Dani Fernández, the son and grandson of top-selling railway workers: “Music saved me” | People

You can count dozens of tattoos that Dani Fernández (Alcázar de San Juan, Ciudad Real, 30 years old) has painted on his arms. When he takes off his leather jacket, dates, words, dolls and details that have been marking his life and his musical adventures are discovered, those in which he has been swarming for almost two decades and that have brought him to here. At the age of 30, he managed to position himself a few weeks ago as number one in sales in Spain, to the surprise of many, himself included. “The last time I released a record was two years ago and I thought that people might have forgotten,” he admits, with an insecurity that frequently accompanies him.

Surrounded by guitars and clothes by international artists in the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel in Madrid, where he wanted to meet for the interview, Fernández knows what he is talking about when he gets down to business. He started with the bandurria, a gift from his grandfather, when he was nine years old. He went through music and singing schools —every Wednesday, thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to study from Alcázar to Madrid, two hours there and two hours back— and he plays the guitar, the mandolin… as well as the piano and the battery. “My parents are from a humble family. I come from railway grandparents, my uncle, my father… he thought he was going to end up there. But they always tried to support me”, he thanks, although he admits that he did not have “an easy childhood” and it was very different from those of his fellow students. “Everything I have I have been building since I was seven years old”, he looks back, remembering those days when his friends played football and he, just another child, “playing the piano, studying, working”.

Then came the ball. At the age of 14, she represented Spain in the Junior Eurovision —she came fourth in Bucharest with I give you my voice— and at 18 he began to be part of Auryn, which for seven years was one of the most famous male pop bands on the national scene. They appeared at the program chosen by the representative of Spain in Eurovision, but they did not win. “And we give thanks, we were not prepared,” Fernández now acknowledges, 11 years away.

If the jump to Auryn was to go from nothing to everything, the opposite journey was no less disconcerting. Almost six years ago, he and his companions —among them, Blas Cantó— decided to go their separate ways with mixed results. He opted for independent music, on a slow fire, for collaborations with David Otero, Nil Moliner, Andrés Suárez, Miss Cafeína… But in that exit process, from which he finally released an album, he peered into the abyss. “Fires it came out at the worst time of my life”, he acknowledges, referring to what was his first job, which he produced after the band split up.

“Auryn could no longer move on”, she admits today about that moment of separation, which she remembers as “very hard, complicated to manage”. “We went seven years without a week off, without celebrating a birthday. Each one was in a different personal point, and I was wrong, ”she states. In addition, there were other factors. “When leaving the band, some have more support than others and I went into the background; It is the reality, other colleagues mattered more than me, ”he acknowledges. “I focused on work and composition, I surrounded myself with people who gave me good advice on music. I took out everything I had inside, all that rage… ”, he recalls. That did not come alone, but coincided with a sentimental breakup with which she had been her girlfriend for three years. “I lived in a hole where I didn’t feel like leaving home”, he remembers today, infinitely more serene.

So he surrounded himself with people who took care of him “personally and professionally”, and he had to be “very strong mentally”. “If I hadn’t had the strength of the people around me, of my psychologist and that desire for music…”. Leave the end of the sentence hanging in the air. The time and the company helped him get away from his day to day to that band that he had been his whole life during his early youth. And that also helped him learn. “That wafer of reality made me a better person, a better son, a better friend, a better boyfriend,” he acknowledges. Because he found a partner again, the singer Yarea, with whom he has composed —many of them in a pandemic— the songs on this second album.

“Music saved me. Literally. I didn’t feel like doing anything, personally and professionally, and music was the most important thing to go out, what gave me strength”, he acknowledges today, when he has released two albums, triumphs on the radio and fills his concerts: It has 10 dates in Spain, many festivals and two weeks ago it sold out tickets at El Invernadero, the hall that hosts the Las Ventas bullring in winter. For that stage he paid a toll that came to weigh on him. “I was having such a bad time that I had a moment of rejection of my past. I had to learn to love my Dani from before, that everything that happens, happens for a reason. I am here thanks to everything I went through, ”she says.

I was able to quickly dismiss fame and money as something positive in my life. Before I was 22 years old and I did give importance to a fucking car, to people talking about me. Now I prefer that they talk about my music and buy a ticket”

The success he has achieved is what he was looking for: no fireworks or autographs on the street. As he himself says, “when I knew where it came from, I was clear about what I didn’t want”. And he didn’t want an explosive, burning fame, the kind he could have gotten on TV shows or quick collaborations. “Success has always given me a little the same. I was able to quickly dismiss fame and money as something positive in my life. Before I was 22 years old and I did give importance to a fucking car, to people talking about me. Now I prefer that they talk about my music and buy a ticket”, he argues. Nails on powerful social networks which, he acknowledges, are a double-edged sword, he is always open and close with his followers. But, as he himself says, he does not want to be more famous: “Why do I need my private life to reach the rest of the people?”

Today the guilt is left behind. She has learned to value that past. To understand that he is the one who decides 100% what he wants to do, and not just 20%, as happened with his band. Although there are thoughts, ideas. “Sometimes I blame myself for not going back to that when this is better. I am not ungrateful, but I am happier.” But his mind is already elsewhere. Above all, in the concerts of this album, Between doubts and chance. Chance, destiny, God… Where is he located? “I am not a believer. I believe in destiny and coincidences, but I believe in work. Without a job, he is not going to make it.” That’s why he’s on the road, to experience everything that will make him write his next songs. And decide tomorrow what to paint, if he has room left, on his arms.

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