Interview by: Anna Julia
If you know a bit about the current alternative musical scene, by this day you will have heard of the garage-rock band Hinds, these four Spanish girls that have burst in with joy and energy. I wrote a Bands to Watch article sometime before this interview, also in Shuffle Beat, in which I said it would be a pleasure for me to interview them some day. Well, this day came, as I was able to send them some questions by email -which they answered, of course. And here they are. Their first album, named Leave Me Alone, is coming out on January 2016, and you can have a listen to its opener song here. To know a bit more about the band, check out the article before mentioned, and be sure to follow them on their social media!
How did you came up with the idea of forming a band, and how did you came to realize that this is what you wanted to do? How did you decide you would be completely committing to Hinds?
The idea originated in a trip Carlotta and Ana took. We began playing because of boredom, and we enjoyed it so much that we set ourselves to form a band! I think we didn’t realize it was what we were going to do until it was too late, hahaha. It all went so fast that when we considered dropping out from our majors, we practically had already failed them.
What does it mean to you all the band’s name? Both Deers and Hinds are words with practically the same meaning, so why did you choose it?
Well, when you choose a band name with a friend on the beach, for a band that doesn’t even know how to write music, you don’t overthink it… We liked that Hinds thing to give Deers [the band’s first name] some continuity, and because choosing a new name once you’re more or less known is a real bugger. Where do you begin? Things we like, images we have, random words, a rhyme, something long, short, eeeeeetc… Hahaha.
How did you met?
We all met in Madrid. Carlotta and Ana met first, because of common friends, and the same happened a few years later with Ade. The three of us met Ámber because we were searching for a drummer, and she liked our band/duet :)
You have a very characteristic and special musical style; how did you define it? Did you decide it and talk about it sometime, or did it came along the way?
Nope, we didn’t decide it…! Our sound was basically born because of the conditions we had when we recorded something for the first time. We didn’t have a clue about anything, so we didn’t want to waste money in a music studio; we [Carlotta and Ana, because at that time they were still a duo] ended up recording the first pair of songs an evening in our rehearsal locals. We asked Diego, a friend of us who had studied Sound Production, to produce us, and he accepted debuting with us!
Another factor that we think contributed to it was that in those first songs, Ana [backing guitar and lead singer] played also the bass, and Carlotta [lead guitar and singer] did the drums. That made it turn out even more chaotic!
To a personal level, what artists or bands do you like most? Do you think any of them has influences on what you play and write?
What we’ve been lately listening to in the van is Fat White Family, The Strokes, The Districts and Glass Animals. Everything we listen to has an influence on us, of course.
What’s the process you follow when composing new songs? Do you begin with lyrics and then you add music to them, do you try melodies…? What’s what starts the development of a new song? Is there one of us who fully engages to writing songs, or do you do it all together?
Thus far, what has caused us to begin a new song have been mostly two things: The urge to show the world new music, and the pressure we have had to live with this year, since we have had a recording date marked on our planners. Because of this, every song has been a whole world. Initially we would bring some chords to our rehearsal place and we would build it up the four of us in rehearsals, but we reached a threatening against-the-clock point, so since then, Carlotta and Ana have been meeting at Carlotta’s place to develop it all, and then we pass it to the local and add the bass and the drums.
You have learnt to play very “on the go”, if I’m not wrong. How have you self-taught yourselves?
Well, in fact we have been forced to learn by the circumstances, just as if you toss a little kid who doesn’t know how to swim to your local swimming pool hahah.
How do you plan shows? What songs do you play, apart from the five or six the world has listened to? Do you like to version songs or do covers? Do you do it often?
At the moment we have seventeen recorded songs, and in concerts we play around ten of them. We play songs from our album we still haven’t released, and one or two covers. We love covers and versions, it’s something which has been somehow lost these days in our genre but we still love them, that’s how we began with the band!
What would you say to a up-and-coming band?
Don’t ever believe you have too much underwear in your backpack.
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