An Interview With The All-Girl Alternative Madrid Band, HINDS on Their Debut Album, “Leave Me Alone”, Their Biggest Inspirations and More!

Photo Credit- Aaron Serrano

¡VIVA HINDS! Today, Hinds released their highly anticipated debut album entitled “Leave Me Alone” via Mom + Pop / Lucky Number. Twelve perfectly imperfect and charmingly lo-fi tracks inspired by contemporary American garage rockers like Mac DeMarco, Ty Segall and The Black Lips, Leave Me Alone is an exciting introduction to the fun-loving quartet pioneering the burgeoning indie music scene in Madrid.

Since bursting onto the DIY scene last summer, Hinds – Ana Perrote, Carlotta Cosials, Ade Martin and Amber Grimbergen – have mastered a raw and playful sound all their own. With just a handful of released singles under their belt, Hinds have already earned early support from Apple Music’s Beats 1, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The FADER, Gorilla vs. Bear, and more.

Kicking things off with their new single “Garden,” Hinds take us on a badass rock & roll ride on their debut full-length “Leave Me Alone”. Weaving sun-kissed, 60’s-inspired melodies, executed with a genius call-and-response between co-vocalists and band co-founders Perrote and Cosials, Hinds create the ultimate soundtrack to the best day ever – from start to finish – spent with your four best friends. In addition to previously released fan favorites including the band’s first-ever single “Bamboo,” “Castigadas En El Granero” – which translates in English to “Grounded In The Barn” and the band’s first new song of 2015 “Chili Town,” Leave Me Alone only gets better with each song. Featuring bright surf-pop tune “San Diego,” the mixed-tempo “Fat Calmed Kiddos,” and a bitter ode to shitty boyfriends in “And I Will Send Your Flowers Back,” Leave Me Alone is guaranteed to bring the Mediterranean sun to you wherever you are in the world at any time of the year.

Photo Credit – Aaron Serrano

Learn more about Hinds in the following All Access interview with them:

Thanks for your time today! So, what else do you on the schedule today besides this interview?

Hola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok in todays HINDS life!!! Me and Ana are 1000 more interviews and emails!! Yuuuhu! (Laughter) Carlotta is editing our second summer documentary so I have a lot of work in here! Ade is helping me too! We are also gonna rehearse this afternoon the new songs of the album, and we will probably have beers afterwards! We are never in Madrid, so when we are here it’s even more tireing that being on tour! (Laughter)

Pretty soon, you will be releasing your debut full-length album “Leave Me Alone.” What does that feel like?

I can’t fucking wwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait! It’s been done since April last year. I sometimes felt like it was never gonna come out and we are gonna live forever in this “upcoming band” tag. (Laughter)

So, how did you four first meet each other? What convinced you to start a band together? Why do you think you all work so well together?

Carlotta and I met in 2009 via ex-boyfriends that had a band together. Carlotta broke up with that guy, so we went on a holiday trip to the beach. We just had a lot of free time and two guitars, so we learned this Bob Dylan cover, and started to forget we had to eat and sleep just because we were rehearsing it. We had a few gigs that year but then we stopped for a year an a half, because of a horrible gig we gave in 2010.

Two summers ago, we were watching videos, and decided to try again. Then we managed to write our own songs, so we started taking it more seriously, even if seriously meant two people in a room, writing, rehearsing and watching Youtube videos.

There is no way I can tell you WHY this happened to us. We just recorded two songs, put them in Bandcamp and the day after, we had emails from the NME, DIY and others… The only thing I know is that we write weird music, and we did some weird recordings, so some of those magazines thought it was different, like fresh or something. I also know we’ve been working really hard since the beginning and we are doing EVERYTHING we can the best way we can (which sometimes means no sleep, no eating, no laundry, and some back pain) (Laughter)

Photo Credit- Jesse Fox

How do you think being from Madrid has influenced your sound and your views on the music business in general?

We grew up in here, going to gigs by bands like Los Nastys or The Parrots. We are all mostly influenced by the garage-rock coming from america, but these Madrid bands showed us what a wild and real gig is like. It’s full of sweat, tears and screams.

Madrid is a very cool city but we didn’t really realize that so it made us not think we were the queens of the world when we started getting a lot of attention. It makes us be more thankful and open to people. We are the first Spanish band to take this international path so we really work hard to maintain it! Madrid obviously influences our way of living too.

What was the inspiration behind your single, “Garden” and really the whole album? Generally, where do you get the inspiration for your music?

Love is what inspired the lyrics and rock is what inspires the music. We write about what we see or feel. We rarely talk about things in our songs that we haven’t experienced.

How do you think you all have grown as a band and as musicians since you first started performing?

Oh you can’t imagine how much better we are now!! We gave our first gig together the 26th of April 2015 and it was the first ever time we all stood together on a stage. We had never been in bands before, so playing almost every day in a period of a year and a half has forced us to be better musicians!

Photo Credit- Aaron Serrano

How was your fall tour with Glass Animals, The Black Lips and Ariel Pink? What were your favorite venues and crowds? And what’s it been like performing in Asia?

Touring America was a dream and playing with those bands was incredibly exciting. Glass Animals had huuuuuuge crowds, like 5,000 cap venues and the shows were sold out almost every night! We felt free, because it wasn’t our crowd so we could do whatever we wanted! (Laughter)

Our headlining part with Public Access T.V was the best though! Having people that scream, kiss and jump to your songs is an inexplicable feeling for sure!

What bands inspire you all? Who would you love to work with in the future?

We love Mac Demarco, Shannon and The Clams, Together Pangea, Twin Peaks, Juan Wauters, Public Access TV, Lois, Mujeres, Fat White Family and so many others!

What do you hope is the message of your music? What do you hope fans take away from your songs?

LOVE IS WHAT MATTERS! And at the end, the happy one is the winner. Keep on rocking in the free world everybody!!!