Delorean are a band in great demand at the moment but I'm tenacious enough to pin the Spanish foursome down in their home city of Barcelona long to ask a few questions and the logical place to begin with Ekhi Lopetegi, vocalist and bassist, is how much attention they’re receiving and the fact that they’ve just signed to uber-cool New York label True Panther Sounds.
“We’re really happy to have achieved some things that we've always wanted, like being with a good record label such as TPS or touring worldwide. But we always say that we’ve built our career step by step and we try to continue working that way.”
“It’s been a long time coming hasn’t it?” I ask, “You’ve been together for ten years, did you think this level of success might have passed you by? Or is it not something you care too much about?”
The band is very humble in reply, “We don't care much about it. It’s like starting over in many senses. Of course it's not, but the way we work, the friends with whom we work, all of this is new and feels fresh. I don't see ourselves having the band forever, but we just like creating music and trying to make good songs.”
Which prompts the question, “Why record the “Subiza”, the new album, now?”
“It has been four years since the last album, we also did the Ayrton Senna EP so we were already writing stuff and had the album in mind. You need an album to survive (at least in Spain). If you want to get reviews and get booked for shows its mandatory to have an album. Plus, you want to make an album if you're in a band right? And we were doing tons of remixes and producing a lot and it's just natural for a musician to make an album.”
Indeed they’ve recently produced remixes for the likes of The Big Pink, Cold Cave, El Guincho and John Talabot.
I say I initially thought the band was a remix project “Does this confusion happen often?” They gracefully skip over my ignorance, “We’ve always been a band since day one, actually all the remix stuff started pretty late, like two years ago. So we’re surprised that people think that we were a remix project, but that’s normal if you've never done anything relevant outside of your country.”
With the EP’s plaudits behind them they concentrated on trying to “do things better and try to reach a different sound for the new tracks. By the time the EP was gaining media exposure “Subiza” was 90% done. So they decided to move away from their own Barcelona studio. “What prompted this decision?”
The blunt answer is, “Our gear is not good enough and also I think that we still have to learn and improve a lot to record an album properly by ourselves, mixing and engineering is not easy. So that's the main reason is to work with someone that is able to do what you can't do and also because you like the work that he's done before.”
The person in this instance being Hans Krugüer with Chris Coady taking mixing duties.
So having confided that the band are yet to enter the phase were they can luxuriate in the space of a tour bus, having previously toured the US for five weeks in a van stuffed to the gills with equipment, band members and suitcases, how easy is it to write new material?
“Everybody in the band has the beat in his mind, we always build tracks around a strong kick driven break, and the intensity is another important part of the songs. We used to jam, but for the last record everything is computer based because we wanted to get a 100% electronic production for the new tracks, and you can’t get that with real drums. It’s also easy and cheap and you can see the idea of the song really fast.”
“And where do the lyrics come from in the writing process?”
“The lyrics are basically about love, not about 'love' in general but about a certain love that pulls you and challenges you to keep up with it, to resist and stand for the love and your loved one as you face difficulties.” Which sounds really dramatic until you hear the cool dance tones of the album and consider what a juxtaposition this is. Closer investigation is required maybe?
So how do the band try to relax on tour in a cramped van? “What’s on your stereo?”
“It depends on who is the driver and his iPod, the driver has the authority to put what he wants cause he’s making the effort of driving. Usually Cocteau Twins or Prefab Sprout and Ariel Pink are enjoyed by the whole crew. The secret is to travel with the right people, traveling with close friends and people that you love, that make things so easy.”
It’s a great attitude to have for a band about to launch into whole heap of touring. Following some festival dates in Spain and an upcoming US tour they are making plans come to UK shores in August when we could have the kind of weather which will compliment Delorean’s blissful music so well we can all imagine we have the balmy Mediterranean sun at our backs.
www.myspace.com/delorean
www.mekongdelta.co.uk
