Below is the full transcript from KAMP's interview with the band Estereomance. They are embarking on their American tour this year. To check them out visit the below links and for upcoming tour dates view posted schedule. It was a pleasure speaking with Paulina, Adria, and Manuel!
Esteromance official Website with tour information - http://www.estereomance.com/
Spotify Discography - https://open.spotify.com/artist/0sPz0BuaI7sSF0mzku6fZd
Peyton Riegel 00:03
All right, so welcome. I'm so glad to have Estereomance today in the recording studio. The new album dropped pretty recently. It's been a huge hit at the station. A lot of people have been playing it on their shows and just talking about it during our meetings. So the first question I wanted to ask was, that the album art is so beautiful. I just wanted to know what your inspiration was behind that.
Adria 00:31
Well, I think our inspiration was like being in between two dimensions. And that's what we mostly do, live here near the border to go to a Juarez like a complete other dimension. Together with half of us in El Paso, so that was the inspiration and also we created this, We wrote this album during the pandemic and we kind of experimented in new ways to create music, or Lena was in Juarez and Paulina and I were in El Paso. So it was just each of us in our own little world. We will write songs but at the same time they will connect at the end. So that was our inspiration for for this album cover.
Peyton Riegel 01:22
Very cool. So then, obviously, you mentioned about the pandemic. So what makes this record in particular different or standout from ones that you've written and produced in the past?
Manuel 01:34
It in ways it's very similar, and in other ways is you know, very different of course, because most of it was done, like the first single "Think of you" that song we literally wrote in the first day of quarentine here in El Paso, like there was a Shelter In Place order. So we were panicking and we ran to the studio. We're in the studio right now. We cam here and took as much gear as we could and I don't know we just imagined, police in the streets, you know, like arresting you, you're like at home and so we thought it was gonna be very serious and of course, wanted to do it just you know, or just being responsible as well. The very first song that we wrote in our apartment was "Think of you" and Paulina was in in Juarez. And since the border was closed, like not only the pandemic kept us apart, but also the border, she couldn't come across to El Paso and so we decided we just wanted to go online and it was great because, you know, we kind of gave her time to work on it and then she sent it back to us and we're like, wow, like this is awesome. Like the stuff she she wrote to it. And then we expanded from there and then you know, with the lyrics, you can see a little bit of the three of us. You know, like each verse is like, different so we'll let people figure it out, see what they, you know, what they think, if they could connect the lyrics to to each one of us. And in that aspect it was a little different than the traditional, traditional way where we get together and we write on the songs together and we ended up doing a lot of vocals in Juarez. Actually we did them in the house where I grew up on the Mexican side of the border, and we ended up keeping most of those takes, and though we recorded them here in the studio, in a proper setting, the vibe was just perfect the way we did it in Juarez.
Peyton Riegel 03:48
Honestly now knowing the historical origin behind that song, it makes so much more sense. I was watching the music video for "Think of you" and all of the split screen effects that is just really telling to how it was written. So do you think that was intentional with the production of that video? In addition with all the very like romantic and moody lighting did that have a play on how the song was written?
Manuel 04:13
I think they had a lot to do with eachother. The idea of the story was that the directors wrote another little story from unlimited films. in Guadalajara. He had contacted us earlier and he was a fan of our music he discovered us just like listening to Spotify and they have they have a good curriculum. They have a good resume. They work with important artists even like Snoop Dogg very good bands and in in Mexico, and we were excited that you know, like a director like him, really liked the music and we just let him do his thing. Like he was like, he was really grateful with us because we didn't really try to like rewrite stuff he did or anything like that. We just kind of let it happen. And you can tell in the video to like the director was really connected to it in that way. And and what made it perfect is that we really liked it too. We really like the result. So it just everything just kind of kind of good chemistry going on.
Peyton Riegel 05:19
I really enjoyed it. It was it was like gorgeous production value and everything. Um, so in terms of location and your upbringing, obviously music is super influential in one's youth and then as they grew up, so how do you think your place of origin where you grew up where you live now influences your music and how you write?
