On an uncharacteristically warm evening in Liverpool, the usual suspects gathered at the Pilgrim for Hell’s Ditch, the regular music night put on by Americana UK, to see Gina Villalobos on the UK leg of her European tour to promote her new album “Miles Away”.
W&H caught up with Gina Villalobos just prior to her set. Sounds organised and professional doesn’t it? What we won’t mention is that it was far too noisy in the pub so we ended up practically breaking into somebody’s front garden, sitting on their doorstep, drinking warm beer, and having an earnest, occasionally brutally honest discussion of her new album, her songs, and all things musical, whist keeping an eye out for the fuzz.
Call it trespassing if you will, but it was all in the good name of music. Not a court in the land would convict us. And if we’d ended up with ASBOs slapped on our heads, at least it would be for something relatively credible. Rock n Roll.
W&H last spoke to Gina Villalobos in October 2005, when we caught her outstanding performance at The Borderline, London. Back then she was still contemplating the order the tracks on Miles Away, which we were yet to hear at that point. Needless to say, it’s a step up from ‘Rock n Roll Pony’, which lets face it, was a hard act to follow. Last time we spoke she promised her new album would be dark, and Miles Away certainly is just that. So it’s great to see that Villalobos is still as passionate and honest as ever.
“I needed to put a lot of concentrated work into this album,” she explained, “I went head-strong into finishing the album [after her last tour], especially “Somebody Save Me’, “Let’s fall apart” and ‘Don’t Let Go’. Then there was the big rush to get the artwork off, but everything was fun”.
Its worth mentioning at this point that, not only does Villalobos write, perform, and produce the songs, but she also does most of the photography herself and is heavily involved in pretty much every stage of the overall production of her work. Just hearing Villalobos talk about what she’s been up to is exhausting.
“We were preparing for this tour, which was really stressful because people write good things about you, making you sound good, so there’s a lot of pressure”. Perhaps that is one way of looking at it, after all there has been a lot of momentum building around Villalobos’s musical career, with accolades pouring our from all directions. “I guess for me,” Villalobos said, “Was that it all took off after Bob Harris started playing us on his show. It was weird cause at the time I didn’t know who this guy was – obviously I do now! But that’s all great. But it’s so much harder to conquer the States, that’s like 50 UKs!”
Back to the album though, it definately feels a lot darker than her previous work, and if the lyrics are anything to go by, it really explores some heavy emotional areas. As Villalobos explained: “In the end, when I was making the final track list, there were so many that were dark, and in minor keys, that I kind of compensated with the poppy ones. Songs like ‘Love Drained Eyes’
didn’t make it, but I’ve got a load of great B-sides!” Interesting how Villalobos defines ‘Poppy’ - take ‘Face in the Sheets’, which despite it’s rocky, upbeat sound, could be construed as being a bit on the sinister side. Then again, many lyrics leave room for interpretation.
“For me, songs can mean one thing when you write them, and then it changes,” she explained. “This song [Face on the Sheets] is about wanting someone else to not feel bad about something, if you know what I mean?” Not particularly.
|
After a few cryptic suggestions, Villalobos threw her hands in the air, “Ah, Ok, well basically I had an affair on tour, and it was intense, a real eye-opener, but it ended badly. But this song is about wanting them not to feel like they had to feel bad about it, like you can still smell them on your sheets, but you don’t need to get rid of the sheets every time you smell them. I wanted them to remember it as something positive, I guess. Also there’s the ‘Tape up my face’ lyric, meaning tape my smile, cover my face.”
Again, a wonderful example of how Villalobos uses her music as a cathartic experience, but not in such a way where it could be construed as self-indulgent. I had my own interpretation of this particular song, and it couldn’t be further from the original intended meaning. Yet in a way, this makes it all the more interesting, and certainly shows how Villalobos’s music is so accessible.
Villalobos is also renowned for her rather eclectic choice of cover
versions. On Rock n Roll Pony she covered World Party’s ‘Put the Message in the Box”, and on Miles Away she manages to turn Yvonne Elliman's hit ’if I Can't Have You’ totally on its head. She has a real ability to for see the bare bones of a song and turn it into one of her own.
On asking her what the secret is, Villalobos answered: “I really don’t know! I look for simple hooks and ideas. I heard it [If I Can't Have You] and it was a great lyric. I guess when stripped down, really a lot of songs are folk songs – like stripped down Nirvana tracks are folk songs. Its really simple, and I love simple songs.”
On her current tour Villalobos is playing with David Dyas (formerly of Dogstar – incidentally, for those who are interested, Keanu Reeves (probably) isn’t a drug addict, he (almost certainly) hasn’t had a nose job, and he (perhaps) isn’t a member of a religious cult, but he is, reportedly, 'a little weird'), and the on-stage musical chemistry, not to mention the banter (which included Dyas’s seriously impressive deep South American Rebel Yells, and an impromptu tattoo competition that yielded no tattoos, but some
interesting scars and growths) is spot on.
When performing live, Villalobos manages to translate her songs – generally recorded with a full band – into the intimate acoustic setting. “To me, electric and acoustic are completely different animals, a bit like…” she asked herself with head in hands, “Oh God what’s a good analogy? Oh yeah, like Western movies! And there’s a big bar fight. You can’t really recreate that when you’ve an empty room with three or four people.”
“When I’m on the road with a couple of people, it’s about communicating. How am I going to get my message across in my song? It’s took me about 15 years to learn how to speak the same language with acoustic and electric.” Well, it works for the vast majority of her fans, this one included. Wonderful stuff.
|
