Acclaimed Los Angeles emo/alt-rockers Spanish Love Songs are currently touring Australia in support of their upcoming fourth full-length record No Joy (out this Friday 25th August on Pure Noise Records). First-time visitors, to these shores, the experience is proving to be everything they could have hoped for it to be, with sold-out shows and receptive audiences singing along to every word of their beloved catalogue. 

Masterful musical storytellers, their richly personal songs, hit with a no-holds-barred lyrical approach. Packing a ton of existential dread, hyper-personal cultural ruminations and endless attempts to answer life's big questions, the Spanish Love Songs songbook is one of big songs and even bigger feelings.  Musically rooted in emo and indie rock with unashamed slatherings of classic American storytelling, Spanish Love Songs’ three existing full-length records (2015’s Giant Sings The Blues, 2018’s Schmaltz and 2020’s Brave Faces Everyone) have each had a distinctly cinematic quality. 

On No Joy the band ramps up that cinematic quality, incorporating new sonic textures that bathe frontman Dylan Slocum’s lyrical musings and impassioned vocals in light, bringing a sense of hope and optimism to the raw emotive ruminations. It is the work of a band in clear control of their sound, with the four singles released to date Haunted, Clean-Up-Crew, Pendulum and Marvel showcasing the band’s ability to pen earworms that hit not just the ear, but the heart and the head as well. 

Ahead of their show in Newcastle, we caught up with Slocum for a chat about their maiden visit to Australia, the motivation behind No Joy and the top five Midwest emo records of all time. 

Maniacs: Dylan, you're currently in Australia, playing shows here for the very first time, what has your experience been like thus far?

Dylan Slocum: "It's been great. Everybody's so gracious that we're here. Which is amazing. You always want people to be happy to see you.  I can't impress upon people enough that we are only here because you want us to be here, and the fact that you're showing up and being so happy, makes it happen. I think something people forget with music when they're asking 'Why doesn't this band come here?', is that bands are operating on razor-thin margins. They need to know that they're not going to lose their livelihood, lose their entire year's income by going to a place where nobody wants them. So to be able to come here and just instantly meet people who are excited and happy that we're here and meet people travelling from Tasmania or Perth and New Zealand, to see us, it's just an incredibly humbling and great feeling. We're just happy to be here playing music for an audience that we've always wanted to come and play for. Thankfully ChopDog brought us over and we've made it work and the shows have been great."

You're out here ahead of the release of your fourth full-length No Joy, from your perspective, what has the reception to the four songs released so far?

"Seems to be good. Haven't seen a ton of negative comments, which is great. The listener base keeps growing, which is great. Shows keep getting bigger. It's extremely gratifying. It's nice to see, I don't know, every time we do an album, we do it for ourselves and we just hope that people like it. And as soon as they don't like it, we'll just stop. Because you know, why? I'm not going to keep making things people don't like. So yeah, it's nice , but we try to keep our expectations at zero because then anything that happens is the coolest thing ever. We've been asked 'did we feel any pressure' and my answer is 'no', because these are the songs that we have, these are the best songs that I am capable of writing."

"We've gone through a bit of a transformation in the sense that a lot of the 'mid-western-Emo' type of bands, our larger community in general, we came up at a time where it was sorta cool to hate yourself and deprecate to an almost annoying extent. I am very guilty of this. So this is our fourth album, we know what we're doing, and we're pretty good at it, and  I think we're getting comfortable with that and more importantly, getting comfortable with saying that out loud. We're getting better at being confident and not trying to be so humble, that we shit on ourselves constantly. So I think we're feeling great.  People are reacting to it great and we're happy. We can't say we know that would happen, but we really hoped that it would happen. We knew these were the best songs we'd ever written. So it's gratifying to see people respond to it in the way that we hoped they would." 

At this point, you've written a lot of lyrics that have been tattooed on other people's bodies. Is that how do you respond to that? Do you feel like there's pressure or an expectation to live up to it as a writer? Because these people are committing so aggressively to something you've written?

"No, it's a tattoo, it's awesome! It's awesome that it means something to somebody. If it made it onto the record, it obviously made it by me and my radar, you know what I mean? Because I'm ruthless when it comes to editing, and there's still stuff that makes it onto the record. I think about everything that makes it onto the record, I don't always have an answer to it, but I think about it. A good example is 'Clean-Up-Crew', where in the chorus I rhyme 'it' with 'it' , which bugs me to no end, but our producer said, 'No that works, don't change it' and I was like 'yeah, but I'm not changing the word' and he said 'but you're changing the meaning, right? So who cares?'"

"We're a storytelling band, the lyrics are telling a story, they're doing their job." So I think at this point, we've embraced it. That was always the type of band we were from the start. It's weird to rely on a band as a vessel for storytelling, like literary storytelling, or whatever you want to call it. So I think we kind of shied away from being like, 'we're the words band', you know what I mean? I think with Brave Faces Everyone and moving onto this album, we've embraced it. So yeah, it makes sense that people have tattoos of our words, because yeah, I put a lot of frickin time into making things sound cool. And how do I describe it? How do I describe something in a way that like, makes you feel that thing and also doesn't sound stupid? You know, it's the nature of songwriting, how do I make something sound cool, catchy and not stupid.?"

With that heavy focus on the lyrical elements, your music has always had kind of a cinematic quality to it. Was that influenced by working in the film industry before really committing to being a musician on a full-time basis?

