Santiago Cruz discovers the other side of his music

“Dale” is the eighth album presented by the artist, with which he fulfills the dream of interpreting the song “Yo te todo” as a duet with Alejandro Sanz.

What does the release of the album “Dale” mean?

It is a mixture of enormous feelings, because we have many months of work accumulated with this album, but it is also clear what we are experiencing as a country and society. So it is an amalgam of very particular sensations.

Did you ever think about the idea of not releasing the album?

If we had only taken commercial variables, then undoubtedly we would not have released the album, but I made a bet to which my team joined and that is that from the understanding that healthy music, music saves, music helps to raise the frequency of your soul, due to the nature of the music that I make and that of Yo te todo, which speaks of an expansive love, which cannot even be defined, but must be found other definitions. We came to the idea that it was good to share a little light in such a cloudy moment. The public in Argentina, in Mexico, in the Dominican Republic have some idea of what is happening here, but they will receive it in a different way.

I had been waiting for 30 years to make a single with Alejandro Sanz, how did this dream materialize?

I remember Alejandro Sanz with Stepping Strong when I was finishing school, around the year 91. I listened to Alejandro and I understood that from then on there was a change in the music in Spanish. I have followed him for several years, then I sang his songs in bars and finally I had the opportunity to share the stage with him in Mexico City and now record together and have my voice next to his in Yo te todo. He had been waiting 30 years for this moment.

Do you think that over the years you have evolved along with that music?

Undoubtedly and fortunately, because I am a faithful believer that music must defend the artist’s point of view and mine has changed, it has been nuanced, I have learned things and unlearned others. I have an almost voracious appetite for seeking aesthetic, narrative universes, I have even gone against any commercial interest. I have been changing not at the mercy of the market, but of what I feel as a human being from my point of view.

Where does the particular idea of “Yo te todo” come from?

In a text that Frida Kahlo writes to a character named Carlos Pellicer, she tells him: “you can invent verbs, I tell you one, I want to tell you, I love you and my wings light up enormously to love you without measure”. That I love you was the entry point for the song, so when Alejandro enters he says: “I love you as Frida Kahlo says”, referring to that text, and it was not that we invented that way of replacing verbs with nouns or situations, but Frida had already done it. From there we built that letter that we wanted in that universe of love.

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How long did you write “Yo te todo”?

That was a construction that we did in a few days. The song did not take long to write it, what took time was the recording process. We began to build situations with which we felt very good. In fact, Alejandro Sanz is a Real Madrid fan and there is a player named Sergio Ramos, who became the savior of the matches because he scored a lot of goals in the last minute. There is a version of the song hidden there where Alejandro says “I have Sergio Ramos for you at the last minute”.

Was the promotion of the album more difficult than the recording?

That has a bit of its charm, because in the media rounds you have to go to cities like Bogotá, Buenos Aires or Mexico City and it is a huge logistical challenge. This allows us to chat from my studio and it has improved things a lot. I have seen it as helpful, although I will always prefer personal contact. Being face to face has its charm and a different use. What we have at the moment must be made the best of it.

Speaking of “Dale”, this album has eclectic sounds generated digitally and analog …

Yes, in addition to carrying digital and analog sounds. For example, the name Dale was born from that. The “D” is for digital, the “A” for analog, the “L” for live, because it was an album played live, and the “E” for eclectic, making up the Dale. I was like in the search to explore new sounds, I come from a slightly more classical music, if you want vintage, where I like to be musical and enjoy as a spectator, as well as more beats, programming, synthesizers. This has greatly enriched my aesthetic universe and is more evident in this record work.

What is the requirement to record almost a complete disc in a “live” format?

Playing live has a huge demand and at the same time a reward, because that implies an energetic feedback with the musicians and that is irreplaceable. Suddenly the listener does not know what it is, but he knows that there is something different there. It happens with many songs by Dale and since I do not come from the academy, but from playing live, it seems to me that it is one of the most sublime experiences of the human being.