Hindsight… with Hinds
Photos by Holly Whitaker
Four years ago I was sat on Zoom in the throes of lockdown, talking to Carlotta Cosials, ahead of the release of Hinds’ third studio album, ‘The Prettiest Curse’. Hinds have held a special place in my heart for the last decade, so it’s fair to say that excitable quarantine-fatigued Lily probably didn’t give the best interview she could. Thankfully I got a second chance.
Fast forwards four years and I’m sat outside Bar Italia with Carlotta (alongside Ana Perrote, the other half of Hinds’ beating heart), drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes, living in a Hinds song, discussing their upcoming fourth album ‘VIVA HINDS’.
The last few years have been tough for Ana and Carlotta. The two best friends were ten years and three albums into Hinds when they found themselves with no management, no label and two bandmates down. The safety rugs and security blankets they had known up to that point had been pulled out from under their feet and it was just the two of them left. They’re both refreshingly candid when talking about that period of time, “to sum it up, we’ve had really bad luck for the last four years… a lot, a lot, a lot of shit happened”, says Ana, whilst somehow maintaining that visceral excitement of what’s to come, with no scent of disillusionment, as if the band are cruising through their honeymoon period… and maybe they are.
Maybe the new chapter of Hinds is having its loved-up post-nuptial vacation. It sure sounds like it.
Talking to them about their upcoming album ‘VIVA HINDS’ (out 6th September), one could easily assume they were talking about their debut, with fire in their eyes and Cheshire Cat grins spread across their faces, and I suppose in some ways it is. The album title comes from the cult-like chant that circulates any room they’ve stepped into over the last thirteen years, a chant that holds significantly more meaning now, given the water they’ve had to wade through up until this point. Hinds will survive!
We looked back on our 2016 chat and compared it to now, mainly focusing on their love for pasta, working with Beck and where they’ll be in four years time.
LAST BUS MAGAZINE- Okay, so you said that your lockdown consisted of reading a lot, working out a little, and cleaning. Your new hobby was Twitch. What’s changed?
CARLOTTA COSIALS- I don't Twitch anymore. The moment that we could leave the house, I closed my Twitch accounts. I didn’t design any more Instagram filters either. I learned how to do that in quarantine...
You also said you officially only ate pasta.
CC- That’s definitely still a yes.
ANA PERROTE- Guess what we just ate…
Fusili?
CC- Mmm. With olive oil and salt and pepper.
When talking about new releases you said that you always get vertigo. Do you still get that?
CC- Actually no!
AP- With that third album we had a lot of expectations and it was supposed to be a big, big breakthrough-which it wasn’t. We’ve had very bad luck for the last four years, you know, apart from normal life, it was even worse for us, which made us get rid of all of the expectations… they all disappeared. We were totally alone. It was four years of really trying hard and nothing going our way. So I think right now, just because we are releasing music, that is the success. There's no vertigo, as long as we can share the music we want to, the expectations are so low that it’s pretty easy to achieve them!
CC- Our definition of ‘success’ has definitely changed.
What is it now?
AP- Just releasing music.
CC- Being able to do what you want to do. That's it. It’s not related to numbers or radio anymore. While recording the album a lot of people were asking us what the new record was going to sound like and I think the most truthful answer we can give is that we didn't want it to sound like a radio album. It helped us make the album in the most freeing way you could imagine.
Photos by Holly Whitaker
Okay. Last time I asked you about your dream Hinds Festival line-up… do you remember who was on it?
AP- It’s got to be Hinds?
…
AP- Carlotta please… if you don’t book Hinds no one will.
CC- I don't know…I can’t remember! I think I was listening to a lot of Haim around that time and The Strokes were also releasing music-
Mhm! You said The Strokes would headline and then you would be in charge of all the small stages and would put Spanish bands on them.
CC- Nice! I like that. But maybe bands from all over the world… not just Spain.
What’s the most Hinds sentence you can teach us in Spanish?
AP- Callejón fieston?
CC- Callejón fieston! That’s really a good one.
AP- It’s like… alleyway…
CC- What do you say in English for that alleyway in Harry Potter?
DIAGON ALLEY?
AP- Yes! So it’s like that, but… party alley! Every time you hear it you have to jump and pretend you’ve just teleported and suddenly you’re at a party…
Onto the new chapter, which is so exciting but as we’ve touched on, wasn’t easy. What advice do you have for pushing through all of the crap and making it out the other side? Especially in a creative field.
