Mikel Erentxun: "When I was young I played the sex, drugs and rock and roll trilogy and it was fun while it lasted"

Once a member of Duncan Dhu and a semi-solitary musical traveler since 2001, the biography of Mikel Erentxun (Caracas, 1965) is associated with many songs that have made history and already belong to the cultural and sentimental baggage of a generation. But there is more. A late athlete, Erentxun is devoted to 'running' and a self-confessed fan of static pedaling and collecting vintage bicycles. And about that, about his life, his music and some other little things, we talked to him.

Bicidiversity in Urdaibai and the beauty of everyday life

The afternoon starts well. with laughter We have met Mikel at the door of his house. According to what was discussed, he shows up with a bike for the photos. Oh, oh, first inconvenience! If his wheels were ever swollen, that was —as Erentxun himself would say— much more than three moons ago. Luckily and as a precaution, Txemi Llano, my good friend and photographer, has come equipped with a foot pump that solves the problem.

After a while and in search of another bike with which to change the air of the photos, we entered the garage of his house. Voilá!: there we found, scattered, the treasure of Ali Baba. Our eyes are shown several snowboards, a motorcycle buried under a blanket, boxes of clothes, various knickknacks and, among other hidden treasures, a beautiful jacket from Duncan Dhu's international tour in 1990 (milk, what a win! to be bad and take her away!) on whose back and by mistake Japan was serigraphed as one of the host countries of their concerts. We are also contemplated by no less than twenty bicycles of all types, conditions and sizes. And of course most conveniently deflated! The pact proposed by the singer from San Sebastian arises as quickly as it is friendly. "I say that if you inflate any of these I'll show you my recording studio and we'll take some photos there". Without hesitation, there is a deal. We enter the musical sanctum sanctorum and thus begin our story.

"As it happened to a great majority of the children of my time, soccer was my first sport", recalls Mikel. "First on the beach and later on the gravel field, although the truth is that I left it soon, because at the age of fifteen I was already more into music. Then I started missing training sessions and sucking on the bench and, of course, I finished it leaving," he says.

—Let's make it clear: Mikel wanted to be an architect (he finished his studies many years later), but it was music that won over that kid who painted sideburns at home to look like Elvis Presley.

—I was lucky that my older sisters listened to good music (Elvis, Beatles, Bowie, Cat Stevens and a long etcetera) and since there was also a guitar at home, the step was automatic.

Enrolled first in groups like Los Aristogatos and Los Dalton, in 1984 Mikel joined Diego Vasallo and Juan Ramón Viles and formed Duncan Dhu. From then on the thing is already the history of rock in Spanish. For Mikel, time of frenetic life, tours, concerts and rock and roll, and with him all those stereotypes that appear stuck to it like chewing gum sticks to the sole of a shoe (whether you like it or not). Orphan years of sport, given that in the 80s and 90s it was unthinkable to see any rock star get out of that supposed natural setting, almost a promotional staging restricted to concerts, groupies, tobacco smoke (ahem! !) and a certainly hectic life.

—Come on, the rock thing didn't match the usual stereotype of a healthy life.

"Yes, that's true," he concedes. We are talking about the famous trilogy: sex, drugs and rock and roll. I lived it, it touched me when I was young and it was fun while it lasted. We were very young and then the body endured everything. Then, with age, things changed and right now my trilogy is family, running and, of course, rock and roll.

In the case of Mikel Erentxun, his sporting epiphany, the rediscovery of sport in the first person, came relatively late, at the age of 30. He then went from being a couch athlete to being a more than devoted practitioner. And it is that like many other rockers, such as Rod Stewart, Johnny Mars (The Smiths) and Robert Smith (The Cure), to name a few examples, Mikel Erentxun liked football, being a passionate fan of Real, but It had been many years since he put on a pair of sneakers to sweat a T-shirt again.

—I remember that in the year 96 we were recording an album in France, in the Landes, in a wonderful environment of forests, and the keyboardist of the group went out for a run every morning. He made me envious, one day I accompanied him and that's where it all started. I started running almost daily, continued when the recording was over and went home, and most importantly, continued running when I later went on tour. Being an easy sport to practice (sneakers and t-shirt) I was hooked and spent the next ten years just training. Then the bug bit me and I ran my first race, which in my case was Behobia-San Sebastián. It was the first time I wore a bib number and then a world opened up to me. I discovered the adrenaline of competition, which for me was like going out to a concert. From there I went on to do more popular races, then to marathons (I did eight) and then to mountain marathons. Come on, I started to get horny with this world.

