Los Campesinos! lead singer Gareth Campesinos! wrote his group’s new album Hello Sadness while reeling from one the worst breakups in his life. What came out of that heartbreak is arguably Los Campesinos!’s finest and most honest release to date.
Los Camesinos! performs at Great American Music Hall this Friday.
Los Campesinos! headline the Great American Music Hall this Friday. Gareth spoke with SF Station about the process of making Hello Sadness, the band’s current U.S. tour, and more.
Congrats on Hello Sadness, your fourth album. This album was made a little differently than previous ones. How did you come to record the album in Spain this time instead of the U.S.?
Well a lot of very fortunate coincidences. This was the first time we were intending to record from the U.K even. We are very close to a good studio owned by the Manic Street Preachers and we were intending to record there but every time we were booking times something came up with their schedule so they needed it. And then we signed ourselves into a situation where we were offered two gigs in Spain very close to each other and they were the sort of gigs where well one was a festival and the other was a club opening and they’re the sort of things that often pay a band more than they deserved to be paid (laughter), especially with something like a club opening.
So we find ourselves in Spain, and more specifically playing a show in Barcelona, which was very close to a studio that the band the Super Furry Animals had recorded in before who we share management with so we had the contacts for that and we thought well we’re in Spain so we may as well make the most of it. So our producer John Goodmanson came out from Seattle and we recorded there in beautiful sunshine , next to a swimming pool in a studio Mariah Carey and Shakira recorded in so it was pretty blissful.
Do you think you channeled any Mariah on Hello Sadness from being in that studio?
Sadly not, but we were quite enthusiastic about asking the people that worked there about the two of them as much as possible (laughs).
Speaking of John Goodmanson, this is the third time you’ve worked with him on an album. What does John bring to the records that keep you inviting him back?
Well we’ve only worked with one different producer before, so perhaps John is actually terrible but we don’t really know any difference (laughs). If that is the case he does a good job of hiding it.
He’s just such a wonderful person, in fact I’m in Seattle at the moment and last night he hosted us. We went to his family home and had dinner and played with his dogs and sons and just hung out. It was really amazing and I think that’s a testament to what a nice guy he is, it’s at that point now that when we’re in the studio he is essentially a member of the band. And he’s just so honest but sensible and when you look at the bands that he has worked with in the past you can’t really argue with that sort of experience.
After your relationship ended, you went back and rewrote the whole record. How did the group react originally when you told them this was what you wanted to do?
I only write the lyrics to the music, but lyrically also I am very protective of the words until the last minute. Nobody really hears or sees the lyrics until the actual recording of them because I like things to be as raw and as in the moment as possible.
I think I’m slightly discouraged by when the band started initially, some songs went by the waste side with some terrible lyrics which occasionally my dear bandmates will remind me of. But I don’t want to give them an opportunity again so I leave it until I’m certain I like what I’ve come up with. It didn’t really affect their headspace very much, they’re very trusting to let me get with it and do as I want in regard to lyrics so it didn’t cause them any trauma.
Do you ever imagine what this Los Campesinos! record would have been like if you hadn’t gone through something as profound as this bad breakup?
Yea, it’s hard to say. I don’t think it would have been as good as I perceive it to be now. I find it a lot easier to write lyrics from a sad space than I do from a happy space. I think things that people can sort of universally agree are sad are a lot more simple to people than things that universally make people happy. So like lots of heartbreak and death are things that everyone can unanimously agree are bad things and will make people sad, whereas when writing happy songs different things make different people happy and it’s a lot harder to make a connection that way. I would have struggled a lot more thinking of happier things to write, or probably I wouldn’t even have had much to write about.
This is a really honest record, and I’m not saying making a happy record is a dishonest record, but is it easier to make an honest record out of a place of sorrow rather than a place of joy?
Yea, totally. I think perhaps partly because for me writing has become a really quite therapeutic thing. Obviously at the time of the breakup and in the aftermath it was pretty terrible but by now these emotions and these events that happened into songs they stop being my life anymore and they just become stories, especially when other people hear the music and then they read the lyrics and then they sort of apply them to their own lives. Then when we do gigs and I’m singing the words but other people are singing the words back to me it stops being my life and then it just becomes stories and they become something that’s in the public domain so it’s a lot easier to get over it that way I think. I think performing the songs every night as well seeing people emote back at me is a really useful thing to getting it out of my system.
You guys recently played Letterman, what was that like to be on such a huge platform?
It was phenomenal, we’ve been a band for six years but these things still seem completely out of this world to us. From things like recently being used in the Budweiser commercial and things like that- it’s not very good for any sort of punk rock cred but those are the things that make us the happiest because it’s like wow you really are a proper band, ya know people know us.
But it (Letterman) was insane, it was so much build up throughout the day and then it was done within three and a half minutes and David Letterman was there and he shook our hands and then he was gone. We only found out about it a week before we were supposed to do the show, but still that build up and then it was gone but the sheer adrenaline and excitement was unreal. It was something that I keep meaning to write down because I don’t want to forget it all and I know that I will. But we’ve got pictures from the occasion and we all got out complimentary Late Night t-shirts (laughs), but yea I’m excited to go back home and see people that I know from home who kind of know I’m in a band but don’t know why I don’t have a proper job and show them the clip and see if I can get a few drinks for that.
You’re nearing the end of your U.S tour, what has the reaction been like here in the states to the new songs every night?
It’s been really great, again we’ve been doing this for six years now which seems like a long time but there’s a couple of gigs on this tour that have sort of immediately gone into my mental top 10 list. The reception has been amazing and I think every time we come back people are a little bit more giving and open within the gig, and more prepared to sort of open up themselves and get really into it. And after every gig we go sell our own merch and meet everyone who has come to the show and that just gets more and more rewarding to speak to people and see them sometimes a little bit star struck which is weird or just happy to see us or with their own stories to tell about how the music has affected them and how they’ve enjoyed the music. And people are coming in greater numbers every time we come over which is really big.
You’re playing in San Francisco on the 10th, what do you enjoy about playing in the Bay Area- any fond memories?
Yea, it still surprises me how much of a different atmosphere we find ourselves in going from the East Coast shows to the West Coast shows. We’re in Seattle at the moment, which we really like, but getting into the midway stage of the tour and we were just thinking it would be really nice to be on the West Coast.
San Francisco is one of the cities that we’ve never had as much time to hang out in as we would like to because we always have quite a bit of time in L.A because we play like L.A, San Diego, and places where we can just travel back to L.A after gigs.
We had one really amazing evening in San Fran, we went to a garlic restaurant, do you know the name?
The Stinking Rose?
Yea, it was there and we did karaoke afterwards and we were in a group of 20 people traveling from the Stinking Rose to the karaoke place and it was cheaper for us to get a limo than it was to get like 5 taxis and that was a pretty good memory.
Los Campesinos! play the Great American Music Hall on Friday, February 10th with opening support from Parenthetical Girls. Doors are at 8:00 and the event is all ages.