Adria 05:46
I mean, of course, of course. But we're we live it has a lot of influence in us especially we were, we were born in the 90s and 80s. So there wasn't a lot of technology, of course, so we weren't kind of the few people that could have that cultural hybrid. And we were able to learn since we were little, a little bit of the Latin music and but also at the same time, the British the US music, you know, Canadian music so I think I think we that that that has to do a lot with us. And it we were basically a cultural hybrid, and we're very proud of doing that. And we're also very proud of just the embrace, embrace what we've lived in, in mostly, we we've had a we've lived both both sides, like I said, in Mexico, we had a lot of struggles we grew up there so there's a lot of struggles that you have to go with and then also you know Paso so that makes us be very grateful of who we are and and just great
Manuel 07:11
There's some nice contrast between El Paso and Juarez. We're very grateful that El Paso is a clean, very peaceful city. Everything works the streets. And then Juarez when we were small when we were children, like in the early 90s was a very peaceful city too. It was nice and yeah, there was a little bit of cartel violence here and there but something that you know, didn't really was part of your life and then as a city grew you know, people were were migrating to the city from different states of Mexico events in America, people looking for either to cross the border into the US, or they came to work in the maquilas the city naturally grew more and you know, as the city grows more, and there's a lot of things that you know, start popping up and there's a lot of violence, a lot of people living in extreme poverty. So you get a little bit of a reality check, as well. You know, here we El Paso gives us a perspective of a first world country, you know, people you know, you see first world problems, you know, and then you go to Juarez, and then you see real world, third world problems, people living in extreme poverty, extreme violence. You know, there's things that you can even make up that happens in Juarez. So that's part of a series you know, we live a little bit of both roles, and then it just gives us a nice reality check of what's still going on in the world.
Peyton Riegel 08:45
Oh, completely. So in terms of the upcoming Gardenia Dreams Tour, since I looked at the setlist and I'm so excited you guys are coming to Tucson Groundworks that's literally so exciting. They opened up recently so that's awesome. Um, what are you looking forward to in terms of touring the US have you toured the US before how do you think this tour will be different? I'm your thoughts?
Paulina 09:10
We are looking for new fans, obviously, and looking forward connect with the people. We are believers that live shows are the best way to show your music, your talent, and we took inspiration for all the cities that we've visited. We are going to play in places that we've never been before. So we are very excited for that we are preparing a kind of new set up of this tour. So it's gonna be more than 20 cities and we are very excited of that. So please check it out in our social media, the tickets and everything. And we are more than grateful that be able to tour nowadays that it's still the dificle is still difficult for the pandemic and everything. But we are going to try to do our best.
Peyton Riegel 10:22
Yeah, I totally hear you. It's been a lot these last few months. So then in terms of musical inspirations. I know we talked a little bit a little bit about how how, like culturally you've been influenced, but especially a lot of the songs off of this new record have the real like dreampop kind of sound which is totally I love a lot like I fell in love with the record. So in terms of that like kind of soft more ethereal, like production quality. How did you figure out that that was the direction that you wanted to go in? For this record?
Adria 10:53
I think it was it just came organically. It's it's generally the music that we like, and most of most of it. I think the three of us talked about, like why would the 17 year old you will like to hear you know, and that's how we started like looking for a sound. And I think the most liberating thing is that we really, were looking for a sound specifically we were just like, hey, like, this is us and we're not gonna try to be like, we have all this influence, but we're not gonna try to be anyone like, We're us. And we have all this influence. So let's do something with that and little by little it started coming up like for example we were talking about Gardeinia Dreams but it's the song is a little more different than what we were used to creating specially because of the rap and a little more poppy more funky and we believe in a nice word kind of like looking for something more like Poppy and more danceable and even started as a little joke like, oh, let's just like rap a little and, you know, let's see how it goes. And little by first of all, we started doing it in Spanish. And then it kind of didn't fit so we were like we didn't just like live it, leave it. We were just like let's work it more and more and to a little bit of Spanish and a little bit of English. So we were very happy with the result. And that kept us going. After that we create after that song. We created more songs and it was very fun because we we were just literally having fun and and they didn't have any specific expectations of like specific sounds.
