Hold
On Now, Youngsters
Los Campesinos! is a super-catchy seven-piece pop act from
Cardiff, if you didn't know already. Their moniker originates from band member
Neil's A-level Spanish. Apparently it means: “peasants, ruralists or
country dwellers”. That’s ‘farmers’ to you and me.
But as “the second most punk-rock band in Britain” in their own
words (the first being Gallows), LC! have generated serious internet and industry
buzz ever since their tweecore music burst onto the scene in 2006 while they
were still studying at uni. Now finished with studentville and signed to Wichita,
they've released a debut album and achieved a helluva lot of radio play.
The second single taken from the album Hold on Now, Youngster... was My Year
in Lists. Released in April, it was just 1 minute 49 seconds long and dwelt
on living out a relationship via Royal Mail. As LC! explain on their blog: “It's
a celebration of brevity and transience in pop music: All the best pop songs
are short, or short-lived. As are most pop bands' careers. Probably ours too.
Damn this ever-hungry web 2.0 generation. Nevermind, no-one really wants to
waste time with longevity and patience; this is for those with a short attention
span that won't sit still.”
Knowing that female bass players are the ultimate in cool, I rang up LC! bassist,
Ellen Campesinos! to find out what else the band were up to. Ellen was excited.
Having just finished a massive UK tour to promote the album, she was packing
her bags to head off to play three mini sets and otherwise have a bit of a
holiday at the biggest music industry shindig in the world, the South by South
West Music Festival in Austin, Texas. (Or SXSW to those of us in the know).
As well as trying to work out what she would wear, she was planning who to
see in her plentiful time off, a list that included: “Weakerthans, Y,
The Raveonettes, Robyn and maybe even Dolly Parton.”
Inspired by Pavement and Sonic Youth, the band has come a long way in a short
time and, as Ellen explained, they can even play their instruments properly
now: “For me our album represents the journey from where we were two
years ago to where we are now, it shows our progress as musicians and contains
some of our oldest tracks, like Death to Los Campesinos!, along with others
that we demoed only a week before we recorded it. It is a solid pop album with
darker sensibilities.” She was also happy to be hanging out in the Toronto
studio with LC! hero and Broken Social Scene producer David Newfeld too, especially
because: “He had so many guitars lying around, it was great to have a
chance to experiment.”
Ellen claimed she wasn’t big into music as a kid: “Originally I
wasn’t interested at all, my mates at school listened to mainstream chart
music and I didn’t like Craig David or The Spice Girls so I thought that
I didn’t like music.” Thankfully for us, this all changed when
she saw Muse playing on MTV2 and realised there were more musical genres out
there. Listening to the likes of Pulp and Alanis Morissette and feeling energised
by the live experience of going to gigs further fed her passion until before
she knew it Ellen’s then-boyfriend had taught her to play bass: “I
was rubbish at playing guitar and not talented enough to go it alone so I joined
a band, I prefer to be part of a team.” This team was formed at Cardiff
University and first consisted of Ellen on bass, Neil on guitar and Ollie on
drums, before gradually expanding to include the other four.
After SXSW, LC! were heading back on tour across the UK before returning to
gig in the USA. “The best thing about touring is the actual gigging,
those nights when everyone is in the right mood and the audience know the words
and sing-a-long," Ellen explained. “The worst thing is the homesickness
and the unclean feeling you get from sleeping on a bus the whole time with
six other band mates to fight for the shower. I’m also a big film buff
so hate not being able to get to the cinema. I read Empire magazine and graphic
novels and love sci-fi movies like Spiderman, The X Men and bad horror films.
I can’t wait for the new Star Trek.”
The band's Cardiff show was a particular highlight. “It was massively
special. We played our first gig ever at the Union in a tiny room next door
to Solus in May 2006, and now, two years later, we were back headlining. It’s
a nice book-ended journey and to celebrate we unleashed some new songs on the
crowd.”
Los Campesinos! fans are pretty nice, apparently, apart from the kind of people
who chant “bass solo” over and over again and ruin it for everyone
else. “One of our fans travelled from Budapest to Germany because they
just felt like seeing us play," she said. “We’ve also got
fans that come to The Forum in London and bring us cherry pies. We like pies.”
Is that the best way to win you over then? “Yes, any kind of pie or perhaps
a crumble-based dish.”
Los Campesinos! debut album Hold On Now Youngster… is out on Wichita.
See www.myspace.com/loscampesinos for more
Susie Wild introduces us to the hottest new act in Wales
– Los
Campesinos!
Hold
On Now, Youngsters