"Maybe not directly, but I've always been in love with movies as another form of storytelling. I probably watch more movies than I listen to music in terms of discovery and stuff. My favourite place on Earth is a movie theatre, by myself with like, a box of popcorn. This is going to sound cheesy, but I have this weird thing, I don't think I've seen it described on the internet, but I do not have a good ability to visualise things. If you tell me to think of an apple, I'm thinking of the concept of an apple. I'm not seeing an apple in my mind's eye. I think that's led to me, being very sort of detached in my approach to things. So it's almost like I'm just a camera that's like floating through things. So I've always kind of approached things that way, which kind of leads itself naturally to sort of loving movies and like this sort of objective storytelling. I think that bleeds into music, we joke, especially in this room, and I joke that we should be trying to score a movie that doesn't exist. It's not like the most cinematic stuff, but I always like to have movies playing in the background when we're writing and leaning into that and our love of that. And I think, you know, I'm in love with sort of synthetic elements of music anyways, so I think that helps because nothing sounds more cinematic than big swelling, synths, you know what I mean? Like weird sounds and ambient stuff. That's all kind of fused in intentionally because that's just definitely something that I love."

Sonically, despite being from Los Angeles, your band very much sounds like a Midwest emo band. Would you consider Midwest emo should be a primary influence on the sound of your band?

"I think it depends on what you're defining Midwest emo as. I have no problem with being referred to as an emo band, I love emo music and I'm happy to be described as an emo band. I've just never really known what the definition of 'Midwest emo is', because a lot of the records people say 'that's such a sick 'Midwest emo' song or 'Midwest Emo' band, or whatever, are from bands that aren't from the Midwest at all. I guess if we're taking this all-encompassing view, what I would like to know is 'What is Midwest emo?', because in my head the association is like twinkly guitars and sort of off-key singing but I'm old, I'm dumb so it's fine, but what is the context within which we are placing Midwest emo here'?

That's an answerable question. Let's just go with twinkly guitars, off-key vocals and lyrics of sadness disguised as happiness.

"Lyrically, yeah, it makes sense. I understand it on that level, that 'Midwest emo' label is more of an approach to storytelling and the sort of overwhelming sadness. But even in anticipation of this conversation, I was googling 'Midwest emo' albums and the list is staggering. I'm like 'isn't this just emo music?'. Then I also don't really care about labels, when people ask what type of band we are I just say we are loud and sad, or I'll say we're a rock band, because who the hell cares? But it's always been something people associate us with, so out of curiosity I'll put Spanish Love Songs into that 'Is This Band Emo' website and it comes back saying 'No, Spanish Love Songs is not emo', so I'm always just curious as to what makes something 'Midwest emo' or not." 

With that in mind, this seems like the perfect time to ask for your top five Midwest emo records of all time! So Dylan, what are the top five Midwest emo records of all time?

"Are Modest Mouse considered Midwest emo? Because if so, then 'The Lonesome Crowded West' by Modest Mouse is my favourite Midwest emo record."

I'll allow it! 

"Okay, good, I love that record. I love most Modest Mouse records, 'The Moon and Antarctica' being the next one, so if we're rockin' Modest Mouse we just opened up a door, but that's what I grew up on, so if we're speaking specifically of emo music, Modest Mouse got started in that world. Is Built To Spill a Midwest emo band? Because then I'll take every Built To Spill record, Built To Spill is one of my all-time favourite bands, so 'Perfect From Now On' if Built To Spill is allowed, then I guess you bring in Jets To Brazil. I think that's the '90s triumvirate for me. When I was young, I had an older brother, so I got handed down a lot when I was like 10 or 11. Hearing Modest Mouse for the first time, hearing Built To Spill for the first time and hearing Jets To Brazil when 'Perfecting Loneliness' came out, I think those are probably where it tops out. Otherwise, there's American Football, but I feel like that's an easy answer. So I'll stay away from that. I think American Football are probably my definition of Midwest emo because it is all weird open tunings and guitar riffs that I can't play because I have fat hands, and singing that sort of varies in its pitch. It's funny though, because I like Mike Kinsella's other project Owen more than I like American Football. I don't know if you would consider Owen Midwest emo." 

Let's just say they are, because that's a fun quote to put in an interview! 

"I'm very open about that. It's one of my favourite subjects. I guess The Get Up Kids, the Get Up Kids are in the Midwest and they're emo, so The Get Up Kids, 'Four Minute Mile'. Is that a good enough list? Oh, it's supposed to be five, hang-on on, I'll nail this down."

"I don't want to do Modest Mouse because I feel like people are gonna hate that, so let's take Modest Mouse off. It's not a Midwest emo band,  I'm saying it now. The Internet said it is okay, but it's gone. Okay, so Built To Spill 'Perfect From Now On', The Get Up Kids 'Four Minute Mile', Jets To Brazil 'Perfecting Loneliness',  The Hotelier 'Home Like No Place Is There', oh and Owen, Owen, the entire Owen discography! Bam that's Midwest emo. That was too hard!"

 

Spanish Love Songs - Top Five Midwest Emo Records Of All Time

The Get Up Kids - Four Minute Mile

Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On

The Hotelier - Home Like No Place Is There

Owen - Owen

Jets To Brazil - Perfecting Loneliness

Listen to Spanish Love Songs 

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