Mary: Good afternoon, Ian, and welcome to our weekly programme.
.Ian: Thank you.
.Mary: I am very curious about what made you leave London and come to Barcelona. What attracted
you to Barcelona?
.Ian: Well, in fact nothing really attracted me. My girlfriend was Catalan, we met in London and
when she came back here to visit her family, I decided to join her. That was in 1986, when
Barcelona was just a charming town that nobody knew about or cared about, but full of life.
When I came to Barcelona, there was absolutely nothing happening musically here, no
international musicians, nobody setting up studios. Nobody took the place seriously enough to
actually come here to live and work.
.Mary: Did you study music in London before coming to live here in Barcelona? What is your
musical background?
.Ian: When I was around 18, in London, I used to spend most of my time with a bunch of
people who were all music-crazy like I was. We did a lot of courses, jazz courses,
African music. In England at the time you could do a whole course for a year for about 50p,
just incredible, anybody with a dole card could sign up for a course where great musicians
taught seminars.
.Mary: What was your musical instrument at the time?
.Ian: I played the guitar. I started playing the guitar in a band that had some success, but then we
all got a little older and people started trying to really be successful and I think that took all the
fun out of it.
.Mary: Did you find the fun again when you came to Barcelona? What did you do when you came
here? It surely was very difficult to scrape a living as a musician.
.Ian: Yes, you’re right. Well, after a year of teaching English and playing here and there, I went
down to Valencia, which unlike Barcelona, was a much better place, with a great atmosphere
and lots of music. I ended up living there for three years, forming a band, which won first prize
at a music festival, and producing a record. We also made a video clip of our band, Machine
Gun, playing this disgusting sort of primitive techno music with me screaming over the top of it,
and the video won first prize at an important contest in Vitoria.
.Mary: How did you begin working with the Fura dels Baus?
.Ian: Well, after things came to an end in Valencia, on my first week back in Barcelona I learned
about an audition for the Fura and within a month I was on tour with them. This was in 1990
and the Fura were really happening, they were at their commercial peak, I’d say, and were
doing tours around the world. I worked on and off with them for five years, playing music,
acting, singing and running the computers. I’ve done other things with them since, like the
Millennium show, a massive event for the eve of 2000, in which I composed and played all the
music. I had never done anything on that scale, so it was really important for me, and very
exciting.
.Mary: Have you done any other large events?
.Ian: Yes. I composed the music for the inauguration of the Fórum, and the music was then
played every night for the main show there. The King of Spain attended the opening
night, so I guess that makes it a royal performance. My parents watched it on TV back in
England and they couldn’t believe it when I was presented as the composer.
.Mary: I can imagine. It was probably a shock for them.
.Ian: Yes. And I also now make soundtracks for films, and my soundtrack for Agustí Vila’s
Un
Banco en el Parque
won first prize at the Tolouse film festival. I guess all the experience is
beginning to pay off.
.Mary: We’ll what an interesting life! I’m afraid we’ve run out of time. Thank you, Ian, for being with us
today, and good luck!
.Ian: My pleasure. Thank you