Los Campesinos' Aleks Campesinos: The New Gay Interview

Aleks Campesinos (middle) is a lovely human being.

In my iTunes, I have a folder of songs titled "Pure Joy." It is reserved for those rare tunes that make you want to drop everything you're doing and dance around your room with your shirt off, singing into a hairbrush and who-cares-if-the-neighbors-see. It's a small list of songs, limited to the likes of Sooner or Later, Digital Love, This Time Around, and one or two other gems.

To this stellar pantheon I have added Los Campesinos' "You! Me! Dancing!," a slow-building ode to one's teenage fantasies finally made flesh...with a fucking awesome chorus to boot. I caught up with the Welsh septets's singer, Aleks Campesinos (not her real name) at The Black Cat this past May and have finally typed up the interview that addresses the bands musical training, apparent nerdiness, and whether any of it's realllly cute members are, you know, gay.

The New Gay Zack: Los Campesinos is a Spanish-sounding name but you’re all a bunch of Welshmen. How did that happen?

Aleks Campesinos: They actually came up with the name before I joined the band. They got sick of telling people “We’re in a band,” and then the first question people asked was “What’s it called?” Neal, who did Spanish at A levels at school, said that and everyone liked the sound of it, or liked the sound of it more than what everyone else was suggesting. We did get asked about it a lot, and it was like, we should have a good story for this but we don’t because we’re not Spanish. Once we came up with the thing about how we we’re all mothered by Mama Campesinos. There was a tragic love story there somewhere as as well.

TNG: But it didn’t actually happen? No Mama Campesinos?

AC: No, unfortunately. TNG: But you did all meet at the University of Cardiff. Are you all Welsh?

AC: We all went to uni there but none of us are from Wales, which is a bit strange. We feel that the band is Welsh. That’s where we met, that’s where we live now, thats where all the band stuff happened, but all of us came from different parts of the UK. I’m originally from Russia, we’re like adopted Welsh people.

TNG: People here always treat Canada like the bastard stepchild of the U.S., and I’ve heard too that Wales is like the Canada of England. Do you ever feel like a UK outsider for living there?

AC: Stepchild? Probably more like the runt of the UK litter. There’s a certain interesting relationship between the Welsh and the English where they take the piss out of each other quite a lot. The Welsh can be a bit scathing about the English, but the English give as good as they get. There’s a lot of Welsh jokes.

TNG: There’s a lot of Canada jokes too. On a different subject, how old are you?

AC: All of us are 22 or 23.

TNG: Being that young, do you all have a lot of formal musical training?

AC: No, can’t you tell? Harriet got to grade 8, the highest grade, in violin but I don’t think any of the rest of us had any official musical training at all. It was just a bit of fun when we first started jamming together, it wasn’t a big musical vision, like “we’re all such talented musicians, lets create a supergroup." It just organically came together, I think you can tell there are quite a few mistakes. We’re not all able to just whack something out perfectly all the time, which hopefully is more endearing than annoying.

TNG: No, I think a lot of your charm is the sound of people having fun. Do you think you’ll lose something as you get older and have more experience with the band?

AC: I think that the experience we’ve had touring over the past year has only been to our benefit. We do all have fun, but we’re getting tighter in terms of what we’re able to play. That gives us more potential as a band, and makes it more exciting for us.

TNG: Los Campesinos has so many members, it seems like there are millions of you. How do you all work together?

AC: I think we’re all quite different, and it just works to our benefit. Really, we need that many people because there are so many elements, we need someone to be doing something different each time, it gives us an opportunity to add new things. It also helps that there are so many of us because we never get bored of each other. It’s fun traveling together. Otherwise, it might be bit stifling if there was just two or three people and you were always around each other, but here there’s a whole range of personalities that can interact. We all get along really well.

It's her! It's me! It's...why you should never attempt to take long-arm pictures of yourself.

TNG: Is anyone in the band dating?

AC: No comment...We all date each other, it’s all a big love in.

TNG: What about your song “Death to Los Campesinos?” Do you all sit around thinking of ways to kill each other?

AC: I’m not going to lie and say we’re always really happy, but the majority of the time we get along really well. Which is good, but it’s only natural that there’s going to be certain times when someone’s in a mood. There’s these silly little arguments that anyone would have because we’re all human and people get in bad moods.

TNG: And you’re in a car together for hours upon hours.

AC: But that can be fun too!

TNG: Your songs are a mix of pretty, melodic singing and then all-out shouting. Is it hard to balance those two elements, and to get everyones voices together for the yelling?

AC: No, but everyone enjoys it. It’s always really fun to do group vocals and everyone gets really into it. I think it’s a really nice contrast, having that emphasis for the shouted vocals, it brings an energy to the song, it’s like another level that everyone can get involved in.

TNG: The energy you do have seems to be a mix of punkiness and English major nerdiness, like songs that reference Jane Eyre. What’s the line between being some kind of cool musician and letting out your inner dork?

AC: I think we’re all really nerdy, none of us can pretend to be cool. It was really funny yesterday we were playing a show in Brooklyn, at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, and and we could safely say that everyone there was cooler than we were, I was looking through the crowd and everyone looked so trendy.

TNG: Most music that people identify with is not some cool guys in sunglasses, it’s the Belle and Sebastian’s, it’s the outsiders. Do you think it takes a certain level of dorkiness to make memorable songs?

AC: I think its a bit pretentious to have an image. When we were first looking for a manager, there was this one guy they went to who had a bunch of portfolios of different bands he managed, and he was suggesting that we could look like them. He had loads of photos of the trendy/cool band stereotype and it was just funny. None of us would do that, we all have our personal sense of style. I don’t know if that’s being dorky, but none of us buy into the pretentiousness of looking like a band.

TNG: A lot of people that read our blog have trouble maintaining a gay identity while also finding a place in the gay community. Similarly, is it hard to be successful in the recording industry while still maintaining your identity as a band?

AC: I think that we’re lucky with the people we’ve managed to work with. Our manager, our label, all the people we’ve chosen to have around us are so understanding, they wouldn’t ever push us to do something we wouldn’t be comfortable with. I think it’s really rare to have that, to not be prostituted out by our label, we’re really lucky that we’ve never had to buy into that. we’ve never had to fight for the right to be ourselves.

TNG: Our blogs readers also have to deal with labels a lot, like butch or femme, top or bottom. They can be restricting. Do you find yourself caught under the the label of twee?

AC: There are labels, Twee, happy, it’s just a bit lazy because there so many more elements. You have a glockenspiel and people are like, oh my god they’re so twee!

TNG: Does it limit you?

AC: It shows how limited people are, sometimes, not being able to think beyond a label. But hopefully people who really listen to the music will realize that even though the melodies are really upbeat, and the music is really melodic and poppy, the lyrics are very dark and it’s not that traditional. I don’t think we sound like a traditionally twee band, I think we are punkier.

TNG: With as many members as you you have, it seems statistically impossible for you not to have a gay member. Do you?

AC: No comment? There are like...no...well...we don’t, but we could. No comment, we’ll leave it that way.

TNG:Finally, most people graduate from college and have to figure out where they’re living and how to find a job and make friends. You’re newly out of college and touring in a rock band. What is it like?

AC: It’s so bizarre. None of us really expected this to happen, we just try not to think about it too much, and try not to think about the future too much. It’s not going to last forever obviously, but its good while it’s lasting. I think we’re all very much aware of how lucky we are.TNG