Javier Morales (Paco Pecado): "I wanted to create a classic, but 'tacky' character"

PalmaMusic has always been present in his life. He has classical training, sang in different choirs when he was young and also played in an orchestra. Over the years he has gone through several bands and before Paco Pecado he had started a project in English “much less identity-related”, he says, and that belonged to another artistic stage. Javier Morales (Barcelona, 1993), the man behind the project, considers Paco Pecado to be his “first fully personal and solo project”. Thus, in March 2025 he published "Between wineries and fairs, an eleven-song album that he will present in Mallorca on August 7th in Consolació, Sant Joan, as part of the La Lluna en Vers festival of the Fundació Mallorca Literària. It will be an evening of a double concert, because Gregotechno will also perform, a project that mixes Gregorian chant with contemporary electronic music. A night titled "To sin.

According to Javier, Paco Pecado "emerged almost by accident". They proposed he do some concerts when he didn't even have songs or a defined project yet, so he created it specifically for that occasion. "At first, it had a humorous edge, but over time it became a much more serious proposal. I didn't build the project or the character from rationality, but rather it has emerged naturally and, once created, it has found its own explanation," points out the artist.

One of the most evident things about the project is an aesthetic that draws heavily from the seventies, Morales' great visual reference. “I'm fascinated by the fashion, architecture, clothing, and the imagery of disco, funk, and symphonic rock from those years. I feel that, mentally, I inhabit that era and many of the things that inspire me I find there.” He also claims an aesthetic “kitsch and histrionic", combined with very classic elements. It plays with the idea of a "classic tacky".

Two worlds

The album is divided into two parts, and each one represents a different world: on the one hand, we have the imaginary of the cellar, more "intimate, romantic and introspective"; on the other, the fair, "which would be the aspect of the more festive, irrational and crazy character". Although Javier assures that, in essence, he is more of a cellar person, he admits that he could not sustain a project made up solely of "solemn or profound" songs because he would end up getting bored.

He needs the fair, the party, as a counterweight. For him it represents "lightness, the most primary impulses, irrationality and the act of letting oneself be carried away without thinking so much about everything". He considers that these two parts coexist within him and that both need a space to express themselves.

And, above all, he needs not to get bored: "I wanted to make an album that represented me. That meant moving away from the figure of the classic singer-songwriter, even though there is part of that imaginary on the album. I tried to make an album and an artistic proposal that wouldn't end up boring me, and I think I've succeeded: after a year and a half touring these songs, I still enjoy them".

“Songs have always been a tool to communicate what is difficult to say in another way,” he points out; and, although he has other tools to express himself, songs allow him to go beyond himself: “Music can function as a small fiction. Precisely for this reason, it allows us to explain things that would be difficult to assume from the ego.”

Is that why he created the character of Paco Pecado? More or less, he comes to say: “The character serves me to separate the person from the artistic figure,” a distance that he also considers necessary for mental health. “I would be afraid that people would end up constantly confusing one thing with the other. In the world of acting, this boundary is much clearer: people know you are playing a character. However, in music, it is often taken for granted that everything that is explained is autobiographical.” Thus, Javier argues that songs “are also fiction” and that the character is a kind of mask that allows him to enter and leave it when necessary. “It’s a very useful mental framework.”

First references

Javier Morales remembers that at his home they played a bit of everything. From Pink Floyd and Supertramp to classical music. “I grew up surrounded by a wide variety of influences”. He also highlights the figure of his grandmother, who often sang songs by Sara Montiel. As a child he didn't particularly connect with it, but he confesses to a change between his twenties and thirties: “I have rediscovered this universe, as well as boleros and flamenco”. These influences are part of his discovery as an adult, rather than his initial musical education. He currently listens to a lot of flamenco, American pop-rock with a lo-fi character, and also classic male and female singer-songwriters.

After this year and a half of Entre bodegas y ferias, Paco Pecado has already released some new tracks, like ‘Toñito’, and explains that he is working on a new album. “The imaginary of the project is already very defined and right now it is in full production process. The forecast is to release it at the beginning of 2027”, and surely other previews will arrive before then. According to him, it will be a “different” album, but at the same time a continuation of the first: “More than a break, it will be like a comma and continuation”.