Known as the king of speed, he himself is surprised to have made it this far. “I have not feared so much for my life, but “I’m surprised I’m still alive.”confesses Manuel Menéndez, better known by his nom de guerre, Manolo Kabezabolo.

His is a career built between psychiatric permitsin which he ended up after dealing drugs at the military academy, and the scenarios, often improvised in some CSA, others on the stages of great festivals.

From the psychiatric hospital to the stage

He prefers not to remember anything about the mental sanatoriums that kept him away from the world for years: “Thinking about the psychiatric hospital makes me tremble.” Unable to work, the army gave him a life pension which the artist always denied: “For a punk it is very sad to have a lifetime pension precisely from the army.”

“I can’t, I live in a psychiatric hospital”

After several entries and exits since 1991 from different psychiatric centers, the opportunity to organize his first tour was given to him by music promoter Manuel Delgado, who was working with La Polla Records at the time. Manolo’s response was blunt: “I can’t, I live in a psychiatric hospital.”

Tours as therapy

He was one of his psychiatrists, Dr. Miguel Bouza, who allowed him to leave there during the weekends. Getaways that he took advantage of to let off steam and play. In those years, that proverbial ‘Ya here ora!’ who came to announce her first album. Two models before had begun to pierce the legend of Manuel, now Manolo Kabezabolo.

Then other albums arrived, tours through Latin America and a lot of road on which to lay his newly acquired freedom. There were years of being awake all day, taking breaks, disappearing and re-emerging surrounded by colleagues and friends.

Kabezabolo, the documentary

Now the In-Edit festival in Barcelona has presented ‘If you still have teeth left, you weren’t there’, a documentary that aims to honor one of the most radically original artists of our country. “Taking into account that, when I was young, life expectancy was rather doubtful,” he tells us, “I think it was better to make a documentary before having completely fallen than to do it afterward.”

A necessary story, not only for its music; also because of what was happening in the streets. A documentary as raw as it is honest, of which Manolo himself confesses that “Even what I don’t like is true.”