From personal experience, I can tell you that playing a DJ set which gets thousands of people dancing, or performing live on stage with one of your favourite bands, gives you a euphoric high very similar to the responsibility of lining up to take a penalty in a Champions League final and then converting it.
You can’t make too many direct comparisons between elite football and live music because they are different. Not better, not worse, just different – but both give you an unbelievable feeling.
Two occasions have given me just as much of a buzz as my penalty against Bayern München in the 2001 Champions League final. One was my DJ set on the second-biggest stage at the FIB festival in Benicàssim, closing a great evening after the Crystal Fighters’ set and feeling able to plug thousands of people into wonderful music. A mix of skill and pleasure. And it was beautiful and groovy to see everyone dancing!
The other was in 2015, when one of my favourite groups, Los Planetas, insisted that I play rhythm guitar with them on stage at Benicàssim – immediately after the Kaiser Chiefs and right before Blur. Wow! Looking out from the stage, there were people as far as the eye could see. Absolutely unbelievable.
Los Planetas had come to my house for a barbecue the day before and, as they were leaving, they said, “See you tomorrow!” I didn’t know what they meant, and when they told me they wanted me to play on stage, I said, “No ******* way!” But they insisted, and while they were eating and drinking and having fun in the build-up to that night, I locked myself away, turned off my phone and practised the chords for five straight hours.
I was so nervous. They called me on stage for their fourth song and my mind went blank – I was just praying not to embarrass myself. It was an out-of-body experience: the first few seconds, all I could hear was a voice in my head saying, “How am I going to do this?” And then, suddenly, it was over. We were done.
Honestly, even though I insist it’s impossible to compare football and rock music, I promise you that the emotions and high were the same as when I scored that final penalty in Milan. To me, music is emotion. It’s for when you are happy, when you’re sad, when you are lonely, when you’re down, when good things happen… That’s why musicians compose: to express those feelings. That’s how they connect with us.
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This all began when I was a teenager. And it might surprise you, but the thing which inspired me was heavy metal. I even grew my hair long. Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Def Leppard… In those days, there was no internet, so you had to keep up with things on the radio or buy the music papers, like Metal Hammer and Kerrang!
The first record I bought was a Metallica LP, but from there I followed a path through American music to investigate Lou Reed, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, MC5, the Ramones. And, from there, I wanted to know about soul and blues – but Mississippi blues, the rough old-school stuff where you can really hear the guitars. Everything I heard, every new genre I listened to, made me more curious to know about rock music’s family tree.
I remember that when I just missed out on Spain’s EURO ’96 squad, I said to Andoni Zubizarreta, our goalkeeper, that he needed to go to a specific bookshop in London and buy me this huge reference book called The Great Rock Discography by Martin C Strong, which listed every single album that had been produced for 50 or 60 years.
Whenever I travelled around Europe with Valencia in the Champions League, whichever country or city we were in, I went looking for record shops – always inquisitive, always buying, always discovering. But I was like everybody else: I also had a cassette recorder which I used to tape songs I liked off the radio and television. Being a professional footballer usually ruled out gigs at the weekend and, because I was a good boy, on Fridays too. But on Thursdays I would always go to concerts if they were playing near me – Teenage Fanclub, Buffalo Tom, Led Zeppelin, the Four Horsemen. More US bands than British, typically.
One of the great experiences was seeing Lou Reed in concert in Barcelona. We were supposed to meet him after the gig, but he got caught up having a lovely meal with his wife, Laurie Anderson. But the next time he called us, it was in Valencia and we went out for dinner. I was playing it cool, trying not to act like a super-fan as he talked about tai chi, his music and whether “soccer” is as physically rough and intimidating as it seemed to him.
I’ve been backstage with the Stone Roses and I got to know Mumford & Sons right at the start. Music has been a great friend to me all my life. If only I’d have known how to play the guitar!
