Hinds is a band and they’re from a place called Madrid and they’re here to rock your world. The duo consisting of Carlotta and Ana sat down with me a few months back to chat about all things Hinds, life, bars and their much anticipated upcoming album VIVA HINDS! Out September 6th.
Lulu: So, first of all, thanks for having me.
Ana: Thank you for having us!
Lulu: And, I guess we already somewhat established, how are you doing today?
Carlotta: Feeling amazing, amazing… We had a very long night, but, um, you know this kind of hangover is actually hilarious.. It’s where everything is just a little bit smooth, and you realize you’re flowing, and slow, and funny, and we are just very very very happy.
Lulu: Awesome. Love to hear it. So, you’re experiencing a bit of a full circle moment, I feel like. Here you are ten years later, back as Carlotta and Ana. I’m wondering if, “Hi, how are you?” as the first track on the album is a means of reintroducing Hinds.
Carlotta: To me, it’s true that it really had to be the first track. Actually for a second we thought it would be the first single. Because it made a lot of sense, like, just checking in, like, yeah. Hello, we’re back!
Ana: Yeah, like, how’s everyone doing? That and “Bon Voyage” being the last one. It was just too poetic and flows well.
Lulu: I loved it. You typically intersperse lyrics in Spanish in a lot of your songs. Mostly they’re in English, and then there’ll be like, little glimpses of Spanish in a song. I also speak Spanish, and I’ve always felt it adds a certain level of profoundness to the song, kind of like a secret. It’s really beautiful. In this album, you have a whole song in Spanish. What’s the intention behind interspersing these lyrics and what makes it different from songs that are entirely in English vs in Spanish?
Ana: Sometimes it’s a full intention, like, let’s do a song in Spanish! For this time we really wanted to do it, but sometimes it’s just like, either we can’t find the perfect words in English, or we think, why don’t we say it in one way and then there’s a tiny bit of Spanish. I mean for us it’s very natural.
Carlotta: The two languages have their own music and their own, uh, way of using the mouth and everything, so I think for the moments that we have chosen it is because the song was, the song was begging for it. You know, it was screaming for it.
Ana: Si,, you can’t force it. It’s true that sometimes..
Carlotta: Like It doesn’t fit sometimes.
Ana: No, then we get asked, people that don’t speak Spanish are like, could you translate it to Spanish? It’s not how it works, you can’t translate. It’s not like that. Yeah, you can’t force a song to be English or Spanish. It just happens.
Lulu: Where that really stands out for me, well sorry, I don’t have the lyrics memorized to the new songs yet..
Ana: Why?! *laughs*
Lulu: Haha, but for sure where this impacted me is in Come Back and Love Me. When I first heard that it was during Covid and it was amazing.
Carlotta: Ahhh yes, so awesome.
Lulu: Now that you’re on tour again, I’m curious to know what the strangest or most unexpected venue you’ve ever had to perform in throughout your time?
Carlotta: We’ve played in weird places. We’ve played in a cruise.
Lulu: Oh, yeah. I remember that era.
Carlotta: That and on a boat, in a little boat, in France, too. We’ve played..
Ana: We’ve played in a restaurant..
Carlotta: We’ve played in a lobby. We played in a lobby in Ibiza this summer.
Ana: We went all the way to Ibiza.. Obviously no one was ready for the rain. It started storming, like a huge storm.
Carlotta: Crazy storm.
Ana: And we were like, we had so many friends too, like six friends flew over just to see us and to be together. We were like, we’re not gonna not play. So we ended up convincing everyone to play in the lobby of the hotel.
Carlotta: We played in the fucking lobby.
Lulu: Does one of these shows stand out among the others? As to what the most fun one might have been?
Ana: I would say one of the funnest shows ever was an after party, the house party that we played..
Carlotta: oh my god
Ana: .. that Glass Animals came. So in one of our first tours in the U. S. Was it the first one?
Carlotta: I think it was the first one
Ana: So for half of the tour we were opening for Glass Animals in the U. S. and I had a DM on Instagram.
Carlotta: Yes a DM on Instagram
Ana: And you know, they were like, I have a huge house, you can stay here and you can play if you want and blah blah blah and we’re like, sure, why not? Like, let’s just do it. They were like we’re gonna do an after party for you guys. So we’re like, sure, great. And we ended up telling the Glass Animal guys to come. And we all ended up playing in the basement. Playing with the instruments they had, obviously sounding horrible. And everyone was going crazy. Imagine, like, you’re a fan of Hinds and you’re like, whoa, I’m seeing this show. But then Glass Animals turns up!
