Los Planetas Interview: SXSW 2010

When Los Planetas formed in Granada, Spain, in 1992, grunge music was only beginning to take shape. With 'Andalusia,' the fivesome's upcoming ninth album, the band is proving that distorted guitars and hazy vocals can be enduring artforms. Over the years, they have mastered the fundamentals of rock, delved into regional flamenco influences and given the shoegaze movement a distinctly Spanish feel. Spinner recently spoke with the band, which answered collectively about its SXSW appearance and the growing market for rock en español.

How did your band form?

This was about an ice age ago. It's a very old history. We've all forgotten why. We only remember the world was different then. Humans still helped each other and still had moral and ethical values. This was before the zombie epidemic.

What are your musical influences?

From the first tribal manifestations of the hunter rituals around the fire, Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, the Acadians, the Assyrians, Hittites, Kassites, Elamites and the Persians, to the first Egyptian song, Pythagoras and the Greeks, along with all the oriental music of China and Japan, as well as India. Rome and its instruments: the fidula, the cerni, the tubber, the lute and, of course, the lyre. The medieval age, Roman and Gothic secular music, Gregorian chants and even the appearance of polyphony. After this, nothing interests us.

How did you come up with your band name?

Because each of us has his own orbit, his own satellites, and we're all different sizes. [Los Planetas translates to, of course, "the planets" in English.]

What's your biggest vice?

Work. We are very hard-working people. We hate laziness, and we make the most of every moment. Work is born with each person and gives nobility to the human soul.

What is in your festival survival kit?

The same kit that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza took with them. A manchego cheese, a boned ham, a loaf of bread and a good bag of wine. As the Spanish saying goes, "Con pan y vino se anda el camino." [With bread and wine, you can take the journey.]

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

There's a lot of schizophrenia in this band. We do or decide something, and then five minutes later we do or decide the complete opposite. Guilty pleasures fly around us all the time, but if we had to pick a musical one, it would be Spanish melodic singer Raphael.

Is there a growing market for rock music with Spanish lyrics?

It would seem so. Taking into account the latest news arriving from the press, it is growing in an uncontrollable way. There is so much demand, I don't think we'll be able to satisfy it, but we are trying. Hard work -- day and night.

Caroline Collier is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.