They say there’s no rest for the wicked. If that’s true, the lads from Lost Valentinos must have been very naughty boys! Fresh from a European tour, they’re already preparing to travel around our fair country to promote their highly anticipated debut album Cities of Gold. I caught up with the band’s frontman Nik Yiannikas ahead of the craziness!
You’ve just come back from a European tour. How was that?
It was great. We had been there briefly before, a few years ago, and in the time in between we have become a much better band. Our sound is definitely more refined and I think we have found our own “thing” now rather than something that is obviously borrowing from other bands, like we may have been in the past.
In the UK the crowds are quite tough, I guess because of the sheer amount of quality music they are exposed to, but I think we definitely left an impression over there and will be back there very soon. The rest of Europe was very receptive from the outset and, from our experience at least, I can say that playing in continental Europe is always a lot of fun!
You’re about to head out on your Conquistadisco tour. Are you looking forward to getting back in front of your local fans?
For sure. There’s no place like home! And we haven’t really done the regional thing yet, so it’s a bit of a journey into the unknown.
It’s a pretty fantastic name for a tour. What can music fans expect from these shows?
It is a great name isn’t it?! In fact it is a word that Ewan Pearson came up with to describe us whilst we were making the album. As for the tour, all of the following words go a little way towards describing the spectacle that is the Lost Valentinos live show: Gold. Black. Samba whistles. Air horns. Sometimes two drummers, sometimes one drummer. Kwaito. Forceful krautrockin’ techno. Manchester. Guitars. MS-20.
During the tour you’re playing Splendour in the Grass, and you’ve played Parklife, Falls, and Playground Weekender in the past. What do you enjoy about the festival experience?
Pretty much everything! You get the best riders, best treatment and biggest crowds when playing at festivals. Except when it’s a shit festival, then it can be a really bad experience.
Your debut album Cities of Gold is scheduled for release in September. What can you tell me about it?
Well the making of the album itself was an epic journey of sorts, and so we feel that the finish product loosely reflects a voyage too. Perhaps a voyage to the New World in search of El Dorado, with all the high and lows, storms and battles, gold, riches and heartbreak that such a journey would have entailed. While we were recording, we re-discovered this cartoon that we all used to watch as kids, The Mysterious Cities of Gold. It was a French/Japanese anime style production that follows the journey of two Spanish children into the depths of the Amazon in search of El Dorado. And that journey became kind of the creative spine for our album. It probably resonated even more with the band as Pat and Andrew’s parents are from Peru and Ecuador and Jono has Portuguese ancestry. From there we got further into indigenous South American art. Then there was also this hand-drawn comic we found one day at the shop below our studio, called The Bismarck. It inspired the track of the same name, and co-incidentally, we later found out that it had been written and drawn by a guy who Pat had known while he was in high school, but hadn’t seen for years. I could go on for hours about what influenced this album, but essentially it can be boiled down to films, cartoons and any book about a boat!
You’ve released three EPS. Do you approach the longer album format any differently?
I guess the fact that we actually had an approach was what differentiated this album from our previous EPs. Back then we just wrote some songs and then as soon as we had enough tracks to record we went into the studio. This time we actually put a little more thought into the process! And time lots more time.
You worked with Ewan Pearson on the album. He’s produced so many big names like Depeche Mode, The Chemical Brothers, and Goldfrapp. What did he bring to your sound?
Ewan is like a scientist/master craftsman when it comes to making music. He brought a great deal of patience, precision and finesse to the equation, and the finished product sits somewhere snugly between that and our often chaotic shitstorm of ideas and energy!
The album’s been two years in the making. How does it feel to finally have it wrapped up?
The album is a snapshot of our lives up to this point, so I think we’re all feeling a lot of different emotions now that we have signed off. The main one is probably relief!
While recording the CD you spent time in Sydney, Berlin, and London. How did the time abroad influence the album?
The songs themselves were all written in Sydney, and the foundations of all the songs were laid down in Sydney too. Most of what was done overseas was more subtle and so I think that the length of time itself and what happened during that time had the biggest impact on the album, rather than the different cities. It definitely added to the journey aesthetic of the album that I mentioned earlier.
After the Aussie tour, what’s next for Lost Valentinos?
I envisage that we’ll be touring non-stop for a while yet… and I can promise you that you won’t have to wait nearly as long for the next LV’s record!
To celebrate the tour, Lost Valentinos are giving away a trip to Peru so one fan and a friend can begin their own search for the Cities of Gold. To win this incredible holiday, get yourself to one of the Conquistadisco Tour shows, find a special Lost Valentinos gold coin, and enter the details on the date engraved on the coin into the Lost Valentinos website. Visit the Lost Valentinos MySpace page to discover when the band is playing near you. Good luck!
Image used with permission from Peer Group Media