Mägo de Oz

Mägo de Oz did something that on paper should not work: crossing the heaviest heavy metal with the violin, the flute and Celtic melodies, and sounding like a medieval feast and a witches' sabbath at once.

Guitars that bite, a violin dancing on top, choruses to shout at full lung, and lyrics that go from Don Quixote to criticism of the Church by way of ecology.

It is a very strange mixture, recognisable from the first second, and it made them one of the most beloved Spanish-language metal bands in history, above all on this side of the Atlantic.

From an Iron Maiden tribute to Celtic metal

The band was born in a neighbourhood of Madrid in 1988, founded by the drummer, songwriter and brain behind everything, Txus di Fellatio.

At first they were called Transilvannia666, a tribute to their idols, the Englishmen of Iron Maiden — with a nod to their instrumental "Transylvania" and to the 666 of "The Number of the Beast" — and they sounded like classic British metal. The definitive name arrived the following year.

But the turn that made them unique came with the arrival of two figures: the violinist Carlos Prieto, "Mohamed", who joined in 1992, and the singer José Andrëa, who was the voice of the band between 1995 and 2011.

With the violin, the group discovered its true sound — metal crossed with Celtic and Irish music, with flutes and traditional melodies — and with José Andrëa's theatrical voice it found its great narrator.

From then on, Mägo de Oz was that: metal to think to and metal to dance to, Celtic epic with distortion.

Putting Don Quixote into a metal song

In 1998, the album "La leyenda de La Mancha" — a rock opera based on nothing less than Cervantes' Quixote — launched them to stardom, and out of it came their most famous song: "Molinos de viento".

And here is a nuance that says a lot about the band.

The song is an imaginary dialogue between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza — imaginary because that conversation does not exist as such in the novel — in which the knight reproaches his squire for his pessimism, his lack of faith, his urge to give up, and invites him to dream, to believe, to fight the windmills even if they look like impossible giants.

It is, at bottom, an anthem to idealism, to daring to chase dreams the world calls madness.

That a heavy metal band should take the greatest character in Spanish literature and turn him into a song about never giving up, to be chanted by a whole stadium, is a beautiful move.

Mägo de Oz always had that: popular culture and high culture dancing together.

Party, criticism and conscience

Their other great anthem, "Fiesta pagana", from the double album "Finisterra" (2000), shows the other side: it is a ferocious and danceable attack on the medieval Church and the Inquisition, wrapped in an unstoppable fairground rhythm. A party that is also a stone thrown.

And there are more layers. "La costa del silencio", from the album "Gaia" (2003), is one of their most beautiful tracks and it is an ecological plea: they wrote it in the wake of the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige off the Galician coast and the tar that wrecked everything.

It is worth getting this right, because it usually gets told crossed over: the trip to South America they made to research indigenous cultures shaped "Gaia" as a whole album — its thread is the conquest, and that is where the Andean instruments appear — but that particular song came out of a Galician disaster.

Mägo de Oz was never only spectacle: underneath the violin and the guitars there is a band that thinks, that takes sides, that sings to freedom, to nature, against abuse and against dogma.

Idols of Latin America

And here is what makes them especially ours.

Mägo de Oz is, perhaps, bigger in Latin America than in Spain itself. Their epic scale, their party, their rebelliousness and their stories connected brutally well with audiences in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, where one-off editions of a festival bearing their name have even been staged.

There are generations of boys and girls on this side of the ocean who grew up with "Molinos de viento" and "Fiesta pagana" as the anthems of their adolescence.

A band from a neighbourhood of Madrid ended up being the soundtrack to the metal youth of half a continent.

The band has been through changes of line-up and of singers across the decades — Txus himself, on drums, has been the constant thread — but its cult never faded.

What to remember

Mägo de Oz is the proof that the most improbable mixtures, made with conviction, can become anthems.

Who would have said that metal, the Celtic violin and Don Quixote fitted into the same song, and that a stadium would sing it in chorus.

If you put on "Molinos de viento", "Fiesta pagana", "La costa del silencio" or "La danza del fuego", you will hear an epic, ferocious party, with violin and guitars fighting and embracing, with lyrics about dreaming, about believing, about not giving up, about looking after the world and about telling dogma where to go.

It is metal that lifts your fist and your spirits too.

Few bands made mixture their identity with such cheek and such heart. And that is why, more than twenty-five years on, half of Latin America is still singing at the top of its voice that you have to dare to fight the windmills.

Sources

Mägo de Oz, a Spanish folk metal band — with elements of Celtic metal, power metal, heavy and hard rock — formed in Madrid (the Begoña neighbourhood) in 1988 by the drummer and principal songwriter Txus di Fellatio; it was initially called Transilvannia666, in tribute to the band Iron Maiden, with a nod to their instrumental "Transylvania" and to the 666 of "The Number of the Beast"; the definitive name arrived in 1989. Their characteristic sound — metal crossed with violin, flute and Celtic melodies — was consolidated with the arrival of the violinist Carlos Prieto "Mohamed" (1992) and of the singer José Andrëa, the voice of the band between 1995 and his departure, announced on 24 October 2011. They broke through on 2 October 1998 with "La leyenda de La Mancha", a concept album based on the Quixote, from which comes "Molinos de viento", their best-known song: an imaginary dialogue between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza about idealism and pessimism, which does not correspond to any literal passage in the novel. "Fiesta pagana", a criticism of the medieval Church and the Inquisition, belongs to the double album "Finisterra" (2000) and was one of its first singles. "La costa del silencio" is the first single from "Gaia" (8 September 2003) and was written in the wake of the sinking of the oil tanker Prestige off the Galician coast in November 2002; the trip to South America the band made to research indigenous cultures shaped the concept of "Gaia" as a whole, not that song in particular. It is one of the most important Spanish-language metal bands and enjoys enormous popularity in Latin America, with recurring tours of Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, where one-off editions of the "Mägo de Oz Fest" have been staged (2004 and 2013), although no annual festival bearing their name exists. It has been through several changes of line-up and of singers; Txus di Fellatio is its constant member. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Metal Live Colombia, Apple Music and other press coverage.