If you look closely at the covers of Kortatu you can almost get the feeling that they have been there long before any of us. That, somehow, the aizkolari on her second album or the woman who raises her fist in A frontline compilation, they have been watching us for more than four decades. But they are, exactly, 40 years have passed on June 20 since the publication of the first model from the band. When Kortatu burst onto the national scene, the jukeboxes of the Spanish State were shared with ‘Alaskas’ and ‘Loquillos’ that had little or nothing to do with the vision of the Muguruza brothers.

Five years after the death of Iñigo Muguruza, Fermin returns to the stage with a tour of Europe, Latin America and Japan that aims to pay tribute to his entire musical career. A ‘tour de force’ after a few turbulent years, marked by the disappearance of friends and close collaborators such as Amaia Apaolaza, manager and friend of the musician; or graphic designer Carlos Undergrooveresponsible for a good part of the graphic universe that revolved around the bands and projects of the man from Irun.

On the front line

This tour comes with the same spirit of self-management and independence that drove him from the beginning of his career. “We are going to do a Wizink in Madrid, but also rooms of 1,000 people in Latin America,” explains Muguruza from the second floor of the Traficantes de Sueños bookstore in Madrid. Dressed in a checkered shirt, he welcomes us in front of a large poster announcing this new tour, with his silhouette holding his left fist high.

“Next year, during the tour, I will be 62 years old,” he explains. Watching him it is difficult to believe it, even more so when we see the state of his musical legacy. Two years ago, artist Verde Prato published her own version of Zu catch your art, one of Kortatu’s hymns. A song dedicated to cultural apathy: “You, damned bourgeois, will never understand anything, what happens in the streets is always someone else’s problem.” This tour features Hofe, a young artist from Euskadi who is beginning to take over the country’s main stages.

“I have never been convicted or even prosecuted for glorifying terrorism.”

Paying attention to these signs is a perfect example of the good condition in which Muguruza’s work is found. And this tour attests to it. For the first concert in Donostia, tickets sold out in a few hours. An effect that he intends to repeat with separate concerts in Barcelona and Madrid. And is not for less. These last few years, the musician’s performances have been involved in legal proceedings, the majority motivated by the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT).

“This year they have taken the board of directors of the Joan Fuster institute in Bellreguard, Valencia, accusing them of glorifying terrorism for making a mural,” explains the artist about the complaint filed by the Educators against Indoctrination associationand adds: “In the sentence They dedicate two paragraphs to me in which it is attested that ‘Fermin Muguruza has never been convicted or even prosecuted for glorifying terrorism'”.

“After 40 years of persecution and censorship, these concerts are going to taste like victory,” he adds with a smile. A victory that does not prevent songs like ‘Sarri Sarri’ from continuing in the spotlight. “It’s funny because in Kortatu we got tired of her and took her off the set,” he comments ironically. The song became an anthem in the mid-1980s in Euskadi for recounting the escape of Joseba Sarrionandia and Iñaki Pikabea from the Martutene prison, hidden in the speakers of Imanol Larzabal’s band after a concert.

“The statute of limitations has already expired on the escape, and he is on the street, leading a normal life”, account. And he denounces: “They come back with this song because it has become an anti-fascist anthem and they don’t want people to sing that kind of thing.” The epigraph that accompanies this tour is titled Forty years on the front linea cross reference with one of the songs that best defined the spirit of the band, with a lacerating chorus followed by “let it be noticed that you are present.”

“They return with ‘Sarri Sarri’ because it has become an anti-fascist anthem”

The presence of Fermin Muguruza remains undeniable in a trench from which he still has energy and ammunition today to continue defending his profession and that of other colleagues: “At every concert and at every festival there should be posters calling for the release of Pablo Hasél” . And he does not hesitate to affirm: “If this really is the progressive government that it claims to be, it should remove it now.”

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