticized for Anglophile. What about Spain?

R. Well, all this had been invented, after all. But every thing is suitable: I flip it with shrimp, with the Greezes, with Peret. But in the long run, the United States is the Rome of our time: a superb a part of the tradition through which now we have been immersed comes from there. But it appears nice to have the ability to mix yours and the surface. It doesn’t imply to disclaim.

P. I’m struck by the variety of the symbology related to this subculture: ball 8, the skulls, the fireplace, the chains, the playing cards, the figures of retro terror … In the tip, this rock and roll, what’s it?

R. I consider that it has to do with residing with out concern of the long run and dying. I don’t let you know that you must burn and self -destruct you, I need to get previous and reside quietly, between my city and Benidorm [risas]. But residing taking part in, having fun with the second, eradicating significance to issues … What fuck, if you’re going to die the identical?

P. Malasaña resists?

R. I left as a result of I wanted to take distance: I labored right here, I lived right here, I went right here. He was like a hamster on his wheel. The horizon was 5 meters. I went to San Fermín, virtually Villaverde, now I’m at Puerta del Ángel, the place we obtained a spot earlier than actual property hell.

P. But resists?

R. Malasaña has modified a mogollón in 20 years. One is growing older, I suppose it’s a regulation of life. I consider that earlier than there have been extra group of people that lived and went out within the neighborhood. The garitos at the moment are persecuted and the unimaginable leases. There isn’t any feeling of belonging anymore.

P. Do you are feeling like a resistant?

R. A bit of sure.