Pred koncertom na INDEKŠ lekciji smo se pogovarjali z Brianom Lopezom, članom ameriške skupine XIXA.
V Slovenijo prihajate prvič. Kako bi se predstavili našim poslušalcem?
Jaz prihajam v Slovenijo že drugič. Lani sem igral z drugim bendom v katerem igram in zelo sem užival. Tudi drugi fantje so navdušeni, da prihajamo. Pridite in boste videli, kdo smo.
Vašo zvrst lahko definiramo kot glasbeni fusion, saj kombinirate indie rock z južno ameriško kumbijo. Kako ste se odločili, da boste povezali prav ti dve zvrsti? Večkrat ste rekli, da je razlog tudi mesto iz katerega prihajate, Tuscon v Arizoni?
Gabriel in jaz sva odkrila zvoke Južne Amerike, peruvijsko tipično glasbo, čičo. Začeli smo igrati njihove klasike zgolj zato, da ne bi rabili najti služb. Ko smo prišli iz turneje, smo igrali na zabavah, v restavracijah, kjerkoli, da smo dobili plačilo. Kasneje smo dojeli, da bi radi ustvarjali tudi originalno glasbo, a v kombinaciji s čičo. Po štirih letih smo tukaj, sicer v bolj indie rock izvedbi, a še zmeraj ohranjamo elemente čiče, saj je to razlog za naš začetek.
Ali lahko rečete, da ste spremenili zvrst glasbe tudi ko ste spremenili ime iz Chicha v XIXA?
No, skozi čas ja. Vsi smo prišli iz rock’n’roll podlage, razen Chaveza na perkašnih, ki prihaja iz Mehike. Preden je začel sodelovati z nami, je igral zgolj latinsko glasbo. Naš bobnar Winston pa je na primer pet let igral z Bobom Dylanom, tudi z Alice Cooperjem, tako, da je bil popolnoma v rock vodah. Imeti dva taka lika na ritem sekciji, je v bistvu popolna metafora za naš bend. Predstavljamo arenski rock, tak stil in izgled, hkrati pa vse naivno kombiniramo z južnoameriško glasbo.
Ampak to je to, kar vas dela posebne!
Res je. V bistvu se je pokazalo, da ne vemo točno, kaj počnemo in zdaj ko vidimo, kam gremo, je zabavno pogledati nazaj in videti od kod je vse skupaj prišlo. Skozi čas smo postali bolj in bolj rockovski, ampak vedno delamo, kar se nam zdi naravno, ker smo iz te zvrsti prišli. A je najpomembneje, da ohranjamo element čiče, saj nas to dela unikatne in nas razlikuje od ostalih bendov. Na svetu je toliko j***** rock bendov. Imeti nekaj, kar nas razlikuje je zelo pomembno. Vedno sem bil član rock bendov in na neki točki sem je jih prenajedel. Tako glasbe, kot turnej. Vsi ti lokalni bendi s štirimi člani, ki nosijo kariraste srajce, brade in igrajo tipični rock’n’roll, so postali tako pogosti, da sem nehal imeti rad rock za kar nekaj časa. Igral sem mambo ali karkoli kar ni bilo podobno rocku, samo, da sem bil stran od te zvrsti. Potem pa sem slišal čičo in začutil sem rock’n’roll po zelo dolgem času. In še vedno se zanimam zanjo.
So se stvari spremenile tudi, ko ste posneli svoj prvi album Bloodline? Kakšna je bila pot po tem?
Vse skoti smo poskušali ohraniti nek organski potek dela. Nočemo delati prisiljenih zadev, saj takrat bend zaide v težave. Predvsem, ko se veča popoularnost benda, in si pod pritiskom, da moraš neke stvari narediti, ker od tebe tako zahtevajo. Nočemo se zaplesti v nekaj, kar drugi hočejo od nas. Tako, da smo se tudi za album lotili zadev, kot smo se jih lotevali že pred tem bendom. Gremo v studio, imamo srečo, da imamo svoj studio tukaj v Tusconu, tako, da si lahko za ustvarjanje vzamemo čas. Januarja smo bili en mesec v studiu, samo zato, da smo lahko napisali, posneli in sproducirali komade. Ideja je, da tako nadaljujemo stvari, dokler ne ugotovimo v katero smer gremo. Januarja smo prišli do veliko zaključkov, dobrih komadov. In vedno bomo nekaj posebnega, iskreno, še nikoli nisem slišal benda kot smo mi. Torej, dokler smo pod radarjem in nimamo nobenega, ki nas kopira, smo dobri.
V bistvu ste že naredili uvod v moje naslednje vprašanje, ki se glasi, kako v bistvu pišete komade? Pišete vse skupaj, ali nekdo napiše tekst, drugi besedilo …
No, jaz imam solo kariero, kakor tudi Gabe, producirava svoje komade, oba sva izvajalca in skladatelja že kakšnih sedem ali osem let. Ko se dobiva, je lahko sodelovati in slišati kako gre komad drugega ter se mu pridružiti. In bend je to nekako prevzel. Tudi pianist Jason je ugotovil, da sam ni tako slab pisec pesmi in večkrat predstavi kaj svojega. Čeprav besedila ponavadi piševa samo midva z Gabrielom. Če on napiše komad, napiše tudi tekst, tako velja tudi zame. Vsake toliko sicer delimo odgovornosti in pišemo skupaj, ampak ne želimo dajati poudarka na to, v bendu nočemo stresa. Vse pač nastaja organsko.
