Everest, Javier Milei’s band: the Stone experiment that could have changed presidential history

A lightning-fast band. An ephemeral attempt which, if it had worked, could have changed the course of Argentine presidential history. That was Everest, Javier Milei’s rock band. An attempt by Pietra of which only the stories of its protagonists survive.

The seven letters chosen as the brand summarized the hunger of the current President: the highest mountain. Metaphor of his ambition, of his desire for heights, for the impossible. Eight thousand eight hundred metres, there on the border between Nepal and Tibet, a climbing mission that could lead to death.

Milei liked the sound, the symbolism, the connotation of that giant linked to records, avalanches, landslides and little oxygen and so he called his rocker dream.

It was 1988, the last stretch of the Alfonsinist government. After living in a house in the municipality of Sáenz Peña, in the Tres de Febrero neighborhood, the teenager who played in the lower divisions of Chacarita had already moved with his family to Salvador María del Carril street, in Devoto. From his room covered in Mick Jagger posters, it occurred to him to start a band that emulated “Their Majesties”.

“He’s like that. He gets into something and if he doesn’t get to the heart of it he doesn’t stop.”defines Hernán Boracchia, former Everest drummer, Argentinian with -now- Spanish accent, who lives in Formentera, the smallest of the Balearic Islands.

Alias ​​”El pelado”, Boracchia was born in 1970, 12 days after Milei, on November 3. He entered Cardinal Copello in third grade, in class he met Norberto and Alicia’s son and began to bond over an intercollegiate five-a-side football game.

“We were two super fun, fiery kids“, throws his daggers from a city of hippie artists, Sant Ferran de ses Roques. In the late eighties he was trying to form a musical trio with guitarist Juan Carlos Marioni (whom Milei describes as a “very talented guitarist” in his biographical book). When there was a change of plans, in addition to Milei, other school friends, Diego Parise (guitarist) and Diego Vila (bass), were added and the quintet was formed.

The group’s first meeting was at Hernán’s home, at José Cubas 4558, Villa Devoto. “Some of the lyrics were his, for example the shitty blues fan, who told the story of the Greek gods and then it became more punk. Juan Carlos (Marioni) said: ‘Is this a blues? It doesn’t transform the blues, it doesn’t have a logical cadence.’ “He wanted to culturalize us and, in the end, he adapted to our way.”

There were only two presentations with an audience before the musical disarmament and the bifurcation of those lives. One was in a sports center in via Beiró, the other in a pizzeria bar in Palermo. There is a document attesting to the latter, the domestic cassette that Boracchia prays for is still in Milei’s hands. “That day he was wearing a denim jacket, tight white pants and a white shirt. “He took off his clothes and ended up shirtless.”

The Days of Fury Stone

Milei’s nightclub hosted records by AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and other foreign artists. The devotion to the Stones came, in fact, through the Liverpool Four: “At the time, for Javier, only the Beatles existed, but one day he heard Lennon say that he liked the Stones and he became a fanatic.”specifies Boracchia, the only musician who agreed to participate in the note.

Brown Sugar was the most beautifully crafted Rolling Stones song since Everest. Second place on the podium went to Jumping Jack Flash. “The band didn’t introduce us to women. We didn’t flirt at all“, laughs Boracchia, who while watching the illusion dissolve was called to arms.

-Any anecdotes of someone who was annoyed by what they did?

-One of my neighbors, I don’t remember his name, one day complained about the noise from the rehearsals and left us without electricity. After inflating the balloons, he removed the fuses. Then we started renting rehearsal rooms.

-How was it musically speaking?

-As far as I remember he never studied music, we had the subject in high school, but we never went beyond playing the flute. He strummed an electro-acoustic guitar, but on Everest he just sang. Javier doesn’t have a great voice, but as a showman he was impeccable. He did them all. People exploded. He was like a Mick Jagger impersonator.

-How did you move on stage?

-He exaggerated the movements, he started with a parody of Jagger and ended up being him. I remember that at a show, for example, she found a roll of cardboard about a meter long and started acting like a fool. He was clearly a rebel.

-Did your sister Karina have any role in the band’s operations?

-NO. I wasn’t even at rehearsal. Yes, she was a spectator both times we played in public.

-Do you think Everest could have had a better and longer life?

-It lasted as long as it was supposed to last. We weren’t the most virtuous, but we had fun. It was very good. If Javier had dedicated himself to music, he would have failed. And it’s not in their DNA to fail.

-So there wasn’t even the slightest hint of a political path?

-I never imagined that I would become president. This has happened in recent years. He began the cultural battle of liberalism and understood that he had to launch himself into the political arena. There is no book that can withstand what happened to it in such a short time. He is unique in the world.

-Do you maintain a close friendship with the President?

-Obviously. I spoke to him on WhatsApp a few days ago. The friendship remains despite the distance. The last time we saw each other in Buenos Aires was when he lived in Abasto, before the pandemic. To give you an idea of ​​what kind of person he was with me: there was a time when I had a lot of problems at home with my mom and dad. I packed my bags and in two or three days I arrived in Rosario. Obviously I didn’t have any fucking money. I turned around and when I arrived Javier was waiting for me.

Boracchia considers himself a music lover “like Milei”. They shared opera evenings at the Teatro Avenida and he and his colleague witnessed the arrival of the Rolling Stones for the first time in Argentina, in February 1995. “We saw Keith Richards together for the first time at a festival in Vélez in 1992, and years later the whole band at River. I couldn’t afford it and I went to the first and last recital, while he went to five appointments.”

The Everest musical expedition lasted a sigh. Climbers with burning hormones tried to reach the summit, but They resisted the bombing for less than six months. In his book Ethe path of the libertarianMilei himself takes stock of his very brief activity as a singer: “The same thing happens for my period in music as for football: those who saw and accompanied the process say it was beautiful. My perception is not so optimistic.”

Milei became interested in pentagrams, decided to study Economics at the University of Belgrano and began to become obsessed with the study of fiscal deficits, monetary output, curves, GDP, Keynesianism. Boracchia took the opposite path, that of metaphors and semantics. He became a writer and published 666, a book of stories about “six senses, six non-emotions, six realms”.

“Another band came looking for me, Represion plus IVA, and I said, ‘I’m going with them. And it all ended.’says the man who has just signed a contract with the publishing house Diversidad Literaria to publish the novel La desalmada.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t record the Everest songs. Javier wrote, for example, Nymphomaniac, dedicated to a schoolmate”, Boracchia closes with reservations about the reproduction of fragments. Instead he shares part of the furious verses of Shitty fanextreme song signed by JM “When God ran out of clay with which he had molded men, he waited for them to shit and so ended up making them shit.”