Old Morla just released a new album ‘Figurers’, their sixth studio album. Almost 15 years have passed since 2008 when they published ‘One day in the world’that first album that catapulted them as one of the groups indie most important in our country; Since then, songs like ‘Valiente’ or ‘Copenhagen’ have been in our lives, legendary songs by the band that are still very much alive today. And it is that, It sounds too good to get carried away…

However, and despite this new musical release, those from Tres Cantos (Madrid) have announced a temporary stoppage. They will attend all the appointments they have already scheduled and then they will retire for a while to rest. Not even this new album will have a tour as such.

But better, let’s keep the good: with their music, with the talent of all of them, Pucho, Jorge, Guille, Juanma, Álvaro and David, ‘The Indian’ and with ‘figurantes’, a tribute album to all those who have encouraged them and helped them reach the top and that, above all, connects with the essence of their beginnings in music. An album in which they confess to having done “whatever they wanted”, so much so that it has been recorded between tours, something that is not conventional at all.

Vetusta Morla are some guys and friends from Three songs (Madrid) who began making music between their lifelong institute, José Luis Sampedro, and La Casa de la Juventud in the city. And until there, a team from the Sixth has moved to talk to some of those people (or extras) who were present when they were just kids then and they rehearsed not in the gym but in the gym bathrooms. The surprise for the group when they saw these testimonies has been great. Without a doubt, a pleasant and nostalgic surprise that we can see in the video which illustrates these lines.

Alfonsi Fernández, janitor of the center, She was their ‘zero spectator’, since she was the one who had to open the door to that gym where they rehearsed. As she tells laSexta, she scolded them because they played too loudly: “Don’t drive me crazy, as you can hear,…” Alfonsi comments. “Yes, she always came to scold us because we played too loud and could be heard a lot,” Guille remembers fondly as he showed them the words that Alfonsi had said about them. Or those of Alberto, his Philosophy teacherwho was the one who gave them “that first push to do something musical,” says David.

Another of the extras in his life was Rubén Moris, from the Tres Cantos Youth Housewho says that it was precisely there, in the assembly hall, where the group gave some of its first concerts, when it was still just a few amaters: December 30, 1998, just ten years before publishing that first album that would make them one of the greats of the Spanish music scene.

From the institute and the Youth House of Tres Cantos to ‘figurantes’

The Vetusta Morla phenomenon was born in that institute and in the Tres Cantos Youth House. Much later, the massive concerts, the ‘WiZink Center’ and the most overwhelming fame would arrive. “The Youth House has a very big heart, but part of that heart is occupied by them,” he confesses. Mamen Villacampa, worker at this center, who also recounts all the hours the Vetustas spent there organizing film exhibitions.

Also, he wanted to have a memory for them. Miguel Juanilla, professor at the Municipal School of Music which was where David, ‘El Indio’, started playing drums: “If these walls could talk, they would tell very passionate things,” he says.

Forks Gorka Laherrán, guitarist and friend of the group of a lifetime who tells how he found out the name of the group: “We are with the gang of colleagues and David came up very excited and said: ‘We already have a name! Vetusta Morla. And we all started laughing.. And look now Vetusta Morla”, remembers Gorka, who confesses with affection that they are “a source of pride for all of us who have tried to follow this path that they have followed so well.”

There are many factors that speak of the success of a group: luck, talent, art, songs… But as they themselves confess, “Vetusta has been a group immune to success and failure, That’s why I think the essence we have also prevails because we have been the same when things were going well and also when they didn’t work out.”

After this entire career, from the Tres Cantos institute to ‘Un día en el mundo’, passing through the thousands of halls and concerts, ‘Los Mapas’ and ‘La Deriva’…, now comes ‘figurantes’; because as Pucho says, “the enthusiasm and desire of those kids from then is still intact, and it is what has maintained the engine during all these years.”