It’s a breezy spring morning in Topanga Canyon, where Enrique Bunbury sits in his spacious home studio doing something entirely unexpected, even a bit subversive: instead of complaining about Los Angeles, the Spanish rock star is effusively singing its praises.
“One of the most beautiful things about Los Angeles is that it contains so many different cities in one,” he says, leaning back on a sofa next to a freshly assembled drum kit. His band is currently rehearsing for an upcoming international tour, which includes a June 15 stop at the Kia Forum in Inglewood; his set will include songs from his latest album, “Cuentas Pendientes,” which came out April 25.
“You can experience a wide array of uneven realities in this place,” he says of his adopted home. “They coexist in parallel lines. Before settling in Topanga, we spent 10 years in West Hollywood. I loved it there because it offered a strategic point from which to explore other fascinating areas like Silver Lake, Los Feliz and Santa Monica.”
At home in Spain, Bunbury would probably be mobbed by euphoric fans eager to cheer on the hits that he recorded with his iconic rock en español outfit, Héroes del Silencio — or the carnivalesque, Fellini-meets-García Márquez universe of solo masterpieces in his trendsetting record from 1999, “Pequeño.”
Like other legendary artists, he cherishes L.A. — not just because it’s one of the epicenters of Latin music worldwide, but because it allows him the respite of a normal life. “I will be forever grateful for that,” he assures me.
And it’s true: when Roxy Music played the Kia Forum in 2022, I noticed Bunbury sitting a few rows behind me, flanked by his wife (award-winning photographer Jose Girl) and his longtime publicist. As far as I could tell, no one else in the venue had recognized him.
But Los Angeles has done more than provide the comforting cloak of anonymity. It also inspired “Loco,” the most gorgeous track on his new album, which he dedicated to the city’s homeless population.
“In the past, whenever I toured Latin America, the promoters would take me to a rock club after the show,” he explains. “At one point, I asked to visit the cantinas and ballrooms instead. No one recognized me in those places, and suddenly I had a privileged viewpoint of a deeper reality. I did this in Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina — everywhere I went, I frequented the venues where a brawl can break up at any minute, and the liquor on offer is not for the faint of heart.”
I asked Bunbury if he would dance in the seedy South American ballrooms. He tells me that he preferred sitting down and observing the scene. Those experiences evidently had a profound effect on him, informing the title of his 2011 covers album “Licenciado Cantinas” and awakening an interest in traditional Latin American genres. To record his new songs, he recruited a cadre of Latin musicians and made affectionate nods to genres like cumbia and ranchera.
“My intention was never to be more ranchero than José Alfredo Jiménez, or a better bolerista than Armando Manzanero,” he clarifies. “The idea was to nurture myself and employ the instrumentation of foreign genres as new colors in my stylistic palette. When it comes to music, I don’t believe in purity. All genres, to a certain degree, are the result of different cultures getting together. The songs go back and forth — they arrive and depart. I gravitate towards those meetings. I like returning to them time and again.”
From the intoxicatingly psychedelic cumbia of “Te puedes a todo acostumbrar” to the organ-laden folk of “Las chingadas ganas de llorar,” Bunbury’s new album finds him in a sweet peak of inspiration. Like its predecessor, 2023’s “Greta Garbo,” it was recorded at El Desierto Casa Estudio, an enchanting space located in a nature park outside Mexico City.
“I look for residential studios — places where the recording experience is extreme and profound,” he says. “Places where you wake up in the morning, have breakfast together with the musicians, chat about the world and everything happening in your life. The process becomes a catalyst for ideas, the collective notions of the specific group of people who reconvened to make the album.”
“I asked [drummer and co-producer] Ramón Gacías to send me recordings in advance, but he told me that Enrique preferred a workshop setting where everything is done from scratch,” says Chilean guitarist and frequent Mon Laferte collaborator Sebastián Aracena. “On the first day together, we had coffee and biscuits, and then Enrique played us rough demos of the entire album — just his voice and a few chords. It was like a poetry book; no intros, solos, or melodies. During the summer, it rains every day in Mexico City. We cozied up indoors, working on all those songs together.”
Bunbury was born in the Spanish city of Zaragoza in August 1967. He found school boring but enjoyed a positive connection with his literature teachers, and soon he developed an obsession with writer Hermann Hesse and his mystically inclined “Siddhartha” — a book that he has continued to revisit throughout the decades.
Between the ages of 13 and 16, he played various instruments in a number of groups, but his rich, textured baritone had yet to emerge. That was until the vocalist of Zumo de Vidrio — the band he shared with future Héroes del Silencio guitar hero Juan Valdivia — stopped attending rehearsals. After hearing Bunbury sing David Bowie’s “Rock’n’roll Suicide,” Valdivia asked him to take De Vidrio’s place in the band.
“He told me that I should sing, and that was the beginning of Héroes del Silencio,” Bunbury recalls. “Some people can imitate other artists. If I knew how to sing like Billie Holiday, I would order a pizza singing in her style. But I only have one voice — mine — for better or for worse.”
In recent years, the voice, unmistakable to millions of Latin rock fans, threatened to sabotage his career. Unaware that he was severely allergic to glycol, a chemical component for the stage smoke used in concerts, Bunbury was forced to cancel his 35th anniversary tour in 2022. For a while, he considered quitting concerts altogether.
“I felt sand in my lungs, a compulsive cough,” he says. “But then I could sing an entire album at home. We thought it was psychosomatic. I felt no bitterness about it. I can state proudly that I performed in many of the world’s worst stages, and a few of the best ones too. A number of live recordings can attest to that. We may feel a certain affinity for our profession, but our identity is not defined by it — just like it’s not defined by our country of origin, gender or eye color.”
Just before I leave, Bunbury invites me to step into a large wooden balcony overlooking the sprawling greenery of Topanga Canyon. It is a lovely view, seeped in nature and serenity, ideal for someone who spends his days songwriting and crafting paintings destined to remain on the second floor of the studio, unseen by his wife and daughter.
“Look at this,” he murmurs appreciatively. “It’s like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
I tell Bunbury that his music has frightened me at times. I approach it with caution, weary of the deep sadness in the melodies, disturbed by the impossible sense of nostalgia that emanates from every single song.
Is there a specific fragment of his soul where all that beautiful melodrama stems from?
“Looking at the world around me, I find plenty of motives to favor drama over comedy,” he says. “There’s something in me that is naturally drawn to a certain sense of darkness. I’ve never made music that felt hedonistic, or transmitted an extreme sense of happiness. Maybe because those private moments of joy didn’t inspire me to pick up a guitar.”
He gazes at the lush landscape outside, then adds with a wry smile:
“As a listener, I’ve always gravitated more to Robert Smith than to Kylie Minogue.”
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