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Rock and Pop: Interview with Seven-piece Cardiff band Los Campesinos

Published 4 February 2010
by ROISIN GADELRAB

THEY once made such a huge dent in a Camden pub that their audience were forced to sit down for the rest of the set.
Seven-piece Cardiff band Los Campesinos! made waves during 2008’s Camden Crawl when cracks started appearing in the ceiling during their set at Chalk Farm’s Enterprise pub. And now they’re back for more.
The band, who released their second official album Romance is Boring on Monday, play Koko on February 25.
Right now they are busy. So busy in fact that when I ring up to speak to singer and bassist Ellen Campesinos (they’ve all adopted the name), she’s right in the middle of rehearsals and full of nerves for their tour ahead.
Their single Romance is Boring was featured on this page last week as our Record of the Week. 
But there was some friction just before Christmas when someone – and the band claims to know who but won’t say – leaked the album, prompting frontman Gareth to vent on his blog. The result was an outpouring of confessions from fans who had downloaded the album but promised to buy it for real when it came out.
“It’s kind of bizarre, it’s like a confessional,” said Ellen. “Downloading happens, it’s almost sad because you’ve worked so hard on something and you’re just like, ‘come on just hold out’. You’re worried people will listen and judge it and say things about it before it’s had its proper release. It was amazing people reacted and apologised for it. It was quite extreme, I felt like maybe they did it to unburden themselves. You knew they were going to buy it anyway.”
She said of the upcoming Koko show: “That’s going to be a big one. I’ve been there before and I always feel like that chandelier scares the hell out of me. We played there before at the Camden Crawl but it wasn’t our own show. It was in the middle of the afternoon but it was amazing, still loads of people there. This one will be more petrefying.”
Fans can expect “a lot of new material, some old favourites thrown in and us being our usual shambolic idiotic selves I’m sure. Hopefully it’ll be good. We’re all excited about it,” she added.
They won’t be playing this year’s Crawl as they’ll be on tour but they haven’t forgotten their experience at the Enterprise.
Ellen said: “It was actually very scary because someone just came up to us in the middle of the stage and told us to stop. They told us there was a crack in the ceiling below and the floor was going to cave in so we all got very nervous about it. We went offstage and the whole audience was told to sit down. It was really fun because you could tell they wanted to get up and dance so the energy was still there but at the same time it was very sensible. No one died.”
For those who haven’t illegally downloaded the album yet, Ellen says to expect a change from their past work.
“Because it’s our second proper album it’s definitely different song structures, lyrically, an evolutionary musical process, a lot more complicated structure and amazing string parts,” she added. “We’re all becoming more confident in what we’re doing. It’s definitely like a getaway from the more straight-up pop songs we used to write.”

 

 

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