Interview: José González
Yes, José González is the name of a Swede. Yeah, his music has been licensed to a commercial for a multinational corporation. You already know about the Kylie, Knife, and Joy Division covers. When the surprises turn mundane, an interviewer has to find out about biochem, nursery rhymes, and psychological boundaries. Don't worry, though, this piece doesn't get too abstruse to neglect a more universally compelling unknown -- the next album.
- Roni Brunn
RB: How has it been doing a live show versus recording on your own?
JG: It's always nice. I've done live shows while I was recording and I tried some of the songs live. So I've always done both in parallel. It's been a lot of live shows and not that much recording lately, since I've been touring pretty much since 2003.
RB: Do you miss recording?
JG: Yeah, I do, actually. I miss being at home [laughs]. And, also, when I've been at home, I haven't quite been able to find the time to feel inspired, or it's always been a bit hectic. It was really fun when I recorded this. I was doing different stuff and, this was my hobby.
RB: What were you doing?
JG: I was studying biochemistry. So, I practically just did this in my spare time on weekends and stuff.
RB: Do you miss science?
JG: Yeah, sometimes. [Laughs] Not that much. I miss learning stuff, but having music as my job is a lot better than having biochemistry as a job.
RB: In what ways?
JG: Just seeing new cities, and my job is to play music one hour and do a couple of interviews and then just hang out in new cities.
RB: What do you do when you hang out?
JG: When I find the time, I try to walk around and usually there's not that much time to see some shops [laughs] and go see some sites.
RB: What cities have you liked?
JG: Oh, there's a lot. On my way here to the States, I played in Reykjavik. That's very nice. Also New York, LA.
RB: Whom do you hang out with?
JG: There's usually not that much time, so it's usually the people that are with me, like that guy over there [points to a man outside the club]. He's my tour manager, and he's always with me everywhere. And I have a sound engineer Dana Wachs. I have friends in different cities, but most of the time there's not enough time to hang out.
RB: How do audiences in the States compare to the ones in Sweden and the UK?
JG: I'm really surprised how the audiences react similarly from country to country.
RB: What's similar?
JG: What do you call it when they really listen? They're really quiet and cheerful [laughs] at the same time? It's comforting to see that it's working in a similar way. Perhaps it's just that similar type of public are coming to my shows. That's perhaps because people are different [laughs], and cultures are really different. And I wouldn't say that the Spanish people are the same as the Swedish because they're not at all. How the people they react to a show depends a lot on which weekday it is, and if there's alcohol [laughs], and what time [the show starts], if it's seated or standing. It seems to be that affects more than what culture the people are from.
RB: How important is it for you to connect to the audience when playing live?
JG: It helps a lot if they're listening [laughs]. I've always felt that live, I just play the songs and I'm not, like, putting on a show or anything. I always feel that it's up to the audience; if they like the music, it's fine, and if they don't, I wouldn't say, "shut up and listen to my stuff," I guess.
RB: Do you ever need to bounce ideas off other people?
JG: Yeah, I used to play my demos to my closest friends and tried to read their facial expressions [laughs] to see if it was good or not. But then, it's mostly just me recording and then listening myself because I'm pretty protective with what I do, so I don't want to, like, spread it to different people.
RB: Why do think that is?
JG: I think it's partly my nature and then that's the style of the music that I'm doing and wouldn't feel good to listen to my new stuff.
RB: Much has been made of the fact that your dad's Argentine. Where is your mom from?
JG: My mom? She's also from Argentina. Yeah, usually I talk about my dad because he really encouraged me to play music. Both are from Argentina, and they fled the country and I was born in Sweden.
RB: Have you gone back to Argentina?
JG: Yeah, three times, just visiting my relatives, and a couple of years ago my father moved back, so I'll probably spend more time there.
RB: How does it feel to be over there?
JG: It feels cool; it's nice. He lives in Mendoza. It's near the mountains, and it doesn't feel like, I mean, I'm feel Swedish. So it feels like being a tourist in a way. But I speak Spanish, so a bit better than a tourist.
RB: You grew up in a home in which Spanish was spoken.
JG: Yeah, exactly, although Swedish is my first language, I always spoke Spanish at home.
RB: Do you know nursery rhymes in Spanish, Swedish, or both?
JG: I don't know [laughs]. I don't know that many, but I know both Swedish and Spanish.
