Blue Merrow is a band formed in September 2019 in Pontevedra, Galicia (Spain), with the intent of creating music without stylistic constraints. Drawing inspiration from the late ’60s and early ’70s, the group builds its sound around
the powerful dialogue between organ and guitar, shaping a personal blend of Hard Rock, Progressive and Psychedelic Rock. After releasing their self-titled debut in 2022, Blue Merrow returns with their sophomore album “Navagio,” a
bold step forward that dives deeper into evocative melodies, vintage textures, and immersive atmospheres.
Let’s start from the beginning: how did Blue Merrow come to life, and what were the musical or emotional sparks that started the project?
The story of how Blue Merrow came to be is actually quite simple — I’d say it’s the kind of process that any band with sincere artistic aspirations has to go through at some point. As you mention, Blue Merrow officially formed in late 2019, but the motivation behind it had been building for a while. Before BM, Damián Garrido (our singer) and I (Ángel Olañeta) started a covers band back in 2016/2017 called Hoffman’s Legacy. We played songs from the ’60s and ’70s — Cream, Deep
Purple, Hendrix, The Beatles, Open Mind, Jeff Beck… — alongside drummer Moisés Araujo and bassist Diego Hernán (who remained with BM until late 2024). After two or three years playing all kinds of night venues and small clubs, we decided to walk away from the covers and easy money, and pursue something of our own. The music we covered naturally pushed us to look inward and question our own musical identity. We were playing material written by true pioneers — creators and explorers of sound. And we humbly wanted to do the same. Not to be a ‘copy of’ something, not to jump on the bandwagon of a trendy genre, not to go ‘heavier than’ or ‘darker than’. We were more drawn to the creative freedom,
elegance, and genuine talent of bands like Deep Purple, Camel, Nektar, Novalis, Hölderlin, Premiata Forneria Marconi… all of them largely forgotten today. And that’s where Blue Merrow came from: a need to create something artistically honest — no poses, no gimmicks, no speeches. Just art for art’s sake. Music for music’s sake. With clear references and intuitive direction. So right after Hoffman’s Legacy came to a close, we formed Blue Merrow — this time with Ángel
Vejo on keyboards, Alberto Cid on drums, and more recently, David Gándara on bass.
Your music clearly draws from the late ’60s and early ’70s, but it doesn’t feel like a nostalgic exercise. What does that era represent for you, and how do you translate that influence into something fresh?
That era—the late 60s and early 70s—represents, for us, a moment of true artistic courage. Musicians didn’t just follow trends, they invented them. There was a genuine openness to experimentation, fusion, perfectionist and virtuoso attitudes, a sense of musical narrative, and an emotional honesty that’s rare today. But we’re not interested in replicating that era or “reviving” it. We’re not a retro band. What we try to do is maintain that same spirit: the spirit of exploration, narrative, atmosphere. We’ve inherited a valuable language, yes, but we try to speak with our own
accent. That means being very intentional with sound choices, structure, dynamics… and not being afraid to slow down, lengthen things, or let emotion take over when necessary. There’s something timeless about the way those bands approached music: not as a product, but as a journey, as a process. That’s what we admire. And if that comes across in our music without it sounding like a pastiche, nor imitation, then we are doing something right.
Compared to your debut, “Navagio” feels richer in mood and sonic layers. How did your approach evolve between the two records?
Navagio wasn’t intended to be a full second album but rather a transitional piece—an EP that served as a midpoint where we could experiment and rethink our approach. It’s only five tracks, each representing a small exploration. The EP includes two new songs—‘Once in a Blue Moon’ and ‘Inside the Plot’—that allowed us to break new ground, alongside an acoustic, folky version of Deep Purple’s ‘Burn,’ and two expanded reinterpretations of tracks from our first album: ‘Three Ways to Say Goodbye’, which we enriched by incorporating a version of Handel’s Sarabande, adding a classical dimension that deepens the piece’s atmosphere; and ‘Images’, which transforms from a ballad into a prog-inspired journey through a musical transition, giving it a more polished and expansive feel. Apart from the two new studio recordings, the other three tracks are live recordings. Though Navagio isn’t exactly a ‘second album,’ the studio sessions felt much more professional. Unlike with our debut, we were no longer novices in the studio. We went in with a clearer vision of the sound we wanted, and the songs were more fully developed. Recording some of our older songs live and acoustically was a rewarding experience, offering listeners a glimpse into how these tracks have evolved both in performance and rehearsal since their original versions. The folk cover of ‘Burn’ was a particular highlight for us—a beautiful and elegant reinterpretation of a powerful masterpiece. We believe we created a very competent acoustic version that honors the original while bringing a fresh, intimate perspective.
