Q&A with rising artist Juan El Grande

Following the release of his debut EP ‘Discover Now’, we caught up with singer-songwriter Juan El Grande to learn more about his artistry, influences, and approach to music.

 

At the moment I mainly work with influences and customs from my home country. Due to Covid restrictions, I had little time to soak up the cultural atmosphere in Spain. But now that I’ve moved to the Barcelona region I want to spend more time with local artists and this will definitely have an effect on my future songs, I guess.

 

I worked for many years as a guitarist in various cover groups in Belgium. In the beginning it was certainly fun and enjoyable, but at a certain point I started to get the itch and I wanted to experiment with my own music. After my arrival in Spain in 2019, I ended up in a karaoke bar and was pulled onto the stage. It was the first time I sang in front of an audience. However, I liked it so much that I went back every week, even 2 days a week. Because the audience responded very enthusiastically, I started practicing my singing more at home. Because I had already written lyrics in the past, I started practicing on them and that’s how the idea came to record a first song.

 

My love for my father was no secret of course. But no one knew that I had secretly written a lyric as a tribute to him. It wasn’t until the song was actually released that I informed them. I got amazement on their faces but also a lot of respect from them when they listened to the song. Emotional reactions and congratulations alternated. I will never forget this moment and it was THE impetus to continue what I had started.

 

Expressing your own experiences in a song is not easy. You expose yourself at that moment. I have never found that difficult, but you cannot tell everything as it happened, including all the details. If you tell a story about an accident on the race track, you must be able to do so with respect of the victim. Of course, empathy is involved and you put yourself in the other person’s shoes. You try, as it were, to fully experience it yourself and then tell your story as you experienced it.

 

As a kid, I grew up in a working-class family and I am one of five children in that family. While my mother had her hands full taking care of the family at home, my father worked many hours a day to support his family. The house was always filled with music because the radio was on all day. Tom Jones and the Beatles are some artists that were played a lot at that time. My love for music grew and at the age of 12 I became completely captivated by music when I heard SLADE. Coz I love you, Look what you’ve done and Take me back home to name a few. Noddy Holder’s voice was amazing to hear and the rhythm of the music made it impossible to sit still. The enormous appreciation for their music has never gone away. But as I got older groups were added such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Pink Floyd to name just a few. Because I also had to work for my own family, I never had time to start with music myself, but the urge to do something with it became greater and greater. I was around 50 when I saw my opportunity to join a group in the area. They didn’t mean anything but I loved it and I learned a lot. In the years that followed I changed groups several times and through this I learned to play many styles of music. It was inevitable of course, because the time was right for me to start making music myself.

 

Since I have been doing everything myself so far, every day is a new experience. In the beginning you face enormous challenges because you have ideas but you want to implement them. You have to learn everything from scratch before you can make this a reality. You need to learn how to use a DAW to record your ideas. You must be very critical to yourself and try to improve again and again. With the release of the EP Discover Now I feel ready to take the next step, namely to collaborate with other musicians or artists. This will also be a big step for me, but I’m certainly looking forward to it. I have matured musically and take that experience with me to work with like-minded people on a professional basis. In short, I have more confidence in what I do and therefore dare to move to the next level.

 

Experiences in life, things you see every day, exceptional or ordinary statements can all lead to an idea for a new song. Everything happens very spontaneously for me. At a moment I see something happening and it is as if I am experiencing the entire event myself. From there I start writing a song with a starting melody in my head. After this rough draft you start developing and building the song.

 

Actually, I can give a very simple answer to that. Above all, stay yourself! A song or lyrics starts with an experience or idea of yourself. Get started with that and expand it further. Influences from others only come into play when developing your work musically. A producer, for example, can help you put emphasis, not change the entire song because then it is no longer your song and it is not satisfying. It has to feel good to you first and foremost. Don’t worry about the world and do your creative thing. I would like to give this advice to aspiring artists. Don’t start from a profit motive either, making music is creating a mix of feelings. Money should never be the starting point.