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It was around
1986 and my dad had given me money to buy some school books. I
must have been about eleven or twelve years old. My mom gave me
a ride to the bookstore where I ended up ditching the
mathematics and found myself holding a cassette copy of Los Violadores’ sophomore effort Y Ahora Que Pasa, eh? It was
my first tape ever. Los Violadores then became huge in the
motherland and subsequent releases proved that their success was
no lucky strike. In the 90's the band went through several line
up changes, but to these days the band remains active. In
hindsight, I believe I owe much of my fanatism for hard music to
them and I could not think of a better way to celebrate my love
for punk rock than interviewing vocalist Pil Trafa. Read on and
spread the word.
 -Los
Violadores were formed around 1980, back then what was the
Argentinian political situation like and in which way did it
affect the band’s stance toward society?
Argentina, like
many other countries in the region, had been under a military
dictatorship since the late 70’s. We wanted to open the eyes of
society. Not everything was OK like the government was saying;
they were actively kidnapping and killing those who opposed
their views. Denouncing this was our purpose.
-With
the dictatorship in place; were there any restrictions against
foreign rock music? Or was punk rock widely available?
Punk rock
couldn’t be banned, because basically people did not know it
existed. For the most part all music in English was banned. The
only way for us to get records was through stores that almost
secretly carried imports. That’s how we got in touch with
foreign music. Hari-B (guitarist who was one of the founders of
the band) also went to Europe and came back with a few records
of this unknown new style called punk.
-Did
you ever have any confrontations with the law?
Many times.
Producers of shows weren’t allowed to use our name (Los
Violadores translates to either ‘Rapists’ or Violators, as
someone who transgresses the law). Once we got to a city and
found that we were getting billed as Los Voladores (The Flyers)
which we couldn’t allow so we got some markers and went about
the street adding the ‘i’ that was missing. We were arrested
several times and they would always find excuses to cut our
shows short, even though we knew that all they wanted was to
prevent us from playing songs like “Represion”.
-In
the beginning was there an ideal to the band? Was there only a
musical motive or was there anything else through which you were
trying to incite change?
I am still not
sure. We were young and we were not exactly sure as to how our
music would come out. We were angry and we wanted people to take
notice.
-Did
you have any contact with other Argentinean or Latin American
punk bands?
In the
beginning there weren’t any but they slowly began to appear.
There weren’t many places to play so we shared the stage with
many bands regardless of the style. We did a lot of shows with
Sumo who weren’t punk but who had a lot of English influences
because of vocalist Luca Prodan.
-Back
then did you think punk music was the best conduit to vent your
frustrations?
 As
I was saying before, we had a lot of anger and frustration and I
think that was perfectly captured in our first record. Honestly,
I don’t think any other Argentinean record has been able to
transmit so clearly what we were feeling back then.
-The
work of which bands served as an influence to Los Violadores?
The Clash and
The Sex Pistols. Even though musically Los Violadores always had
our own sound going the most important thing was to recognize
the balls it took for those bands to denounce the injustices of
their system. We couldn’t sing against the Queen because we
didn’t have one, but we had a military dictatorship that we
hated so we focused our lyrics against it.
-In
the mid 80’s there was this explosion of rock en Español in
Latin America. There were many Argentinean bands at the
forefront but from all Los Violadores has the most abrasive
sound. Was there a relationship or union between you and bands
like Soda Stereo, GIT, Virus and others?
Not really.
With some more than others, but in general other Argentinean
bands would look at us through the corner of the eye, because we
would openly criticize those bands that would play big
government sponsored shows. Still now, many of these musicians
have not recognized that we were right and we were one of the
few bands to openly voice what many were thinking.
-Your
eponymous 1983 debut was good but it wasn’t until 1985’s Y
Ahora Que Pasa, eh? That success truly embraced you. In
retrospective, from a compositional point of view, what was the
difference between this record and the ones that would follow?
All our records
are different. I believe that our first release was superior
than Y Ahora Que Pasa, eh?, but after thirty years in
music one must place each record in its historical moment and
analyze it as such. All the records had their message and that
was important, even our last record (2006’s Bajo Un Sol Feliz
– Under a Happy Sun) had a very important message for such a
beaten society.
-From
the tour supporting Y Ahora Que Pasa, eh? Were there any
bad memories? If I remember correctly El Polaco (bassist) wasn’t
allowed to play Chile (a country at the time ruled by Pinochet).
There are no
bad memories from any particular countries. For us it was an
adventure we weren’t really thinking about it at the time. In
Chile we had to escape through the border because the police was
following us. We were not supposed to play “Represion” and of
course, we played it. We didn’t think about what a government as
violent as Pinochet’s could have done to us. With the fans; it
was such an incredible feeling. In Chile and in Peru we were
really popular, and fortunately because of that we are still
able to tour those countries in support of our new record.
-Musically
your sound changed a lot. There has been a lot of talk about
disagreements between you and guitarist Stuka about the sound of
the band. What is your actual opinion of Fuera de Sektor
(follow up to Y Ahora Que Pasa, eh?)
There is no
point in going back to those arguments. They existed and we
can’t deny it. We weren’t four calmed boys, we were Los
Violadores. Personally, I believe that if Fuera de Sektor
had been a record by a band like Soda Stereo or Virus those
songs would have made history in all Latin America. After that
record though, we were really criticized, especially in
Argentina.
-What
is the current status of the band? Is Stuka still a member?
-No, he’s been
living in the US for about seven years and since he has gone
back to the guitar. ‘El Tucan’ Sergio Vall is still playing the
drums since the late 80’s. ‘El Niño’ our bass player has been
with the band since 2000 so the current line up has been stable
for about seven or eight years. Since, we’ve put out two records
and we are working on a new one that will be out in 2009.
Members may come and gone but the essence of Los Violadores is
still intact. I am still in touch with Stuka. Last year we were
supposed to play a show at the Obras Stadium celebrating 30
years of punk and the idea was to get Suka and ‘El Tucan’ on the
same stage but it didn’t happen. Stuka couldn’t come to the
country.
-You
re-recorded some of your classics for a compilation release,
what was the point of this? Do you ever compare the original to
the newer recordings?
We don’t
compare them. They are different versions. The decision to
re-record them was because like we say in Argentina, these songs
are ‘cajoneadas’, in other words certain past members of
the band who hold the rights to the songs do not allow us to
reissue the original recordings. So the only way to get these
songs back on the shelves was through new recordings.
-Bajo
Un Sol Feliz hit the streets in 2006, how has the reception
been?
Luckily people
liked it a lot. The title track has become a fixture of our set
list. It was released in Argentina and in Chile and we are
working on getting it out in Peru and Mexico.
-How
does this new material compare to the old material?
I compare it to
Mercado Indio. It’s a great record with good lyrics and power.
Sonically it must be one of the best we’ve recorded. We are very
satisfied knowing that we did our job right.
-What’s
next for Los Violadores?
A lot of shows.
We have an Argentinean tour coming up in June. We’ll try to get
back to Peru and Chile and we have plans to go to Mexico and the
US. We’ll be releasing the new record in 2009, we already have
eight finished songs.
-I
hope you can come to the US.
We are trying.
We’d love to do it. It’s a pending matter, just like going to
Europe. Our friends from Die Toten Hosen owe us a European tour,
maybe they’ll act on it soon. In the US we have many friend
bands so we are working on it.
-Last
words
A big hello to
all the people who once listened to us, and to those who after
reading this interview, believe that is still not too late to
get to know us.
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