—And in 2013 he had a scare that somehow changed his life. He was running and his chest began to hurt. He went to the hospital and there they gave him three days in the ICU and two weeks of hospitalization.

"I had angina pectoris. I thought he was dying on me. They put me a 'stent' and from there let's say that I changed. The doctors told me to run, but not to participate in high-demand races, and since then I train with much more brains. The funny thing is that now, when in theory I shouldn't make an effort (although the truth is that sometimes I skip the recommendations a bit), I have managed to have better marks than ever. I managed to have my best time on the Behobia and I finally managed to do the 10 kilometers under 40 minutes. Brands that I had always wanted to have, I have already achieved when I was 50 years old and with a stent, it is curious. I started very late (at 30 years old) with the sport seriously and it pisses me off to have started training well at 50 years old. If I had started working with my head at 30 I would have been a killer, something else, because I think I have faculties. A pity, because at 30 I simply rode, I did not control doing series and alternating, nor the importance of rest, nor wearing good shoes. I know, a thousand things. It is not normal that at the age of 55 he had a better mark in a ten thousand than fifteen years ago. And the funny thing is that still, and I'm 56, I'm still improving. Well, in Behobia I think I hit the ceiling two years ago. I understand that from here I will go down, but in my case I make up for it with good training and running with my head, which I didn't do before.

—Have you required the help of a trainer or other athletes who advise you?

—In my case I have good friends, like Txema Martínez (one of the best Spanish long-distance runners in history), who advise me. The 2019 Behobia (20 km, 192 meter positive elevation gain, 80 meter maximum height) that I ran with him was my top, my super brand. Txema guided me, set my pace and even brought me water. Result: I ran it in 1:20 when before I couldn't get below 1:25. I achieved a five-minute improvement, which is outrageous.

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—Sport, whatever it is, is addictive, right? When you don't train and you miss him, he knows he's trapped.

“It happens to me. When I spend two or three days without going out to shoot I already feel bad, I feel an almost total emptiness. Playing sports is very good in all aspects, even to think. When I'm in creative time, writing songs, I love to go running. I'm thinking and sometimes I have to stop; I carry a phone with my 'running' program and music, and if an idea comes to me, especially lyrics, then I stop and record it. I usually run in the mountains because my knees are sore and the asphalt doesn't suit me. Then I take the opportunity to listen to music. He brought some wireless headphones and an iPhone with an Adidas program that tells me the times, calories and all that shit.

—We mix music and sports again, a cocktail that (with helmets) works well if consumed in a non-dangerous environment, let's say running through the mountains or doing spinning or stationary cycling.

—I have my 'playlists' both for training in 'running' and in 'spinning'. Logically, it's not the same music if I'm going to do a three-hour run in the mountains as if I'm going on asphalt to do series, since I have different music, although what I like the most is listening to Led Zeppelin. And since it rains a lot in Donosti, I also do a treadmill at home and a lot of exercise bikes.

And here comes the two-wheeled pedal-driven machine, the bike. Mikel has about twenty in his garage. A nice tuned 'fixie', several MTBs, a good road machine with a carbon frame, several children's bikes, no less than four great Dutch touring bikes and even a mid-competition bike from the late 80s, which he bought at the suggestion of a friend and for four dogs in an old shop that threw the blind.

—I really like vintage bicycles —says Erentxun—, and back in the day, when we had a small apartment in Baqueira, I did ride a bike a lot. He had one for the road and one for the mountains. With the road one I suffered a lot and with the mountain one I enjoyed it. I loved riding on some of the gorgeous tracks that were there. Now I don't walk as much, most of the time I walk around the city. What I do do is a lot of stationary biking. A few years ago I had plantar fasciitis and spent almost a year without being able to run. So I bought a good spinning bike and put a lot of hours into it. Then I got an elliptical bike and alternated workouts. In fact, I got through the COVID-19 lockdown with long sessions of pedaling on the spin bike to keep fit.

