In the opening shot of the music video for his song “Full Time Papi,” the Spanish artist Álvaro de la Fuente wields a leather whip to the camera. The takes that follow: throuples making out, homoerotic mud fights, and spectacular displays of muscle, all of which erupt into a chorus of other shirtless men, hanging from a rope and chanting, “Yo seré tu full time papi, full time papi, full time papi.”
“Full Time Papi” is the first single off of de la Fuente’s forthcoming album, Spanish Leather, and it marks a star departure for the artist. A few years ago, when he was just starting off, he was still a kid, using his Playstation as a makeshift recording device and singing jotas and bandurrias across the bucolic small towns of Spain. Now, he’s evolved into full-time daddy mode, setting off into a quixotic journey to the club in the big city.
Since the release of his first LP, 2022’s La Cantera, de la Fuente has toured the world under his stage name, Guitarricadelafuente, collaborated with high-profile pop stars such as Troye Sivan, and spent lots of time thinking about endings: from death itself to the conclusion of frenetic, but magical nights out. La Cantera marked De la Fuente’s breakout beyond Spain, earning him spots on best-of lists. With his second LP, Spanish Leather, he aims to reach a broader, global audience. Working with producer Carter Lang of SZA and Doja Cat fame, de la Fuente is no longer trying to capture the gilded vignettes of home, but rather relaxing into the bliss of fleeting moments, creating universal depictions of lust and yearning sung in breathy registers. The result is less buttoned-up Sketches of Spain and more free wheeling Mecano, updated to feature Akon- and David Guetta-inspired beats that verge on the ironic.
Prior to the album’s release, de la Fuente caught up with Rolling Stone to discuss Spanish Leather’s surprising folk origins and his complicated relationship with the past. The following conversation has been translated from the Spanish and edited for clarity.
Your sound has transformedfrom intimate, acoustic recordings to more elaborate dancier arrangements. How would you describe the evolution of your music between your early releases and this new album?
La Cantera was, I think, a record that was very inspired by the past: by the weight of heritage, tradition, and folklore. Over the past 10 or five years, there’s been this shift in Spain, at least in music, a return to roots, to origins. And not just musically, but in other areas too: food, the search for authenticity. At some point, this became so popular that now everything is wrapped up in aesthetics that are rendered cutesy somehow, like the image of old men playing cards in the streets. But in the end, the ones who depict it are often not the ones actually living it.
When I was finishing La Cantera, I loved the idea that I was writing songs that felt like part of the current folk canon. I had become enamored with a Woody Guthrie song “Jarama Valley” about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and with other songs written by Americans who came during the Spanish Civil War to support the Republicans. It was a moment when the Civil War was being deeply romanticized. Many artists came to Spain in solidarity and wrote songs. These were American folk songs, but with Spain as their subject.Like Bob Dylan’s “Boots of Spanish Leather.” I was fascinated by how that phrase, “Spanish leather,” kept showing up in different places. It’s funny how, for them, “Spanish leather” carries this exotic quality, when here we just say cuero. What interests me is the idea that we can express folklore as something innate — we’ve already discovered our roots. Our way of speaking, our humor, our mannerism, they’re all the result of that past.
With Spanish Leather, I wanted the songs to be more contemporary, more grounded in what I witness on a day to day basis and to capture a generational moment through these stories.I spent a few weeks in New York and Los Angeles, mainly in L.A., working with Carter Lang at his studio, at his home. I had this idea that what I was making was very Spanish. And suddenly, people from other countries, even without understanding the language, were connecting to the music, to its energy and that’s been really interesting.
Has your songwriting process changed since your first recordings?
I think the biggest shift has been learning to let go. Not overthinking. When I’m writing, I start with melodies and nonsense words. For example, Futuros Amantes started with “cafeterías, cafeterías, cafeterías de Madrid.” It made no sense, but I loved it. I was like, “What the hell am I talking about? What am I even saying?”
What’s been keeping me up at night and what has really moved me is this fear of death, a fear of growing older. I get really overwhelmbed by the feeling that everything ends. Not just youth, but like… tonight. Or a relationship. The other day in rehearsal I thought, “We’re working our asses off,” and then suddenly I got really sad thinking the show was already over. I think it’s a symptom of the immediacy that surrounds us, and trying to introduce this hyper-present way of living, not thinking too far ahead or behind. Before, I used to want to write songs that would endure, that were timeless. But now, I’m more interested in finding the fun in the ephemeral, letting nothing be sacred.
Unlike La Cantera, which I felt lived within a familiar tradition with experimental twists and took place in a pastoral imagination, Spanish Leather exists in a more urban backdrop. Can you describe the physical and emotional landscape of this album?
Narratively, I imagined Spanish Leather as a literal landscape. It’s about leaving the village behind, abandoning it, and heading to the city to discover new things, to discover yourself. Along the way, you travel through these Spanish landscapes, like a kind of Don Quixote, hallucinating windmills. I conceived of it as a form of liberation, not detachment from the past, but saying, “Okay, this is a part of me now. I’m no longer a child, and I want to go to the city and have fun.”
You asked me earlier how my songwriting has changed and I think it has to do with enjoyment. I haven’t overthought things this time. The lyrics aren’t always linear, and the songs don’t necessarily have the same clear beginning, middle, and end that they did on La Cantera. Back then, I felt I had to be able to defend a song with just a guitar, no frills, no artifice. This time, I just want to enjoy these songs, play them for friends on the guitar, and dance to them. I love that they feel immediate. It’s a collection of songs that bring me enjoyment and that I hope they do the same for others.
In the past, I’ve associated your music with a playful eroticism, full of childlike curiosity almost. This time, I felt desire takes on a more adult, carnal dimension that introduces new dynamics of gender and longing.
La Cantera lived in a more innocent space. I think Spanish Leather is part of growing up, understanding eroticism, seduction, and how you feel about your own body, your own image.
Four years ago, I felt a lot more pressure. I wanted to come out with a perfect production, layers and layers and experimentation, but I wasn’t necessarily expressing what was in me. Choosing “Full Time Papi” as the first single was about breaking that. Like, I’m not a kid anymore. The flirtatious, childlike eroticism we used to play with, naked bodies as a metaphor, has shifted. Now the bodies are just bodies. There’s a shedding of shame.
There’s still a lot of playfulness. Especially in the language, there’s a lot of seduction in the lyrics. You can see that in the visuals, which are inspired by what’s in the songs.
There are several moments in Spanish Leather that reminded me of previously sexually freeing moments in Spanish pop history, namely Mecano. How do you balance nostalgia and innovation in your music?
It’s funny you mention Mecano. They were singing about super liberating things — very open, bold stories for their time. I’ve always found them inspiring. This album actually has a few hidden Mecano references — especially in “Puerta del Sol.” There was something about Mecano’s language: it was spoken, colloquial, very Eighties, and unafraid to just say things. That lack of self-consciousness really stuck with me.
Coming back to nostalgia and innovation, I think the two go hand in hand. It’s like an umbilical cord: you’re constantly nourished by nostalgia in order to create something new. In the end, everything comes from digging through lived experiences.
This fear we have of things ending, that’s nostalgia too. Nostalgia for what’s about to end. I tried to make these songs more interactive somehow — so that the listener feels like they’re part of them. Not like watching something beautiful behind a glass case, untouchable. I wanted the songs to be beautiful, yes, but also fun, nostalgic, and full of feeling. I want them to spark joy. To make you want to feel things.