RB: What are your hobbies?
JG: Now that my hobby became my job, I haven't found a new hobby. But what I like to do when I'm on tour and have spare time is to watch videos on my laptop, or just read magazines, but it's not like I started building model ships [laughs]. I don't have a new hobby.
RB: What movies do you like?
JG: Since I'm on tour, I usually like to watch short stuff, like "The Simpsons" or sketches and funny stuff. Just to have fun on tour.
RB: What magazines do you read?
JG: The first and second year, I was buying a lot of music magazines. After a while, I realized that I was just out on tour drinking, just reading about music, and so, recently, I started buying Scientific American and Popular Science magazines [laughs] .
RB: Have you explored other fields of science?
JG: It's Popular Science, so it's not really deep at all, and I kind of forgot a lot of the biochemistry I knew.
RB: How do you feel about the hip-hop remix project, "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow"?
JG: That's funny. I heard about it one month before he released it. Actually, I like the selection of hip-hop that he [Dert] had chosen. And I really like some of the tracks, like Nas and Kanye West. He has chosen good hip-hop songs, and it's been tastefully done. It's a fun thing.
RB: What's your perspective on lyrics? When you do a cover, your personality comes through very clearly. The words stay the same, but do you feel the message changes when you do it?
JG: In a way, it does. That's part of why I've done, like, the Kylie Minogue cover, "Hand on Your Heart". That was because I saw the video, and she's jumping around, and it's a really happy production. I was listening to the lyrics while watching the video, so I think when you listen to the different versions, you kind of feel differently.
RB: What did you feel when you were listening to the lyrics of "Hand on Your Heart"?
JG: I thought it was pretty heartfelt [laughs], and it's a bit, I wouldn't say, almost cheesy. I mean, it's very direct, and I would never write those sorts of lyrics. It's too direct and too self-exposed. So that's why it's fun to do covers, like, you can put out other people's work and express them yourself.
RB: Do you have a philosophy when writing your own lyrics?
JG: Yeah. [Laughs] A shield. I've always tried to be vague in what the lyrics are about. And I sing in English, which isn't my first language. Now it's strange playing my music in the States, the UK, which I didn't think about when I was writing, but still, all those things are some sort of shielding, I guess, because I've always felt that the music is what I do and lyrics come in second place.
RB: What is that you're shielding?
JG: I don't know. I think you just don't want to expose yourself that much.
RB: You've been credited with penetrating the audience's emotions.
JG: Yeah, it's a strange position, but I guess the thing is that I want to play this sort of music, just guitar and vocals. And when I listen to a lot of the singer-songwriters, I feel awkward because they're singing about their ex-girlfriends, and I wouldn't like to do that, sing, "yeah, she left me, and I'm so unhappy." [Laughs] So I tried to find other ways of doing this sort of music and still have some sort of distance. I always liked instrumental music or music where you hear the vocals, but you don't hear the lyrics. I think there's a strength in just the music.
RB: So you see vocals as another instrument?
JG: Yeah, definitely, and also I don't feel like a poet or a storyteller [laughs].
RB: Poetry and storytelling, are those things that you value in other music?
JG: Yeah, definitely. So it's just something that I don't feel that I'm good at, but it's really important for the lyrics. And more often, it's not about the actual meaning, it's more about the feeling you get from words or sentences.
RB: Do you get ideas for the next album while you're away?
JG: Yeah, like, style wise [laughs]. But when I get home, I might have a lot of ideas how I want it to sound, but then when I start playing it, it takes different forms anyway. So yeah, it's nothing that I can, like, think. It just happens when I start playing.
RB: What are some things that you wish you can express in the future?
JG: I'm working on my next album and it's becoming pretty similar, but it's perhaps not as moody as the last one. But I still want to focus on the rhythm, the guitar playing and the repetitive stuff.
RB: Are you going to add some of the percussionists that you play live with?
JG: Yeah, I've done that a lot in Sweden and the UK, where I've already played a couple of times, and so I usually have two guys that do percussion and backup vocals. I guess it costs money to bring them over to the States.
RB: When are you going to record more?
JG: I wanted to this summer, to have it done by autumn or something. I don't have all the songs for the record, but that's my aim and probably will be out late autumn or spring or something.
.:About the author:
Roni Brunn interviewed José González in a PT Cruiser parked in an Echo Park alleyway. It was silver. The car.