“It was so good playing there and looking out into the crowd and seeing so many of our friends in the crowd,” says lead singer Rafa Suñén. “It was the last show of the tour so we knew it was going to be a big show. It was great play with Johnny and Spencer. They are such guys, and such good friends of ours. The show was so good that afterwards we had people coming up to us and asking us to stay for a few more dates, and we actually stopped and thought about whether we should stay – I was this close to saying to the guys in the band ‘Forget about Spain, forget about regular jobs, let’s do this again.’ It’s all because of the generosity of the audience here.”
Los Chicos’ 2015 Australian tour was so invigorating, in fact, that it spurred the band into writing and recording their new album, Rockpile of Shit. “We had so much energy after that Australian tour that we got to this point where we were absolutely sure about the band,” Suñén says. “It wasn’t like we didn’t want to keep going with the band, but we realised that we needed to record a new album and go back to Australia with the new album.”
While Los Chicos have a loyal following in Spain and across the channel in England, they haven’t devoted a lot of attention to playing in continental Europe. “We realised when we got back from our third Australian tour that we had to play more outside of France. We have tended to play in the UK and in Spain, and then we go to Australia, but we never play in any other places,” Suñén says. “A friend of our who plays in King Salami said that there are people in Europe who don’t believe that Los Chicos exists anymore.”
The Australian shows had also been the first overseas tour for Los Chicos’ new rhythm section. “I think it’s the best formation the band has ever had,” Suñén says. “It’s given the band a new kind of edge to it, because the bass player plays with a pick, so it’s maybe a more punk sound – less funky than the other bass player that we had. And our audience in Spain has noticed it as well. We’re a fresh band now, which is great.”
This new, refreshed lineup went into the studio in the middle of 2015 to record Rockpile of Shit, which Los Chicos will premiere during their upcoming return to Australia. “We’re super proud of the new album,” Suñén says. “For this album we weren’t allowed to drink inside the studio. Our producer has a studio in a house in the countryside, and he has this rule that from the door to the studio you cannot have liquids apart from water – and maybe a shot for me before I sing. So it was less of a party to record it, and we really enjoyed it. We were more insistent on things on the final mixes, and I think we made our producer crazy with all the emails we were sending after it had been recorded. But he was really proud of us because we were giving a shit more than any other time.”
Los Chicos are back in Australia to play the tenth anniversary of Boogie Festival in Tallarook, as well as a few choice side shows. Suñén remembers fondly the band’s first appearance at Boogie in 2010, and their follow up appearance last year.
“It was amazing the first time we played. After that time at Boogie the twins [identical twin guitarists Antonio and Geraldo Urchaga] decided we had to start a festival in Spain,” Suñén laughs. “We’ve done other festivals, including the Tapestry festival in Wales which was fantastic, but Boogie was like Tapestry times one hundred. We got there, and we didn’t know what to expect, and the first thing we see is heavy metal music and a hundred kids in a cardboard battle, with cardboard robots, cardboard horses, cardboard tanks, cardboard machine guns, fighting. It was just a battlefield. We’d never seen anything like it, but it was so fun.”
Beyond the cardboard battlefield, Suñén and his band mates bathed in Boogie’s welcoming atmosphere and boutique aesthetic. “Everyone is just walking around talking to each other, the bands are in the crowd. And it wasn’t like other festivals when you can smell the substances in the atmosphere, and everyone is drunk or people giving pills away – with Boogie, it’s not that kind of festival. It’s sunny, there’s families and just good people around. It’s not easy to find that type of festival in Spain. I think that it’s the best festival there is. And I don’t know how the fuck they put a festival on like that without advertising.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