Carlotta: The animals turned up in the fucking tour bus. So, I remember being on the phone like, yeah, yeah, it’s 166, whatever, Road Street. And they’re like okay, we’re about to arrive. And suddenly you see a huge, massive tour bus arriving from a little road like… Oh, shit.
Ana: Here they come! It was so funny. So good, so good
Lulu: That’s incredible, where was this? I feel like it sounds like Austin somewhere.
Ana: Not a big city. I can’t remember. No, not Austin. Not Chicago, not LA… No….
Carlotta: It was… It was hot. It was warm. Yeah. Central California. I don’t know. I really don’t know.
Ana: No lo se…
Lulu: a mystery to us all! Okay, So, circling back to Viva Hinds, can you, in three words, that are not directly related to genre or style, can you describe the album?
Carlotta: Yes…..
Ana: Honest. Humble. And powerful.
Lulu: That’s Honest, humble, and powerful, everybody!!! Nice and so with that, if Viva Hinds could be the soundtrack to any movie or TV show, what would it be, and why? And if one doesn’t exist, what would you make?
Carlotta: Mmmm, it’s gotta be an indie movie. A hundred percent. Maybe if we get lucky, something, uh, something with good taste. But, I would love it to be, um, I don’t know what it would fit. It would fit something ….. It wouldn’t be an action movie.
Lulu: I feel like it would be very Fleabag style, maybe. Have you seen Fleabag?
Carlotta + Ana: Yes, of course. It’s so good.
Ana: It needs to be a bit sarcastic.
Lulu: Yeah, for sure. Like looking into the camera and then one of the songs just starts… My favorite one so far is En Forma actually.
Carlotta: En Forma! Oh my god. Cool. Hell fucking yes.
Ana: I love that you speak Spanish. I always, like, we talk about it sometimes… It’s not the same if you’re English to listen to our songs and listen to Spanish. You’re like, oh, I don’t understand. And if you’re Spanish and you don’t really understand English, it’s like, it’s so good when we have fans and friends that are like us.
Lulu: Totally. Well, that’s why I love your music it’s such an incredible mix of both and it feels special to know both. I get all the Hinds secrets in a song!
Ana: Claroooo
Lulu: Do you have any funny or embarrassing moments that happened while you were recording the album and did those moments influence any of the tracks or the album at all?
Ana: I have a very embarrassing fact that you’re gonna love. So, for a very long time, we were writing these songs, like, let’s say, some songs had years apart from each other from when we started.
Carlotta: Ostras I know what you’re gonna say, I know what you’re gonna say!
Ana: So suddenly, we get to the studio, and these songs, we’ve been hearing them for such a long time… Because they’re old demos and we kept playing them. And we get to the studio, and we start singing them, and we’re like, Fuck, is the pitch right?
Carlotta: One song in particular. It was like, impossible.
Ana: And we’re like, I’m not hitting it. Like, what’s happening? Is the pitch right? Can I have more vocal? Remember? We’re like, less vocal, more guitar. No, like, just try, like this or like that and something is off. And then, we see that..
Carlotta: After doing 17 takes, we’re trying to listen to them, and we’re like, it’s not there.
Ana: And so we asked the producer, why isn’t it working? Like, look… I prefer the demo.
Carlotta: I prefer the demo!
Ana: And he’s like, yeah, of course, because that’s auto tune. And we’re like, whaaaat? He’s like, yeah, there’s shit loads of auto tune on your demos.
Carlotta: Yes! We were like WHAT!
Ana: So.. I don’t sound like that? And we realized right there and then that we had been listening to our voices with auto tune for like a year and a half, not even knowing it.
Carlotta: So suddenly trying to sing it with a natural vocal…
Ana: Of course, you don’t sound like you sound with autotune.
Carlotta: Yeah. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t like out of tune. It was just like, not good enough or something.
Lulu: That’s weird that they would just auto tune you and not tell you.
Carlotta: Without telling us, please.
Ana: *laughing* Without my consent!
Carlotta: So embarrassing. So embarrassing.
Ana: Having someone else tell us was very, very embarrassing. It was very humbling.
Carlotta: I mean, our world exploded when he said that.
Ana: We were like What? Nooooo.
Carlotta: He was like yeah, there’s a lot. Can you hear it? And we were like… maybeeee… you’re right? Wait AHH
Lulu: Well, good job. You made it through.
Carlotta: Just so you know.. There’s no autotune in this album. We are aware!!
Ana: Now we know. Now we know.
Lulu: That’s so funny. Are you gonna ask ahead of time whenever you make a new demo?
Carlotta: We’re on it!!
Lulu: In coffee, you sing, “There’s nothing as sweet as living in Madrid.” Wondering how your relationship with the city has evolved over the years and how does this manifest in your music/this album?