Če bi imeli priložnost igrati s katerim koli ustvarjalcev, s kom bi želeli stati na odru?
Mogoče bi rekel Led Zeppelin, če bi ponovno začeli igrati. Ne morem reči za vsakega posebej, a se mi zdi, da bi se vsi v bendu strinjali z mojim odgovorom. Ne morem prav zares zgrešiti, tale odgovor je precej diplomatičen.
Imate kakšno sporočilo za poslušalce Radia Terminal?
Slišal sem, da več radiev v Sloveniji predvaja naše komade, tudi če so zgolj nternetni radii. Veseli me, da imamo poslušalce pri vas. Mislim, da je to zelo kul. Tudi fantje se
zelo veselijo, da bodo lahko imeli live koncert v Ljubljani. Kul je, da imaš poslušalce, ki vedo zate preden imaš koncert. To je samo dodatna motivacija. In imate to kul mehiško restavracijo nasproti Kina Šiška, tega se veselim (smeh).
Original:
You’re coming to Slovenia for the first time. How would you present yourself to our listeners?
I’m coming in Ljubljana for the second time. Last year, I performed together with some other band and I really loved it. Other guys are also really excited about coming to Slovenia. Come and see who we are.
You can be defined as so called musical fusion since you’re combining indie rock with south american cumbia. How come you’ve decided to combine those two? You usually say the reason is the city of Tuscon, Arizona?
Gabriel and I discovered these sounds of Sound America, peruvian typical music of chicha. We started playing their classical songs basically just so we wouldn’t have to get jobs.We came from a tour and we only played at parties, in restaurants or whatever, just to get paid. We slowly learned that we also wanted to make some original music together with chicha. And after four years, here we are, playing a lot of covers, but we do more and more original songs which are more fusion, indie rock but there are still some elements of chicha because that’s where everything came from.
Could you say that a change of name from Chicha to XIXA changed your music as well?
Well, over time, probably yes … we all came from rock’n’roll backgrounds, all of us except for Chavez on percussions who comes from Mexico. Before he met us, he was only in latin music, and for instance our drummer Winston played with Bob Dylan for five years, also Alice Cooper, so he’s more like the opposite, more arena rock. And having those two guys on the rythm section is the perfect metaphor for our band. We have this arena rock style and look but at the same time naively do latin music too.
But this is what makes you special …
Yeah. as it turns out we don’t really know what we’re doing and now when we kind of see where we’re going it’s interesting to look back and see how that happened.
Over time we’ve just become more and more rock’n’roll but we do what we naturally do because of our backgrounds and at the same time we still maintain this element of chicha which is really important to us to incorporate because that’s what gives us a unique flavour. It difers us from other rock bands. There’s just so much f***** rock bands. To have something that separates you is really important. I’ve been in rock bands for my whole life and I got pretty burned up with music and touring, as well as these local bands containing four musicians, plaid shirts, beards. It became so typical that I really stopped liking rock’n’roll for a long time. I would play mambo or some classical pieces, just to get away and than I heard chicha and it felt the most rock’n’roll in a really long time. It kept me interested.
Did things also changed after your debut album Bloodline? What path did you take after that?
Everything’ve done after beginning, we’ve always tried to keep in mind just to let it grow organically not try to hard to be something that we’re not because I feel that’s when band’s getting in trouble. Especially as you’re popularity grows and there’s more pressure for you to do certain things. I feel like band start to cave in what other people want from you, so we approached it as we approached every our record. We just get into studio, we have our own studio here in Tuscon, the luxury of taking our time and figure it out where we’re going. All of january we took off just to be in a studio, to write songs everyday, to record and produce them. The idea is just to keep doing things like that until we figure out what direction we’re going to. We’ve come with a lot of stuff in January and we’re always going to be something different. I’ve never heard a band like us so we’re in a good place until we’re still under the radar and we don’t’ have too many copy cats.
So you kind of put the introduction to my next question, which is how do you write your songs? You write them all together or one person writes lyrics and the other one music?
Well, I have my solo career where I produce my own records so does Gabe, so we have that in our resume, we’re both songwriters we’re doing that for the past 7 or 8 years. When we come together it’s really easy to get in the mood and hear where our song’s going. Other people in band kind of stepped up on that. Jason, the keyboarder found out he’s a good songwriter as well, so we all bring stuff to the table. As for the lyrics, it’s always just me and Gabe who write them. If he writes the song, he’ll do lyrics, if I write the song, I’ll write the lyrics, every once in a while we share responsibilities, but as I said we don’t want to stress out to much about that stuff, we just want to let it happen.
If you had a chance to perform with any artist in the world, who would that be?
Maybe if Led Zeppelin decided to come back that would be cool. I can’t speak for everyone in the band but I think we would’ve agreed that’s awesome line up.
I really can’t go wrong with that, it’s pretty diplomatic response.
Do you have any message for the listeners of Radio Terminal?
I’ve heard quite some radios even if they’re online stations promote us, so it’s nice to know we already have an audience in Slovenia out of all the places in the world. So I think that’s really cool, guys are really excited to go there and give a live show to you. It’s always really nice that people know about you before you go to the place. It’s extra motivation. And you also have this mexican restaurant across the street of Kino Šiška, so I look forward to that. (laugh)
Spraševala Ana Medved – Annarch