AP- As cheesy as it sounds, if you believe in it, just keep doing it. Surround yourself with people that see you and see your potential or just support even if they don't see you. Over these last few years our families and friends have been very important in that sense.
CC- I would also say if you want to do something then don’t expect the circumstances to be perfect. They never will be. Or don't expect to wait for the same circumstances as the past. Everything around you is going to change and that’s okay.
AP- And like Marcel the Shell said… “Don't be afraid of change.”
I’ll cry if you start talking about Marcel.
AP- We all cried when we saw that movie… it’s exactly that.
Tell me about working with Beck.
CC- Oh my god. What a good thing… what a good thing…what a random thing!
You met at a party?
AP- We met at an after party for a film screening and he was just standing at the bar so we started chatting and clicked right away. Then we hung for that whole week. We had just written Boom Boom Back like two days before in LA-
CC- So we were so excited. We were like “we wrote a fucking banger!”
What good timing.
AP- Exactly. We played it to him and he loved it. He said yes and he did it, just like that… it’s crazy.
Everything he touches turns to gold. He worked recently with a favourite band of ours from New York, Gustaf-
AP- Gustaf! My god, he was obsessed with them. When we met he was like, “Do you know about Gustaf?!” And everyone that came near, “Do YOU know about Gustaf?” Hooked by Gustaf.
Yes! He also worked on one of my favourite albums, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ‘IRM’ which was such a seminal record in my life. What are the important records from your life?
CC- I think when you're a teenager, what hits you hits you. I could lie and give you another answer but I perfectly remember the very first time that I listened to Mac DeMarco’s ‘2’. I even remember who I was with and where we were going. I was like, ‘When was this done? Is this from the past? Is this from nowadays? Who the fuck is this person?” And I showed it to Ana, I don’t know why but we never checked who this Mac DeMarco was. We were both in University at the time and didn’t have a band, even the CD wasn’t in order because it was burnt. One day we decided to go on YouTube and saw that he was young! He was alive! He was from nowadays… and still making music! And then he came out with Salad Days and… si.
AP- Also, we have to say Arctic Monkeys. Alex Turner. Like his lyrics, his melodies, just everything…
Photos by Holly Whitaker and Lily Carr-Gomm
Which track off the album was the quickest to finish?
AP- Boom Boom Back. It took like three hours and 80% of everything was done. The day we wrote it we were in LA and were supposed to work with this big writer, but her kid got sick or she had another session with Dua Lipa or something… anyway our manager had a friend of a friend of a friend with a studio in his house. We had no expectations but thought we might as well turn up as we had nothing else to do. That guy was Sean Silverman, who has been such an important figure for this whole album. He only had a few hours free and we said yes. That magic happened so fast.
Yeah, there’s definitely a theme here of things going wrong or not-to-plan but that then catapulting you into an even better direction…
AP- Exactly, for example Coffee took us six months to finish. We have so many versions of that song, it really went through the laboratory.
Okay, what do you think will be a crowd favourite of the album?
BOTH- Superstar.
AP- It's already a favourite and it's not even out yet.
In my head we’re now going to see each other once every four years. Okay?
AP-Sounds good.
So four years from now, where do you want to be? Who do you want to be with? What do you want to be doing?
CC- I want to be with Ana.
AP- I want to be with Carlotta, doing an interview, talking about album number six.
Do you remember last time when I asked you what you listened to on the Last Bus home?
CC- Yes! Recently I’ve been listening to the album of Ted Lucas.
He has the song about being stoned?
CC- Yes! “It’s so nice to get stoned…”
And Ana?
AP- I’d say The Shacks… their EP.
Carlotta, last time you said Hinds. You said you enjoy listening to Hinds tracks before they’ve been released. Once it's out there, you’ll miss it forever and never listen to it again. So right now you have your own secret songs.
AP- Ah! It’s exactly like that again.
And if not, you said Psycho Candy by The Jesus & Mary Chain.
CC- Ohhhh, yes… That was my Jesus & Mary Chain phase.
Twitching and listening to The Jesus & Mary Chain?
CC- Exactly.
Photos by Holly Whitaker
Hinds’ fourth studio album ‘VIVA HINDS’ comes out on 6th September, which as we all know is National Read A Book Day.
Maybe reading the lyrics from the CD pull-out counts..? If not, we can just temporarily rename it National Viva Hinds Day.
Stay up to date with all-things-Hinds here.
