“When we formed we were very much ‘indier than thou. Very pretentious. We were very prescriptive to what being in a band should be. Authenticity has always been very important to us but now, our approach to releasing music, playing live shows - we’ve become the band we always should have been. So now I can be smug!” Gareth David Paisey has every right to be proud of where Los Campesinos! have landed in 2024. Now…the future is bright for a band of 7! How rare is that?
Episode 66: Los Campesinos! Make a break away from the cult
What happens when you are a cult band (indeed when Pitchfork refers to you as “the ultimate cult band”) and you make the most accessible, most ‘mainstream’ album of your career?
It’s a relevant question for many bands these days, because emerging from cult status to the mainstream (what’s left of it) is a very valid path to longevity and success. Look at Nick Cave for example. He’s done alright.
But I can’t think of a better example right now, than Los Campesinos!
With All Hell, they have made the kind of record that can win over new fans, which isn’t easy on your 7th album. If we whisper it quietly, they may have even made a classic album. Only time will tell, but for now the band is enjoying basking in a little bit of well deserved success, including an 8.5 on Pitchfork, hitting number 14 on the UK album chart and sold out UK venues - bigger ones than they have played before. Not quite a jump from cult status to daytime radio playlists, but nonetheless, progress. Los Campesinos! have just found a route to a larger audience.
“We’ve always looked for validation elsewhere, but to achieve the best reviews of our career and chart position [for All Hell] is very flattering and something we appreciate more now than at any other point in our career.”
It remains to be seen if the glut of year end ‘best albums of’ lists remember to include All Hell, if indeed they considered the record a suitable candidate. Well, it’s on my list. What’s more, the vinyl package is lovely (apart from the 45 RPM but we’ll let that one go for now).
Here’s the thing. If you didn’t know anything about Los Campesinos but came across All Hell and played it through, it could have come straight out of the late 80s US indie scene - the one our very own Jules Gray curated on The American Import Record Rack. And yet Los Campesinos first came together in 2006 at Cardiff University. Gareth David Paisey’s lyrical themes may be universal but are steeped in the culture of merry old UK: from the pub to the church hall, to football, to the A470. Then again, his other recurring themes of sadness, self-doubt, death and existential angst are somewhat more globally relatable, even if we excel at such states of being on these shores.
“My lyric writing process is inadvisable and I would not recommend it to anyone. I only write when I know the wheels are turning and the process [of recording] is underway. I’ve never seen myself as an artist. I wish I could. I then try to get into the character of the songs and to write something uniquely us”.
That approach seems much more in keeping with a band of cult status, as is the way Los Campesinos! runs its operation i.e. very much as its own cottage industry. You are more likely to find Gareth and bandmates on the merch stand after gigs than some fancy aftershow shindig. But perhaps this is about to change. Would the band once again succumb to the lure of the music industry machine, record labels and what have you?
“The only thing a record label could offer us is money. But anyone who offered us lots of money would be bad business people. It wouldn’t be worth anyone's time. If you [as a band] have the time and the basic skill set to release your own records and manage yourself, it’s a worthwhile endeavour”.
This is the pragmatic voice of a cult indie band surviving and sustaining through the treacherous territory of the music industry circa 2024. And for all that, they go and make a record as good as All Hell.
Let’s hope the list-makers don’t forget it.