Thursday, January 26
9:30 p.m.
$13
21+
Welsh rockers Los Campesinos! are known for leaving it all on the stage, but that's not to belittle four studio albums worth of consistently infectious indie rock and pop songs that thrive on aggressively upbeat melodies beneath frontman Gareth "Gareth Campesinos!" Paisey's playfully self-deprecating lyrics. Thursday night, the seven-piece band will headline at the Bluebird at 9:30 p.m. Live Buzz caught up with Paisey last week to ask him about his forward lyricism, his band's new fanzine, and how he maintains energy throughout a grueling tour schedule.
Live Buzz: As a frontman, it seems you've always stuck to your guns about being candid and never hiding behind anything. Your lyrics and music videos are very blunt - almost over-the-top personal, you play a glockenspiel on stage, and you seem to sing directly to your audience. What is it about being a forthright songwriter that you find so gratifying as opposed to writing in a more ambiguous or open-ended way?
Gareth Paisey: I don't think I have a choice in the matter. I think it's the only way I'm capable of writing. I admire a lot of songwriters who can sort of cloak whatever they're writing about in a bit more mystery and perhaps have a bit more imagination, but I'm just not capable of that.
I think with a lot of the art I admire, be it music or literature, I really admire authors or writers that are honest as well, and write candidly and openly. I think especially when it comes to the live experience of performing these songs, the fact that they are so open and honest makes for a really great atmosphere with the audience. Especially with the energy and the aggression that's within the songs, when you're performing that live and you've got the audience responding to that and doing the same back to you, it's what makes playing live so fun.
LB: Your band recently launched a fanzine, "Heat Rash." Could you tell us a little bit about how that's going and how that idea came about?
GP: Well, I guess how it's going is a little bit slower than planned, because it turned out to be something that we do ourselves without anyone helping us along the way. Obviously with touring and recording, it's a lot of stuff to do. But I think our motivation for doing it was just - the fact that we are a seven-piece, but within those seven, there are a lot of talents and interests that we can't really necessarily get across just within the music. We don't really have many responsibilities being in a band. It's just writing, recording or playing gigs. So we kind of found ourselves in a situation where if we weren't doing those things, we weren't doing anything, so it's nice to have this other outlet to spend time on and get our creativity into.
And it might be justified with the excitement with which people have signed up for it and responded to the issues. And through the music on them as well, because each issue that we publish comes with a 7" of new material. Sometimes, we write a song and it's nice having this outlet so we don't have to hold songs back until an album. It's something they can be used for immediately. Especially because of the candid nature of the lyrics, a lot of times, we can put them out when they're most relevant and appropriate. So that's a really great aspect of it as well.
LB: You're balancing a lot of that with Tumblr and the blogs and Twitter too. You guys already have a big web presence and being able to keep up a fanzine like that is admirable.
GP: Yeah, well I guess the thing with blogging and Twitter and those things, although we enjoy them a lot and we use them a lot, is they're completely responsibility-free and you don't really have any conviction in it to do it. I think HTML makes it so easy to create. You can have an opinion you publish on the Internet, and suddenly, it becomes valid because it has an element of public to it. But I think actually standing by the things you write enough to put them into print is a little bit more - I don't know - it's more romantic. It's just a lot more fun. You have to have conviction to actually put something into tangible print and it's nice to be able to do that.
LB: Your band is starting a stretch of 15 shows in 17 days, and on top of that, you guys have this reputation of being really energetic in performance to say the least. What's your secret?
GP: That's a good question. Yeah, it's 15 in 17 and then 26 in 30 so that's just insane. And I think because of the nature of the tour - it's all over the states and we end up down in Texas - the days off are gonna be days of like 10 hours driving. So it's not gonna be much rest. But I think the crucial thing that does allow us to keep up this energy is because we do genuinely, after six years of touring, still really enjoy it.
Although there are often occasions where two minutes before you go on stage you're just exhausted and if you had the chance to make the choice with no repercussions you'd probably say, 'Let's just not do it,' the second you get out on stage, you realize there are people who are excited to be there and people who want to see you perform. You quickly find yourself in this weird space. And again, I think because of the nature of the songs, you get within the songs, and it's just second nature to perform and to get into it.
So yeah, we've been doing it long enough now to not be worried about that aspect, at least. Huge volumes of alcohol will be consumed. By the end of this, I'm going to be a wreck.
LB: Your show on Thursday will be at a 21-plus venue, The Bluebird. Unlike many bands, yours seems to achieve a great deal of both adolescent and post-adolescent appeal. So what differences do you notice between all-ages and 21-plus venues?
GP: We much prefer playing all-ages shows. Partly because I think it's more fair. You shouldn't be discriminated against because you're younger or older or what have you. I would must rather be doing an all-ages, I wish every shows would be all-ages.
A lot of venues don't like doing all-ages shows because it costs them more money because they have to get more bar staff and more security and things like that, but I think the reason we're doing 21-plus this time is our booking agent took the opportunity to make a bit more money (laughs). Which is sadly one of the lesser sides of the music industry.
But yeah, I can appreciate why some over-21's would be a little bit annoyed at the presence of 14 or 15-year olds at the gig because they are a lot more willing to give themselves over to the gig and are less worried about how people around them will perceive them, and more prepared to just go crazy. Because in a lot of cases, it will maybe be the first gig they've been to. But then sometimes you get 21-plus gigs and everything clicks and everybody is into it and it feels like everyone is a teenager.
LB: It seems that since "Hold On Now, Youngster," your songwriting has gotten darker, yet you've stuck to bright melodies. What's led you in that direction?
GP: I think we've enjoyed the juxtaposition of the upbeat music and the sort of downbeat lyrics. Having the energy in the music is really great for performing live because when I'm singing these awful, miserable songs, to have all this voice behind me helps me be visceral and aggressive. And I also think it's good because it's weird how many people will be talking about the same song, but one person will say 'Oh, I love that song, it makes me want to dance, it's so happy,' and the other will say 'Oh, the lyrics in that are so sad,' or whatever. And I think it's perhaps one of our more unique qualities that we can do that within the same song. And I think that's the result of the juxtaposition.
LB: Even though a lot of your lyrics are extremely personal, you've said that you incorporate stories from friends and acquaintances into songs as well. What people in your life inspire that?
GP: For "Romance is Boring," I was kind of writing a bit more broadly and not just about myself. But with "Hello Sadness," it was like a week and a half after I had just come out of a relationship. My girlfriend at the time and I had broken up and it was still very raw - it was a really dark, sad time. So it was really useful to have this record to get these things off my chest.
I think one of the great things about having this life and being in a band and being able to write about my issues and what have you is that when I put them into a song, they become a lot less personal. Because as soon as a record's released or a song's performed, it's not really our song anymore. People listen to it and apply their own meanings to the song and as a result, I think that helps me deal with whatever I'm writing about.
And also, when you play shows and people are screaming the lyrics back, it's like they stop being personal issues and they become songs and they become stories, and that's a really useful, if slightly weird, way of dealing with them.
Post by Steven Arroyo and Mikel Kjell
