We caught up with the band to discuss favorite songs, their world tour, and healing hard memories and vulnerable places through music.
The Spanish all-girl indie garage pop group HINDS are the beer-drinking, piggy-back riding girls of our lo-fi dreams. And the world thinks so too. HINDS is making move (and making people move) across the summer festival circuit from Bonnaroo to Bråvalla and back. The tracks off the Madrid-based quartet’s debut album make you want to dance, cry, laugh, party, write in your diary, and sing in your car at visceral intonations—all at once. Their songs walk the blurred edges between pure ecstasy and crushing vulnerability that colors youth, love, music-making and everything in between.
On the first track on the album, “Garden,” Carlotta (vocals, guitar), Ana (vocals, guitar), Ade (bass) and Amber (drums) belt, “And how many scars you don’t share, and why do I care?... You won’t say you’re bored anymore / Cause I can take you dancing.” The track captures the spirit of the band as a whole—personal narratives of love and heartache underlay upbeat sounds for going out dancing, smoking, kissing, having fun, and being young.
We caught up with Amber Grimbergen (drums) to discuss favorite songs, their world tour, and healing hard memories and vulnerable places through music.
**Tell us about the Leave Me Alone tour. Has anything surprised you about** **touring internationally?**
We didn't expect such a good feedback at all! We believed very much in this album and it's going very well. It’s very satisfying.
**What’s your favorite song to perform? Which one do you think the crowd is most** **excited to hear?**
The four of us really, really like “Garden” \[because of\] the way it sounds on the record and the way it sounds in a show, but it always depends on the mood of the show. “San Diego” is always very fun to perform and the crowd always dances a lot, but “Granero” and “Bamboo” are the favorites of the crowd most of the time.
**Does turning a situation or specific time in you life into a song help in dealing with it or understanding it better?**
All the situation-based songs are about things that happened a while ago, so I guess it helps to deal with the memories we have about them.
**As artists, the work you put out is inevitably going to be very personal. How do you deal with that kind of vulnerability?**
Well, we choose what we want to write about and stuff, so I guess we don't choose anything that could affect us at some point.
**What made you decide to sing in mostly English? Has being bilingual always influenced your sound?**
I think it's because the music we listen to is in English. Most of the bands we listen to are American or English.
**Is the music scene in Spain different than in other places you’ve been? How so?**
Yeah it's very different. Apparently it's very difficult for a Spanish band to go out of Spain, mostly because the press is kind of stuck in like the "old school" Spanish bands and they kind of don't trust new young bands. But it's actually working pretty well now! We were part of a huge Spanish crew at SXSW last March and it was awesome. So many bands are starting to play outside Spain now and it's something wonderful.
**How did you know that you were all musically compatible? Was the realization instant or did it happen overtime?**
Well, Ade, Ana and Carlota were friends long time before starting to play in this band, so they all knew the tastes and stuff and I (Amber) had a meeting with them one week before starting to rehearse, two years ago now, and we talked a lot about music and we had very compatible tastes!
**Is it harder or easier to create music as a group rather than independently?**
I think teamwork makes everything way easier. At least for us four brains are better than just one.
**What would you be doing if you hadn't found each other?**
I guess we would have kept our lives the way they were? Everyone was studying their career and stuff. Maybe children? \[laughs\].
#### Interview by Micaela Stanley
