“It’s not magic,” he says Julián Ares When referring to his artistic career. Juku, as his intimates and his followers know him, could never dispense with art because he was born and grew up in a family of artists. Somehow or several his way was almost marked. But following dreams, specifying them and making their own history, not talking in the world of culture, has its costs and sacrifices and also its rewards. Of that and more spoke with news.
“My grandfather was Juan Stoppani (visual artist, painter, sculptor, Argentine set designer), my house is full of her paintings; my cousin was the one who taught me music; my mother is a photographer; my old man (Carlos Ares) writes and was a journalist all my life; my brother does cinema, and thus everyone has to do with art,” he says.
Juku composes, sings and touches music and his style is framed in the new Argentine pop. He recently released his third studio album as a soloist. Sitcom is a pure and hard pop album, where samplers and programming stand out. They are clear, direct and bone songs. He August 14 He presents it with a live show in The Roxy Live.
“I think the music chose me. I was summoned to her. From little girl what caught my attention was the music, what gave me the most adrenaline and when I discovered the beatles it was already:” This makes me crazy, I want to know how it is done. ” Nothing, because they had pursued the same dream, ”he clarifies.
But not everything was so simple. At one point he had to negotiate with his family to be able to study music formally. “I did not want to go to school, neither to the primary nor to the secondary, hated the school, he hated him with all his heart. So I could negotiate to go to the secondary and the afternoon to the school of contemporary music, which was the headquarters of Berklee de here. There I started studying already to know a lot of musicians. They let me in with 16 years, which was not very common, I was very common. Access until that moment.
News: When did you decide that this was going to be your profession, your way of life?
Ares: I decided from little girl. At ten, twelve years old I already knew that this was going to be my life and I really wanted to study. I was totally determined. The family context also caused him to do it and do it well. Not like a hobby or a fuck, they gave me the direction that if I chose this I had to train and do it as a profession. That served me a lot at the head level, at the understanding level of what I was doing.
News: What was the first professional step?
Ares: When I recorded my first album with my songs, my music and my lyrics, in the studio of Lito Vitale, which helped me a lot and offered to record it for free, in 2012. From there I put nests to play live, the band that I had six, seven years, which formed me, the school of my life, with which we recorded three records, the last one in Abbey Road, those incredible studies of London, and we made many tours, and we made many shows.
News: And now, at this stage as a soloist, he has just released his third album.
Ares: Yes, the first was “ours”, which came out in 2021; Then “Bienous”, in 2023, and now “sitcom.” I had been doing more rockanroleras, more route and with this third album we kicked the ball for the other side. It is a total pop album, that already gave it a different color in the musical. It is also a more mature album on me.
News: What do the songs tell?
Ares: I imagine it as if it were a set where different scenes of everyday life are going through. He talks about love, of the breakup, because he had just finished with a five -year -old couple, of heartbreak, and there is a bit of complaint about how I see music today.
News: How do you see it?
Ares: I think the empty becomes popular. The music without content that ends up for the masses, for the mainstream. As a music consumer and as a meloman I say: “Enough, is this all?” It’s all garbage, they are constantly getting garbage and that breaks the balls a lot. Not even if the volume goes up, it passes it well. Except for some things that I like a lot, that have more to do with my scope, which would become the indie or the new Argentine pop or the new Argentine music made from the bands and by the real artists, what I see in the mainstream seems like a horror. Worse and worse, it does not seem to be improving in the near future. It is a Sahara desert, nothing happens, it has no wave, it has no swing, really ugly. Then there is the resistance, the music made by artists who know how to play, sing and make music.
News: I take it out of pop and ask him about other styles: jazz, tango, classical music. Do you like them?
Ares: I love them. Think that I studied those music – Jazz, Latin American, folklore, tango – in the music school. I am a jazz fan. You listen to that and then listen to a topic, I don’t want to name anyone, and say: “It can’t be.” Above, music consumerism today is through Tik Tok, very short things, very pasteurized, you don’t have to think absolutely anything. In fact, Spotify number one songs in the world are Tik tok songs that were viral. From there, what happens is terrible. Luckily, there are people who listen to music. I will continue listening to music and artists forever. If certain artists, such as Charly García, for example, they would not have existed, people would be much more retrograde today, unconscious of what matters, unconscious of freedom. If there were no certain artists or certain music, the world would be much worse. I am sure of that.
News: How is the path of an Argentine musician who wants to make his own story outside the mainstream?
Ares: It is not easy at all. Living from that, gaining twine and that does well, making music that is not mainstream or is not what is consumed today at a massive level, is very difficult, almost impossible. But being a musician since a child, now as an adult I understand it differently. I understand that sometimes it will be better and sometimes, worse, but this is my trade. So, I do not enter the one if we do not stick it with this album, I dedicate myself to something else. I do not think so because this is what I do and it is what I’m always going to do. I already understood that my life is. In fact, if I had to make music to hit it and fill me with silver, I would not be doing pop rock or songs, because it is not the one. Already at this point, positioned in another place and with certain privileges, which are being affirmed in a record label, that people come to see me, to be able to arm tounces, sell tickets, to be able to do a lot of things that happen to me that a lot of people do not happen to me, with those privileges with more reason I have to continue in mine, in my law and doing the songs that I want, I know that I want to like people. It will be better or worse, but this is what I do and I have no doubts. I don’t get carried away by the outside.
News: Trends
Ares: Yes, of course, and it is very dangerous about the trends, because if you have an artistic line and you have a past and a future, getting into the trend is rare, because you are getting out of your axis, your path and then returning it can be very difficult.
News: I suppose you also have to have some strength, some perseverance to stay in the style itself and not be tempted by the outside.
Ares: I would be tempted if it were good. What happens is that it is garbage. So, artistically nothing tempts you. If I were tempting, well, we see.
News: How does the second half of the year come?
Ares: On August 14 I have a show at The Roxy Live. Then I make a long tour of Tucumán, Córdoba, Rosario, La Plata, Montevideo and also a tour of Spain. And probably at the end of the year we will make a large and free show in Buenos Aires.
News: Do you have any headwaters?
Ares: I have a phrase that accompanies me a lot, I think Picasso said it. He says that inspiration exists, but he has to find you working. I love it because I trust inspiration and I trust luck too, to do this and that you do well you have to be very lucky, but that they find your hands in the dough. You have to put the body a lot, a lot of head and a lot of sacrifice and then there will come a blow of inspiration or lucky or both. That governs my life.
News: It is not magic
Ares: No, in any way. It is a lot of work, a lot of work.