Peyton Riegel 12:56
That's awesome. So then, in terms of how you produce music in the studio and write music, how does that translate to when you're performing live? So with this upcoming tour, how does like all of these like amalgamations of sounds and qualities like how what of you are going to the show like experienced this live.
Manuel 13:16
Try to make it translate as much as we can. There's it's it's quite impossible to recreate everything we record. Live, you know so many instruments involve so many layers of sound. And we're realizing this now because this weekend, we're preparing to do a live interpretation of "What do you want it to be?" We're gonna jump into the studio with 16 other musicians. It took that many musicians to recreate what we do, and until I think we still needed another one, but you know, we just cut it short. And I felt like it was enough. And but it's been funny. No, it's great to see our friends. You know, there's a lot of talented artists here in Juarez and El Paso and they are like, it's gonna be like a little orchestra, you know, and they're, like a modern orchestra. And so, you know, it's just gonna it's impossible to recreate everything live. So what we do, kind of do a hybrid of like an electronic set with live. So there's certain elements that we like to recreate live, especially the rhythmic section. We have an amazing drummer Julio, who's been on tour with us. Unfortunately for the tour, he won't be able to make it it's you know, it's a long leg so it's okay, like, it kind of gives us a chance to like, you know, re reinvent ourselves live and so, you know, we're not afraid of doing like a little more electronics said and then Paulina and Nadia had been preparing to do like a more like a performance base, like a singer performance and you know, can I just do things kind of like like a hip hop artists would, you know, like you're sampling songs. So in this case, we're gonna like, sample our own songs and just just have fun. I think as long as we're having fun on stage everyone else should have fun. And so that we don't really try to bring trumpeted live. I think we're just trying to have as much fun as we can on stage and just people that go join us and even like, experiment a little bit on the stage where we speed up some songs, speed them down, like we're about to find out in our as soon as we're done with this live. That's gonna happen this weekend. We're gonna start preparing for the tour and figure out you know what we're going to do and but the grirls have been working hard and just, you know, bringing their their run from mentorship up you know, and in what we just end up doing, we just push ourselves out of our comfort zones and try different things in the studio and live as well.
Peyton Riegel 16:08
That's awesome. That's super exciting. So then the title track "What do you want to be?" um, that was one of my favorites off the record. I thought it was super funky and just, um, it definitely stood out. So in terms of the more funk sound, what artists or experiences have you had that kind of inspired you to incorporate more of that style into your music?
Manuel 16:32
So many, I mean, the leaders big one, I said, Hey, is this the Micheal Soufers there's a big inspiration. Leon Michaels I said, like Jame Brown. A lot of 70s definitely like a lot of funk from the 70s. And also, like, we really, I think we really connect with that era, like in the 80s, where there the very, very first hip hop producers started popping up and they started sampling. And they start sampling funk and start doing I think we really liked that. Era in like early the next set or the next records will start doing my, 70's might be sounding like if we were in that era, but can I interpret our own way? That's when they really really got the soul in the funk and then they just, you know, literally just sampled it with the DJ, you know, doing the loop and everything. I think we're definitely gonna play around with this. And then let's have fun. So chacatas. You know, from the 70s Uh, well.
Peyton Riegel 17:58
So then the album as a whole as I was listening to it, it seems to have like this very romantic feeling to it. As you guys were writing it. Did you kind of set out for this to be a concept album? Or is it more each of the songs kind of stand on their own?
Adria 18:17
I think in the beginning, we we started writing just because because we didn't have like a like a specific theme. But when we had we we started doing "Think of you" and then maybe a with a romance say in "Gardenia Dreams" together. And then when we have those three, we were like, Okay, we're getting somewhere. And even we even did Fear and Love" which is one of the last songs and you know what I think we had like like 15 demo songs. And when we got those three songs that we were already like very, very sure that we were going to put in the album and we were like, Okay, this is getting somewhere and we started asking ourselves like what, what do we really want it to be and then also, like, after this pandemic, we also like to when we are writing, we like to like a little bit of philosophy and just talk about we're really living in those times. And we were like, well, what's gonna happen with the world after the pandemic, what have we learned? What do we where do we want to go next as a like, personally, but also like as a as? Yes as a society? So I think this this album is asking for that. Like, there's a lot of things that happen and you know, like, there's a lot of feelings that you have to go through. But at the end, like, what are you going to do as a society and personally to like, go through with this and keep going.