The organ and guitar are central to your identity. How do you work together during the writing process to keep that balance dynamic and expressive?
The organ and guitar are definitely at the heart of our sound. When we write, it’s a very collaborative process — sometimes one of us brings a riff, a melody, or a harmonic idea, and the other responds, complements, or challenges it. We try to keep a conversation going between the instruments rather than having one just accompany the other. A big part of that balance comes from listening closely to each other and being open to space. Sometimes the organ will carry a melodic line while the guitar textures underneath, and other times the guitar takes the lead with the organ filling in atmosphere or harmonic support. We’re also conscious of dynamics — we don’t want the sound to be static or overly dense all the time. So we work with contrasts: moments of intensity followed by quiet, more delicate passages. This interplay helps keep the music expressive and engaging. In live settings, this balance is even more vital, and it’s something we constantly refine as a band.
The album title “Navagio” evokes the idea of shipwreck or abandonment. Is there a specific concept or emotional thread that ties the tracks together?
The title Navagio — which means ‘shipwreck’ in Greek — wasn’t chosen because of the famous beach, although the association is inevitable. For us, the word captured something essential about the nature of this EP: the songs it contains don’t form a unified conceptual or musical whole. They’re more like scattered wreckage — sunken fragments that surfaced during a transitional phase, as we began preparing our second full-length album. Each track comes from a different place emotionally and stylistically, but they all share the feeling of being part of a drift between two shores: what we’ve left behind, and what we’re slowly approaching. So Navagio isn’t a grand statement — it’s more like a collection of debris with unexpected meaning, glimpses of continuity amid change. So Navagio is both the wreck and the shore. It’s a liminal space, and that made it the perfect metaphor for this EP. Why ‘Navagio’ and not just ‘Naufragio’ in Spanish, or something more neutral like ‘Werk’? Part of the answer lies in our love for the humanities and ancient cultures — especially classical Greek. There’s a certain resonance in the Greek word that we found more evocative and poetic. It carries a weight that goes beyond the literal meaning, and that’s exactly what this collection of songs needed: a word that could frame beauty in disarray.
Let’s talk about the recording phase. What was the studio and live experiences like for this album, and did you experiment with any vintage techniques or gear to capture the sound you had in mind?
Recording Navagio was quite a different experience compared to our debut. By this point, we had a much clearer idea of the sound we were after, and we also felt more comfortable in the studio — more aware of how to communicate with each other and with the engineer, how to pace ourselves, and how to use the studio as a tool rather than just a means to document what we already had. We used vintage gear: analog synths, vintage organs (Hammond, Welson, and Korg were all used), vintage amps, and vintage analog guitar pedals/effects—not out of nostalgia, but because they gave us the texture and depth we were looking for. For example, my Gibson mid-body was recorded with Vox AC15 HW1 (with Greenback speakers); my distortion pedals are a Boss overdrive and blues driver, a classic Vox wahwah, and a Fender reverb (not many effects were used, and certainly no digital pedalboards or effect tables). As for the live recordings, they were very instinctive. No overdubs, just a clean capture of how the songs sound now when we play them together in a room. That rawness was important to us — it balances out the more polished elements of the studio tracks, and gives the EP a kind of living quality. In short, we didn’t use vintage recording techniques in a hyper-professional sense, but we did take pains to pursue that clean, analog sound, which, in my opinion, can always be improved.
Some tracks carry strong instrumental narratives. Do you often start writing from a riff, a jam, or a mood you want to explore?
Most of the time, our writing starts with something concrete: often a guitar riff I incorporate or a more developed idea. Other times, it begins with a lyric, a keyboard harmony, or even a jam session that leads to something worth exploring. We also listen to our references to capture how to make changes, parts, variations, solos, sounds in general… We don’t actually write from a mood or emotional concept; we build the music from real musical material, and the atmosphere emerges as a result of the interaction of the parts. However, writing still requires a lot more work on our part, from methodology to fostering the conceptual/experiential/emotional element in the process (always meaningfully and not in a vain or obscure way). In rehearsals, we often expand and reshape these initial ideas together. There’s usually a moment when the structure begins to reveal itself, and from there we can decide if it needs to grow instrumentally, change tonally, or become a song with vocals. It is a collaborative process but with foundation.
Pontevedra and the Galician region have their own cultural identity. Has your surrounding environment influenced your artistic vision in any way? Has your surroundings influenced your artistic vision in any way?