—It seems that, unlike Freddie Mercury (Queen), John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Mark Ronson, Tom Waits or the components of Wilco, Mikel Erentxun is not especially devoted to outdoor cycling, is he? Let's go by parts. To begin with, Mikel, pull from memory and recall.

"Yes, yes, it's true that Queen dedicated a song to the bicycle and on the cover of one of his albums there were a lot of naked chubby ladies riding bicycles," he says. It refers to 'Bycycle Race. Fat Bottomed Girls', which can be translated as "Bicycle race. Girls with fat bottoms". From 1977 and, by the way, censored in our country.

With that said, he goes on to fine-tune his relationship with the two-wheeled machine and its pedals:

—The only bike I use now is a ride. With her I move around Donosti, which is a very friendly city to pedal around and also has quite a few bike lanes. The problem sometimes arises with pedestrians. Among us there is still no culture (of coexistence) as there is in the Netherlands, for example, or in other countries. What there is here is an almost continuous war between the cyclist and the pedestrian and that does not help to take the bike. As for the road bike, the racing bike of a lifetime, well, the truth is that since we sold that apartment in Baqueira I have hardly touched it, because traffic scares me a little. And with the mountain bike, because outside of riding on tracks I don't have much control, so I have replaced the two, road and MTB, with the 'spinning' bike, which I like a lot and with which I also sweat a lot. Curiously, in the past I did have a lot of relationship with road cycling, also in its competitive aspect. An uncle of mine was linked to the organization of the Tour of the Basque Country and it was he who got me interested in cycling. I had a time when I was a big fan. I was going to see stages and I went to quite a few starts. I remember that I performed in the Six Hours of Euskadi (a famous track cycling event) and in 1992 with Duncan Dhu at the start of the Tour de France from Donosti. I also met Perico and Indurain; come on, I also had my cycling time.

Sport life. Mikel tells us that "right now music people take good care of themselves", citing Dani Martín and Leiva as running enthusiasts. As far as he is concerned, he is clear:

—Every week I do one day 'spinning', another elliptical bike and three 'running': one day I do series; another day, a run of 12 kilometers, and another day, a training of 20 or 25 kilometers. Five days of exercise and two days off, of active rest. That has been my sporting life for the past two years, whereas before, when I was preparing for a race, like Behobia, I did more specific work. I also know that I should do a little bodybuilding, but it's not my thing. Look, Txema Martínez advises me, and also for me, who has knee problems, it would be very good for me to strengthen the muscles in the area, but I can't help it, I'm too lazy.

- Let's talk about music. If in the 1980s, with Duncan Dhu, he performed a hundred concerts a year and at the Seville Expo in 1992 he performed in front of 120,000 people, in our days thanks first to the new ways of listening to music (Spotify and company ) and later from COVID-19, triumphs with more intimate acoustic concerts. It is not like this?

—In my case, things haven't changed too much because the facet I've worked on the most has been live performances and so, both in good times and bad times, I've always had concerts, bigger or smaller. So my life has always been closely linked to the road and that has not changed with the arrival of new technologies. Obviously now fewer records are sold and the way of communicating music is different, but live music is irreplaceable and in my case I don't miss concerts, fortunately. And the COVID-19? He caught me in the middle of a tour and we suspended a very appealing section, which was through America, in the United States. Last year was obviously bad, and this year hasn't been a good one either, but things seem to be getting better. The future? I think that as everything normalizes, people will go to concerts because they feel like it. Now it goes in difficult conditions, those of mask, being seated, separated from the others and as soon as things are normalized I hope that people return to their habits of before and go to concerts.

We are finishing. At the door of his house we are fired by a 'normal guy', who has not succumbed to fame. A kind person with wild hair, chipped teeth and a leather jacket, today transformed into a denim jacket. Someone who likes, according to his own confession, more movies than music and who enjoys watching series like Ozark, Game of Thrones or Lady's Gambit. On his new album, 'Amigos de Guardia', a review of his 35-year musical career in which 24 very special guests collaborate, including Diego Vasallo, Bumbury, Coque Malla, Leiva, Eva Amaral and Calamaro, among other great artists. Waiting for a normalcy that is missed, family, sports and rock and roll will continue to structure his life.