Carlotta: I think we’ve always wanted, osea, we had like in our bucket list to do a love song to the city because well now we are traveling again, but during the beginning of the band we traveled so so much. It was like… Es que there’s nothing better than, the more I travel, the more I love coming back to Madrid, and the blue skies, and the temperature, and the prices, and the people, and everything. It’s not a whole love song to Madrid, but at least we needed to dedicate it. It has been a good, has been a very good place to live. A very good place to grow up. A very good place to develop our personalities and everything. So it has treated us really well.
Lulu: Weeeooooo, Madrid! I’ve only been to Madrid one time, and it was a very lovely experience. I fell into some tourist traps like there was this one place I stayed at..
Carlotta: El Retiro! El Prado!!
Lulu: Yes! All lovely places I went to.. I stayed at…
Carlotta: In the Malasaña?
Lulu: Oh my god, the most, like, famous square. It’s leaving my brain.
Carlotta: Eh, La Plaza del Sol… ?
Ana: La Plaza Mayor…?
Lulu: Oh yeah, Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor. It was around Christmas time, and it was just packed with people.
Ana: Oh noooooo. That’s hard.
Carlotta: I mean right now, to be honest, the city is getting tougher and tougher, I would say. The summers are starting to be too much, impossible to handle. Like, we’re used to very hot summers, but right now it’s very, very unbearable.
Ana: It’s too much.
Carlotta: And then, I mean, yeah, it’s getting.. I think it has had better golden years… Well, we’ll make it cool again. We’ll make it cool.
Lulu: I have no doubt! You have a fan from England who I think you know of as Migs.
Carlotta + Ana: Yes! Of course, our biggest fan.
Lulu: Yeah, he has a question for you.
Carlotta: Oh my god!
Lulu: Yeah.
Ana: How?
Lulu: We’re mutuals on Instagram and he saw I was going to a show. I filled him in on the interview and he asked if he could ask a question. I thought, why not?
Carlotta + Ana: Okay, let’s hear it.
Lulu: Question from Migs for Hinds… When you write songs, do you always sing the lyrics you’ve written yourself, or do you decide after the song’s finished which one of you is going to sing each line, verse, chorus, etc?
Ana: Good question.
Carlotta: Super good question
Ana: Because everyone thinks we write what we sing. And it’s, most of the times it’s not, it’s like, it’s the second option. We write it like as a poem, and then we split it phonically to decide whoever gets the next verse.
Carlotta: Sometimes you really can tell that there are melodies that they’re made, osea, Ana is gonna do it better because she wrote it. You know what I mean? Like sometimes we’re jamming, and she, she does two lines that I reply in a different way, and that has already printed personality, like I cannot sing Anna’s part, or the other way around. So, lyrically wise is completely, as a poem, as she said, like sometimes it doesn’t matter who, sometimes we get stuck in one word, in just one fucking word. We have the whole song and we can be hours and hours and hours and it doesn’t matter if it’s hers or mine, you know what I mean?
Ana: Yeah, it’s not like, ah, now you have homework to do. Good luck with that word.
Carlotta: No, but melody wise we have a moreso printed the personality of each one in the melody. We don’t interfere with that.
Lulu: Nice, awesome. Well, there you go, thank you Migs for submitting a very good question! Wrapping up a little bit, I’m gonna do a speedfire round of “This or That” questions that include music stuff life stuff whatever..
*The three of us start humming show tune music*
Lulu: Are you ready? This or that? Writing lyrics first or composing the melody first?
Both: Melody first.
Lulu: Beer or a cocktail?
Both: Beer.
Lulu: In terms of writing music, pen and paper or iPhone notes?
Both: Pen and paper, always.
Ana: Insulting. When I see people recording things with the phone, it’s insulting.
Carlotta: And it looks, even, even your body gesture is, you could be texting or watching Reddit or something. No way. No way.
Lulu: Do you prefer a cocktail bar or a dive bar?
Ana: What’s a dive bar?
Lulu: A dive bar are the ones that are kind of like darker…… vibes… (lol at me struggling to explain a dive bar sorry, world, I was nervous)….. Hmmm. Have you been to Sophie’s in the Village?
Both: Yes!!!
Ana: that’s where we go everyday in New York.
Lulu: Really?
Carlotta: Siiii
Ana: Our favorite.
Lulu: So, Sophie’s.
Carlotta: Yeah, and Horses and Divorces.
Lulu: Oh my god. Did y’all go to Horses and Divorces?
Carlotta: Yeah.
Lulu: That’s crazy, I’ve actually never been. But I’ve heard many a’things. Well, that’s all I got for you today, anything else you’d like to add in?
Both: VIVA HINDS!!!
Carlotta: And keep on rockin!