David Civera: “I’m not an ambitious guy”

Much has happened, and never better said, since David Civera’s participation in ‘Lluvia de estrellas’. The man from Teruel was at that time a tender 17-year-old boy and he sang ‘Experiencia religiosa’, by Enrique Iglesias, before the smiling gaze of Bertín Osborne. Today Civera, at 43, is the father of Daniel and Laura, has been with Ana María Benedí, his wife, for more than half his life, continues to live in Teruel (“nobody moves me from here”) and long ago decided to put family before a musical career so dizzying that it threatened to destabilize him. «In the craziest years, he did not handle loneliness well. Learning to be with oneself is the most difficult.

Back from fashions and trends and with emotional health in top shape, what moves this composer now is to spread messages. The last one was released in May, through a single titled ‘Among Friends’. And he talks about the need for human contact after the restrictions of the pandemic. At the end of July he will start a tour that will take him all over Spain until mid-October. “After a two-year hiatus, I’m back with all my hits and with this new song that’s going to be a shot of positivism for everyone,” he anticipates. And it is that his permanent smile and his optimistic attitude make this singer a sort of apostle of good vibes.

“Ha, ha, ha… That’s what they say, but I also get pissed off,” he points out. The toxicity, the lack of empathy, the rush, the disorder, the chaos make me angry… I have a strong character, I am stubborn, very perfectionist and that sometimes plays tricks on me. The one who knows my murky facets best is my wife. But I always try to have a good attitude and find a way to make people happy. Because one receives what he gives and that has always been my way of being ».

What happened to David Civera?, some media have come to ask. The truth is that he has never retired. He simply decided to slow down his career. In 2001 he represented Spain at Eurovision with ‘Dile que la Quiero’ and came in sixth. “I was a kid with a brutal illusion, I wanted to eat the world,” he recalls. And then came the years (almost a decade) of consecutive number ones and big tours… «However, in 2009 the music industry changed a lot. And when my son was born in 2011, I realized that he had invested many years in my profession and that he had to dedicate himself to me and the little ones. Maybe it’s an artistic mistake, but I’m not an ambitious guy. I have many aspirations, I like challenges, but ambition does not go with me.

Today David is convinced that he has made a good choice. Married to his high school sweetheart, the singer has always prioritized his family. “And when the pandemic put us to the test, I realized that I was right,” he concludes. They were days of spending 24 hours with his children, aged 11 and 9, acting as a father, as a teacher… «That feeds you, gives you back your illusion. They have seen that I am there for everything. And when I had to start again this year I told him: ‘I’m going to make a song, a positive message so that people are happy’. They loved it and they support me.”

Their struggle, like that of so many parents today, is to keep their children away from screens. «I take them to fish, to ride a bike, we do crafts…». Civera tries to make the childhood of her children resemble her own. “I grew up with my four grandparents and I knew my two great-grandmothers. I lived the time of the bicycle, the Nocilla sandwich, the swimming pools or going to catch tadpoles in the river».

A “weirdo” at school

The son of a civil servant and a housewife, David has two sisters and he remembers himself as a “very good, silly” boy, who suffered in the gang because when others liked football he liked the piano. “He was a bit of a freak. But now my EGB friends tell me: Damn, how clear you had it since you were little!». Precocious and excessively responsible, today the singer says he finally feels emotionally connected with his age. «I think that forty has been wonderful for me because I already had this maturity with twenty».

Civera is a militant from Teruel who took the recent collapse of El Torico with “humor, from pain”. He is also fond of astrophysics and actively supports Teruel’s candidacy as the headquarters of the future Spanish Space Agency. The only thing that erases his smile is «the loss of values ​​in which they lead us. I’m a very positive guy, but as I get older I’m becoming a positive realist, and I see things a little obtuse. There is too much fighting of greed and ambition.