Yes, definitely, though not always literally. Galicia, and Pontevedra in particular, have a strong sense of place for us. The coast, the mist-shrouded forests, the ancient ruins and villages, the old traditions… there’s a kind of serene intensity that naturally seeps into our way of perceiving music. Although we don’t use traditional Galician elements (we don’t sing in Galician, for now) or traditional instruments (like the bagpipes), I think the atmosphere of this region—its light, its climate, its slowness—has influenced how we listen, how we compose, and how we let the music breathe. There’s also a certain introspective quality that feels very Galician, and that’s probably reflected in some of our compositions. Furthermore, the band’s very name, Blue Merrow, alludes to the creatures of Celtic folklore—the merrows—which are part of the Irish and Galician imagination (in an ancient regional myth, for example, Pontevedra was founded by the hero Teucer, guided by a mermaid). This common root in Atlantic cultures is present in our approach: an interest in the mythological, the symbolic, what emerges from the sea, and the unconscious. In the context of this question, both the Galician environment and culture—our culture, in short— have influenced us, but we believe that music should not be a means to convey a message or the appearance of something, but an end in itself. We don’t conceive of it as a tool to defend ideas,discourses, or represent an identity, but rather as an autonomous form of expression, with its own value and language. When music is subordinated to an external message or image, it often loses depth and freedom. We strive for the opposite: for music to speak for itself, without needing to justify its existence by what it “means to say.” And in that sense, we prefer emotion, form, sound, and silence to prevail over any external intention. Therefore, any reference to culture or identity will always be because we belong to that culture and assert it through our work, but we will never do so in a pretentious, complacent, or blatant way.
Are live performances an important outlet for you, and how do you translate such a detailed and layered sound into a stage context?
Absolutely. Live performance is not only important to us, but essential. We don’t see it as a “translation” of the recorded material, but rather as a different incarnation of the music. What you hear live is never a reproduction, it’s a version: sometimes rawer, more atmospheric, or more intense, depending on the venue, the audience, etc. We also improvise quite a bit, and honestly, I think we sound better live than on record. Although on record you can introduce more resources and layers of sound that you can’t recreate live, the live performances are more natural, dynamic, and fresh. I would say the record is a condensed, more squared, and compartmentalized translation of our live performances. Although our recordings are carefully layered and arranged, we always consider how a piece can breathe on stage. We don’t rely on backing tracks or programming (we’re neglecting pre-recorded recordings for now); instead, we try to utilize the full dynamic range of the instruments and the interaction between us to recreate depth. Some songs evolve naturally live: we stretch parts, improvise transitions, or let the textures grow. Many songs, since our first album, have been modified by our constant rehearsals and live performances (some of those modifications are on this new EP). That space for transformation is something we value greatly. It keeps the music alive and makes each show a unique moment.
1Looking ahead, what are the next steps for Blue Merrow? Are you planning any tours, new recordings, or collaborations?
Right now, we’re focused on finishing what will be our actual second album. Navagio was a transitional EP, but this next record feels like the true continuation of what we started with our debut. We’re taking our time with it —both in terms of writing and sound exploration— and trying to push ourselves further, without losing the essence of what Blue Merrow is.
As for live shows, yes, we’re planning to play as much as possible, especially once the new material is ready. Our music grows a lot on stage, and we’re excited to share that evolution with people. That said, touring isn’t easy. For a band like ours, which doesn’t fit into mainstream formats or trends, it’s hard to find proper support, venues, or a clear market. Most of the industry is set up to promote predictable and commercially safe music, so it often feels like you’re swimming against the current. Still, we’re committed to what we do. We know our music speaks to a particular kind of listener, and that’s who we play for. No shortcuts, no disguises. Just music.
What message would you like to share with listeners who are just now discovering Blue Merrow and “Navagio”?
If you’re discovering Blue Merrow through Navagio, you’re probably curious about authentic music, more diverse genres, emerging bands, or specific sounds/styles. And, simply by not listening to what trends dictate, you probably have a more refined palate. Here at BM, we’re real people, musicians with the humble desire to make something beautiful, like artisans. These songs are what they are: pieces that emerged when we were trying things out, exploring paths, and learning as we went. We don’t follow trends or try to fit into any pre-established scene. We simply make the music we’d like to hear, with honesty, effort, and a lot of love for the craft. If you like it, that’s enough for us. Like us on social media, contact us (we’re grateful to anyone who shows interest in our work, regardless of whether it’s from our country or a foreign country). Thank you for giving us a chance.
Many thanks to Blue Merrow for taking the time to share their story and vision with us. You can explore and purchase their latest album “Navagio” on Bandcamp: https://bluemerrow1.bandcamp.com/album/navagio.
Read our Review of “Navagio” here: [Review] Blue Merrow – Navagio