At what age do children stop being children?
With 8 LP’s reached we could say that they are at their sweetest stage of their childhood. Nani Castañeda (drums). Miguel Haro (bass), Andres López (guitars and chorus) and Juan Alberto Martínez (guitars and lyrics). Four mutant children from Granada that in their bedrooms hang posters of Pixies, Sonic Youth, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Stones Roses, Wilco, ...
Signed up with Ernie records, “Náufrago” is their last album that has been recognized as best album of the year.
Pop/rock, Post-Rock, indie.... How would you describe yourself?
We stopped to mind about the tags a lot of time ago. We are a band that tries to make songs from the heart. Some of them more pop, some more rock, some people consider them indie… what we care about is the content, the message, the essence, what we say, how do we want to say it and how to transmit it.
“Náufragos” has been recognized with the Pop-Eye award as record of the year. Also, in the Independent Music Awards you won the awards for best album and best video (for “Náufragos”, realized by Alexis Morante). What does it mean for you this recognition? What happened next?
Sweet things never made anyone bitter, they made all of us glad. It means that there is people that appreciates your work and hat is always gratifying. Altough our long career, we are quite novice with the awards. And that’s how we consider it, as a newness. And it comes of funny.
Next, what happened is that more people came to know us as a band, and realized that we make good songs. I guess that’s what awards are for.
Do you use to follow a same meter when composing your songs?
With “Naufragos” began a new composing system. Since then, Juan Alberto used to bring to the rehearse sketches of the songs more or less completed. But with Naufragos we began to work from very undressed idees (most of them were also carried by Juanito), but contributing a lot each one of us; sometimes we even start completely. Someone beguins to play something and then we continue to see where does it go. We liked the result and we felt comfortable working like this, altough its much more complicated. Trying to arrive to a point of agreement with the four mutants is not an easy job. We can spend a whole afternoon discussing impassioned about which is the rythm of the song (or about Dostoievski…).
Almost closing the year, next November the 2nd you’ll be at the first edition of Elastic Festival sharing headline with a huge selection of national and international indie. How appears to be next 2014?
Well, we hope to have a new album, so with all the illusion of the world. At the moment is everything unwritten, but we feel that a new stage begins in the band. We think like if with “Náufragos” we are closing a trilogy that began with “Todo Es El momento” and now is time to make something different.
How is being conceived the 9th mutation? Something you can advance us about what we’ll find in your next album?
We are completely filled in the composition of the new songs. At the moment we only have a lot of ideas and a lot of energy in order to work with them. If I can say, there is no pregnancy yet but we are making sex constantly, with passion and excess so we can make it. We are at this stage at the moment…
There is a collective feeling that this must be an album in capital letter. And you can notice this when composing. Some of these songs have us really stuck on. We walk on the street thinking about chorus, rhythms, lyrics…
Fill in the gaps: when we are not on tour, we love to…
If we are not on tour it means that we are at the rehearsal, composing. And we are thinking about the next tour.
We also love to disconnect, get lost in Las Alpujarras, Cabo de Gata, Orce, Galicia, be with our families… we have very worldly hobbies.
At whom would you throw a Hello Kitty knickers and why?
Really? There are worst ways to show admiration… we are not used to throw anything, but I guess that a pair of Hello Kitty pants would fit very well to our beloved Zahara. Aside than admiration, sure they fit very well ;)
The abandon feeling that some artists feel, feeling of a lack of support with encouraging art politics (for example in music) in the actual scene is something that really matter to Hysterical Fans. Are you identified with this situation?
This is a quite prickly topic. We have a government and, in general, a politic class very uneducated so we cannot expect nothing from them about this. Their concept of culture goes ligated to fast money culture, in fact, they are the kings in this kind of culture. It’s really sad, fucked up, shocking… (I must stop). In any case, we do not have to wait for someone to help. Music and culture in general is over all this stuff and it will exist even a band of incompetents still push to fuck it up. In fact, is in these situations when the growth is bigger. The story is that, if they do not support music, please at least don’t try to sink it, which would be fair. But the truth is that some politics are interested in having uncultured vassal. That’s not new, but its dangerous.
What happens in your dressing room before a show? Any ritual or hangup before the show?
Some nerves on the edge. We use to have a guitar near so we sing some songs that are our “pre-show classics” (Jolene from Dolly Parton, En el Río from Mike River or Todo es de Color from Triana). We always use to hold each other before going out to stage… does it count as a ritual?
We finish the interview with the prize-winning video “Naufragos”. Which message is the video trying to communicate?
That it is not very advisable to spend quite time under water with clothes, even in summer. We were on the edge of hypothermia.
We love the video and we also love to work with Alexis Morante, a big man in audiovisual narration, in short filming, video or we hope that in feature film soon.
The message of the video, as the message of the song, is that the shipwrecked is the hero of every downfall, like the one we are living at the moment. It is necessary to swim cross-current, to hold strongly music and thinking positive to succeed.
