Interview with Los Campesinos

You all met at university; did you intend to start a group or did it just happen because you met the right people?

A few of us had been in bands at school, not in any serious way. I had no intention of being in a band at all, I just happened to have my bass guitar with me and a friend asked me if I’d like to play bass in a band, so there was no purpose in it other than it being a bit of fun. None of us had any aspirations to be famous; it was just a really fun thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon instead of sport.

You have a big tour coming up. Are there any cities in particular you are looking forward to visiting?

We’ve been to Norwich twice before; we played at the Arts Centre - such a beautiful place to play. It’s nice when you’ve played somewhere and you can go back there and it feels familiar and you remember having a good time there before. Bristol is always nice as we’re playing on a boat, and Edinburgh is also one of my favourite places to go.

Your songs are pretty complex, and the lyrics are beautifully written. How do you go about writing the songs - is it a group effort?

The music is mostly written by Tom and the lyrics are written by Gareth. Tom will write demos and send them to us, we’ll have a listen, Gareth will work on the lyrics, Harriet will work on the string arrangements, the rhythm section will go into a rehearsal space together and practice, then we’ll meet up, see how it sounds and change things if needed - see how it sounds live. It’s a democratic effort but Tom is the main driving force.

You chose John Goodmanson to produce your new album and he’s mostly worked with American artists in the past. Do you feel that he brought a more American feel to the album?

Not especially… I don’t think it would make any difference if he was American or British; it’s more important if you have a good feeling and click well with people. Our sound has a big American influence and perhaps that was what drew us to each other.  Recording can be very stressful and a scary process, but if you have someone you trust who you know will get the best out of you, has positive suggestions and hears things that you can’t necessarily hear, then that’s brilliant.

My favourite lyric from the new album is “we need more post coital and less post rock”, and I also read that the themes of this album are shagging and death, but I wondered what song YOU listen to when you are heart broken?

Actually, I’ve had a heart breaking break up in the last 3 weeks, and I find it’s more the case that there are songs I can’t listen to. There’s one song called ‘Dramamine’ by Modest Mouse that I can’t listen to at the moment because my ex put it on a mix tape for me. Mostly I try to listen to uplifting female fronted music like Dresden Dolls so I’m like “Yeeeeaaahhh!!!”, and sometimes I’ll listen to something poppy like Pink… it’s better to not deliberately make yourself more upset by listening to sad songs.