Listen to our interview with José González and Tobias Winterkorn of Junip
It’s fair to say José González’s success was as much a surprise for him as it was for his fans. But after his song ‘Heartbeats’ was featured in an advert for Sony Bravia (you remember the one: multi-colored balls bounce through San Francisco) mainstream popularity beckoned.
It’s been three years since his last album In Our Nature, and now the soft-spoken Swede returns with a three-piece band and new album.
Junip’s Fields, recorded with long-time friends Tobias Winterkorn (keyboards) and Elias Araya (drums), has been 12 years in the making. The band formed in 1998 and released a couple of EPs but are only now releasing their first album.
We take time out with José and Tobias to speak about what could end up as one of the records of the year.
Epoch Times (ET): You’ve been together since 1998 but are only now releasing your debut album, Fields. What took you so long?
José González (JG): Many things. Around the year 2000 we released a 7” with four songs, and around that time we recorded a full-length album and nobody wanted to release it. Then three years later I went on tour and when I came back we did another attempt, and recorded and released another EP with five songs. And then I went on tour again, and now here we are! And apart from me being on tour, Elias was studying art in Finland and Norway so we weren’t that active as a band.
ET: José, did your success help or hinder Junip?
JG: I don’t know, we’ll see! In 2005 it hindered because if I would have stayed home we could have made a full-length and then maybe we would have been in another place right now. But right now we’re doing a lot of shows where people come to see the show because they know me and they get excited about Junip. And we’re playing big venues and festivals right from the start so that’s cool.
ET: Is there one main songwriter in Junip? How do you work together?
JG: No we write everything together as a trio. It’s only at the last minute that I go home and write the lyrics.
ET: Yes you’ve said you hate writing lyrics in the past. Is that still the case?
JG: Yeah. It’s fun when it works, that’s the hard part! It doesn’t work that often. It’s fun when you find metaphors that you like and words that sound good.
ET: What are your hopes with this album and Junip in particular?
Tobias Winterkorn (TW): We’re going on tour later this year, so I hope the record will be well received and a lot of people come to the shows. Hopefully they will like the songs and recognise them when they come to the shows.
JG: We try to do things that we like. So we’re not expecting big hits on the radio, but if it happens, it happens. I don’t think we’re doing very mainstream music. So we’re happy if we can do three or five hundred capacity type venues once in a while, that’s perfect.
ET: Listening to you I thought your sound had quite a broad appeal to it. Who are your influences?
TW: We listen to different music styles but just for this record we listened to Fela Kuti, Shuggie Otis, Bill Withers, Nina Simone, David Axelrod, Broadcast, J Dilla, Mad Villain …
ET: I thought I heard quite a Neu influence in there …
TW: We listened to Can a lot and maybe a bit of Neu. But that wasn’t our biggest influence. Of course the Krautrock is an influence, you can hear that in the grinding drums and the grooves … a little bit of “Krautiness!”
ET: Do you think it’s difficult to be original?
TW: Of course it’s difficult because there are so many bands out there trying to sound unique. But I think the set-up of me with the keyboards – the Moog and organ – makes it a little bit unique. And of course José’s voice and guitar playing is unique, so I hope we sound unique!
JG: At least unique in the sense that certain songs might sound like certain other songs, but as a whole it’s different from many other bands that are playing today. Maybe it’s similar to something that was from the 60s or 70s.
ET: José, do you have plans to do any more solo stuff?
JG: Definitely, but I don’t know when. I don’t have any deadlines and I’m giving all my time right now to Junip. We’re touring this autumn and probably spring and summer next year so we’ll see. I’ll try to write on tour but that doesn’t happen that often.
Fields is released September 13 in the EU and September 14 in the U.S.