Peyton Riegel 20:07
Then, especially speaking like more in terms of society, typically when you do write music, do you usually pull more from like your personal lives or the world at large? And then how does that affect your writing?
Manuel 20:27
You know, personal situations, and we just kind of look the perspective of what's going on, you know, like, in this case, like the, the pandemic, you know, the wave, it hit us and it just kind of made us a lot of things in perspective. You know, we had a lot of times you just think things and hence the, the name of the record, you know, what do you want it to be? I feel like it's a question that we should be asking a lot, especially nowadays and different perspectives. Think, it's a, we're in a, in a place right now in a time period where we can change a lot of things so we we perceive things the way there's a lot of things that were logic and programming are ahead. And now it's time that you know, we can ask and see, you know, that's what we want it to be over. We want to change it. You want to see change, and if we want to change ourselves, you know, like, we've got to realize that we want the world to change. We got to change first, you know, and the way we do things the way we interpret things and funnily enough, I mean that title, "What do you want it to be?" To be honest, we got it watching "Pretty Woman" and and there's a scene where the guy asked us ask her like, Hey, what's your name? And she's like, are Julia Roberts like what? Do you want it to be? And, and that kind of stuff to us is like, man, that's pretty fun. You know, just to, like, what do you want my name to be? Or what do you want?
Adria 22:03
It's kind of like a very simple question, but at the center, it's very, very deep question.
Peyton Riegel 22:09
Yeah, no, that's great insight. Thank you so much for that. Um, so then looking to the future, especially with this upcoming tour and how the album is doing in general. When it comes to future songwriting and things like that, like where do you guys see yourself? Taking your musical direction down the line?
Adria 22:32
We, we see ourselves we're like we see ourselves touring all over the world. We want to like we really crave connecting with people live specifically. I think we have a very, a very good project to show and and I think we have a lot of things to express and this two albums is just the beginning because we have so many things to say music wise and I mean, of course lyric wise, also. Paulina, Manuel, and I like I think we put ourselves down the line, and the live shows, specifically Paulina is a great performer and I always tell her she captures like everyone in the room. So I mean, I think I think it's a very positive project that we we don't have, we don't have a limit. We just want to like keep going and keep playing and just do what we love.
Peyton Riegel 23:39
Awesome. So then are there any final thoughts that you guys have anything you want to leave our listeners with today?
Adria 23:49
Definitely want people to just follow us on social media, we we tend to share as much as we can from the project. I like tour dates. Be you know, working on this live from the big blue at Sonic Ranch is a beautiful studio brand new. It's a console where like Daft Punk recorded last record. You know, they did their last work in this console when was back in, in California. And it's a it's a beautiful studio and people are really gonna enjoy a thing. It's it's a very different way appreciating Estereomance you know, along with other artists and also filmmakers, so many amazing film filmmakers involved in this project. You know, they have a great resume, and it's all going to be directed by Alonzo from Adam Leave, and so you know, people can just follow us online and you know what we're going to try to share as much as we can and we're really bad at Instagram ads and Facebook ads so they can help us share the shows and invite their friends over to the shows and you know, we'll have we're gonna have a good time and and, you know, let's do it old school, you know, like, like,
Peyton Riegel 25:08
yeah
Manuel 25:09
like street teams, you know?
Peyton Riegel 25:12
Yeah, like real advertising everywhere.
Manuel 25:15
Because he just really we could do it like old school way, you know, have people share it and invite other people kind of thing and everyone's gonna have a like an awesome time at our show. And we'll make sure they have a good time and they can come to the show and, and meet us and you know, we're there at the merch booth just hanging out with people and we'll have our vinyls as we sign up.
Adria 25:43
Hopefully, we're still waiting but hopefully we'll have the new album too. Just a matter of how the final order is doing but should have them by then if not, after the tour. Going to have an awesome art so we're very excited about that too.