Who form 'Destino Plutón'? When and how did this project come to life?

At the moment, we are Antonio Ramírez, Javier Galea and Juan Manuel Ávila at the band. As collaborators, we count on Anna Pons' awesome voice in most of the themes from 'La importancia del contacto virtual', and Verónica García on choirs. Daniel Fito collaborated in 'Vuelvo' (from the first Ep), giving a more contemporary sound than the one it had on Antonio's initial demo. He also helped with 'El ladrón de viernes', giving a dark touch to the theme.

The group was formed in October 2013, when Javier Galea asked Juanma his opinion about a theme by a friend of his (who turned to be Antonio Ramírez), to which he could not give shape. Juanma offered to collaborate creating a remix of the theme 'Destino Plutón'. From there, we started to get involved in this mess. Juanma was in charge of all the technical aspects in Accidentes Creativos and wrote some additional remixes, which were also included. For the second album, 'La importancia del contacto virtual', each one did valuable contributions in every theme. Our friend Paco Butrón (Cyborgdrive) was kindly in charge of improving the sound with his mix. And what a mix! We love the results!

What were you doing before becoming part of the band?

Each one had his personal projects. Juanma was working on his 'Modulazo' series of albums, where he compiles the music he creates through the years. He also collaborated with José Jibaja, Grok, in the album Alpha; wrote a couple of soundtracks for Android videogames and won some musical contests, like the remix contest of 'El maniquí' by Azul y negro in 2011 and the Korg Creative Encounter 4.0 in 2013.

Antonio was always doing stuff and demos for himself. Then he asked his friend Javier to help him.

Javier: When Antonio asked me for help, I was enthusiastic. We had already worked together twenty years ago and we had connected. Destiny has brought us together again. The way we worked then, Antonio was good writing lyrics and music, while I wrote just music, but Antonio knew which lyrics would work and how. We meet, and we had a theme. That is how it happened with 'Corbatas, trajes y superpoderes'.

Pluto is not even a planet anymore. Why should we go there?

We live maybe with to much stress and worries. Our wish is to find a worthy space for our mind to rest and maybe escape with our music. We decided that we would have to go very far from here, so we headed out to Pluto. The name's idea is from a Antonio's great friend.

When writing a theme, each one of you have an assigned duty? How is the process? Isn't there any 'fight of egos'?

Ideas come up at every moment, we record them and share them via e-mail. Each one makes his contribution and share again, until it takes shape. That is why virtual communication is so important: it is our way of work. We discuss a lot about the approach, but we are democratic and eventually the three of us decide.

La importancia del contacto virtual is your first Lp, but you published the Ep 'Accidentes creativos' before. What differences and similarities are there between both?

The first one was actually a mixture of isolated themes: there were original recordings by Antonio or Javi that were almost untouched. Other themes suffered more dramatic changes when Javier or Juanma put their hands on them. It was only released as downloadable, it never had a finishing touch. However, the second one is more complete and includes more themes. We homogenized the mixing process, using a single mastering system, thanks to the collaboration of Paco 'Cyborgdrive'. He also put a personal touch in some themes.

We took more risks, including themes with a more experimental sound, like 'Blitzkrieg', together with themes with a more commercial style, like 'Tarde de amor sintético'. We published a limited edition on CD, thanks to the spectacular design by Dave Rodríguez. We also had a collaboration by Santi Rex (from the legendary band Niños del Brasil) in a special version of 'Burbuja de vacío'. And for the first time we also edited a single with versions and collaborations from great artists as Neosynth, Troika (Dani Fito y Emilio Guzmán) or Cyborgdrive himself. We ordered a videoclip of this single, shot by Ares Estudio, which will be released soon.

Destino Plutón has a distinctive retro-electronic sound. Which are your musical influences?

The advantage of being three people in the band is that, despite having common tastes, each one of us has different influences, and we try to mix those influences in our work. For instance, Antonio Ramírez likes the experimental sounds. He stamps his creations with evident influences from bands like Aviador Dro, Ultravox, The Cure, The Smiths, The Killers... Javier Galea's main reference is Depeche Mode and also shows preference for a cinematic style, and classics like Mike Oldfield, Yanni, OMD, A-ha, Enya... Juanma is imbued by a more classic electronic sound, like the one from Jean Michel Jarre or Vangelis, and he adores the 80s techno-pop and the fusion with ethnic sounds. But we all have in common our passion for the 80s' electro-pop: we grew up with it.

When it comes to writing lyrics, where do you take inspiration from?

Our lyrics talk about daily aspects of life. Friendship in 'Mr. Gore', for instance. They can be based on a book, like 'El aviador'; or directly they could be intimate thoughts. There is also social criticism in 'El ladrón de viernes' or 'Obsolescencia programada'. A little bit of everything.

Virtual contact, built-in obsolescence, artificial grass... which is your relationship with technology? Do we still control it, or are we already under its control?

Although we do not reach the extreme man-machine relationship Kraftwerk achieved in their music, or the one our song 'Tarde de amor sintético' talks about, it is apparent that technology helped us not only in the creation of our music, but also during its promotion. But, with their effort to achieve automation, and above all, communicate, human beings are more and more dependants on machines. So much that it can even determine behaviours and thoughts. In our opinion, people let other people control them through technology. What should be a tool to get more knowledge is becoming into a weapon that creates dependency because of an excess of information, an excess of (irrelevant) contents and a general increase of ignorance.

There is a disturbing message within 'El ladrón de viernes'. Is there a pesimistic vision about today's society in your songs?

Not really. As we said, we touch different aspects of everyday life in our songs. But you can not omit the current time either: sometimes we are as pessimistic as social reality makes us. Everything that is happening do not allow for a very optimistic vision of the future. There are too many 'friday thieves' hurting people lately. Call them unemployment, mortgages, evictions....

Paco Butron produced this LP, and there is a clear influence of his style in the themes. How was working with him?

Paco is a good friend and a great musician. Everything is very easy with him, he works very fast and with great quality. He did not only mix and master our sound, but also tried to improve the sound, and because of that we are very thankful. We invited him to write a remix of the single 'Tarde de amor sintético', and it sounds really shocking. Had we known he works so well, we would have called him before.

You have recently played live at the XVII Rendez Vous. How was the experience? Are you looking forward to be on stage anytime soon?

It was a very positive experience. We really had fun, despite the numerous technical problems. It was a very rainy day and we played very late, and it almost ruined the performance, but we had a warm welcome. It was great, and even our robot Bender is eagerly waiting to repeat the experience.

When dealing with fans, is it more important the virtual contact, or the real one?

Both. There is nothing like the direct contact with people, but given the circumstances, it is not always possible. Virtual contact allows us to reach more people at any moment.

Which are your plans for the inmediate future? Keep going with live concerts? Going back to the studio?

We already have enough themes to publish a third album soon. We are quite creative and very productive. Until now we just gave a launching concert, but it is likely that we get the chance to play live a greater number of themes or even some unpublished surprise. However, the creative work is done in our studios, through virtual contact. That is why it is so important.