Occasionally, someone, blogger, journalist, you've sent a pre-release copy of your latest album to, decides they want to interview you about it. They send you some questions. You send out some answers. They send you some more questions. You send them some more answers. It becomes an interview. Here's the Los Perros Del Infierno Album Interview about the making of my latest creation.
Q. It’s been a while since your last release, Strangeness & Charm, back in 2021. That was predominantly an acoustic record, with no electric guitars used. And now you’ve gone totally electric on this new one. Why the change and why the almost four years since the last album?
Well, for the last album, I’d had a bunch of acoustic-style singer-songwriter or folk-rock songs that I’d written over the years and performed solo but had not really recorded and then ended up writing some new tracks in the same style, some of which have done well on streaming platforms. But it was a decision I took to go acoustic-only on guitars for those kinds of songs, although bass and keys were still ‘electric’. I also had at the time an quiet London apartment with some wooden floors and good natural reverb so I could turn a room into a studio and get the natural ambience, which worked for most songs. This time my motivation was different. Firstly, I had moved away from London for cost reasons and went into a house-share with a fellow musician using a box bedroom as a project studio which was not as versatile as my previous set-up but still workable though a bit cramped. Secondly, I had thought that the record I would like to make after ‘Strangeness’ would be a Latin record in a similar vein to the swing-pop album I did before ‘Strangeness’ using session musicians for horns and vocals and some Brazilian musos on percussion, classical guitar and bass and background vocals to carry that South American latin-dance feel into the tracks. But I realised that was going to be a huge undertaking for me which would need a lot of free time for writing and arranging, collaboration, organising sessions and to get quality and continuity, would need a lot of work and investment. I had to admit to myself it would have been too much of a stretch. I was also busy with my day-job and ended up moving to Spain for six months not having the opportunity to play live or even play an instrument. However, the stay in Spain kept the desire in me to make a Latin album. When I came back to the UK, it took some time to get re-established as I was concentrating on playing live at clubs and festivals rather than on studio work. But one night I was watching a film called Desperado, a very tongue-in-cheek 90’s action favourite of mine starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek with the soundtrack mainly by the bands Los Lobos and Tito & Tarantula. I went online and purchased the soundtrack and listened to the vibe, the energy, the attitude of the songs and particularities like reverb and echo and I thought that if I did something along these lines, it could be achievable with what I already have in the project studio.
Q. So for your next project you decided to make a Chicano Rock album?
I’d been active doing some recording since finishing ‘Strangeness’ in that I’ve made two albums of cover songs, but that discussion will have to be for another time. But yes, for this album that was the intent and I guess I veered away from that original premise, you know to do some Los Lobos-style chicano rock tracks, but not so much so that the songs don’t have that Spanish/Mexican feel. I liked the tremolo and desert-style reverb of the electric guitars from the Desperado soundtrack but the more I wrote and played, the heavier the sound was starting to become, which I liked although it was diverging from what I had in my head from the start. I decided to see where it would lead me and just go with it. But also I decided to use the Phrygian mode of the musical scales as much as possible to give the guitar parts a Spanish flavour. It’s not all Spanish though. Some of it is just plain straight Rock’n’Roll. Also, using the Phrygian mode of scales in solos somehow made me think of the fight between good and evil, the devils and the angels fighting over a person’s soul, the whole theatricality of Catholicism and lyrically, that started to come through into the songs. So, drug lords, tattooed criminals, the Holy Virgin, masked wrestlers, all that Mexican movie imagery came to mind quickly.
Q. So, what came first, the music or the lyrics or was it a mish-mash?
Actually, I had the name of the album in mind first. I’d found some downloaded artwork I bought years ago as a possible band backdrop for live work and it was basically a tattoo vector of a rabid dog’s head in red with slash marks and I took it and added a black background. Then the name suggested itself from me pondering this image. That probably had a lot to do with the direction the songs finally took too. But it was the music first for all of the songs. I’d basically finished all the tracks with the musical ideas I was having although I had the structures of the songs worked out to be suitable for lyrics generally and I soon had a working title after starting a track which would establish a canvas in my mind where I would be able to paint ideas for guitar solos and lyrics. But the lyrics would have to wait until the music was complete. Apparently the legendary Paul Simon used to work that way - music first, then lyrics. But it hasn’t been the norm for me before. It’s just for this album. Strangely enough I’d start with what I felt was a fairly good working title. About half of these became the actual song titles. Often the lyrics came from the title. This whole good and evil thing. Seemed like the songs were going to live up to the album title!
Q. Why was that, the music before the lyrics? Was that a conscious decision?
I think so, yes. For one thing, I was convinced I was going to have to write lyrics in Spanish, at least for some of the tracks and I don’t really speak Spanish, so perhaps it was a kind of fear or lack of confidence in doing so that caused me to put lyrics on the back-burner.
Q. You were going to write Spanish lyrics but you said don’t really speak the language.
How did you manage to do it in the end?
I speak Portuguese which in many respects is similar to Spanish. I mean I can communicate to an extent in Spanish, but I have to mix what Spanish I know with Portuguese for the words I don’t really know. I find mostly, in southern Spain, they get it. For Madrid or Barcelona, I’m not so sure. When I was working in southern Spain a few years ago I tended to speak in Portuguese to be understood locally and picked up quite a bit of how Spanish people there would say things. But writing lyrics in any foreign language is quite different to writing lyrics in English. Firstly, there’s rhyme. Secondly, there’s the meter of the phrase or sentence. Thirdly, the lyrics have to make sense, more or less. All this means that you can’t work with a direct translation from English. So, I’d think of some lines in English, then come up with the general ideas from those lines in Spanish. I did use Google translate to help, but I had to learn more in order to come up with lyric lines which would fit the meter of the song and which would mostly rhyme in Spanish. I found that in Spanish songs I’ve listened to, rhyme is of less importance than is in English-language songs, for the most part but trying to match the corresponding line meter was almost impossible with what I was trying to say!
Q. I found the theme of the album to be more than just desert or chicano rock. There’s a hard rock style more than a desert rock style for most of the tracks but the lyrical theme seems to be, as you’ve mentioned, one of a battle between good and evil, almost a Christian element to it. Can you tell me how this came about? Are you interested in the occult and satanism?
To answer the second part of your question first, no, not at all. I think that dabbling in the occult involves a person in attracting the wrong kind of energy to themselves. Although, I have, since finishing recording of the album, been quite interested in the Catholic Church’s philosophy of angels and demons and I’ve watched some YouTube presentations about exorcism and evil through to narcissism, psychopathy and so forth. It’s all very interesting but I’m happy to keep it at arm’s length. There are so many contradictions. The more you dig into it, the ‘rabbit hole’ just keeps getting bigger. The subject matter for the songs just evolved through the lyrics as they came to me and, intentionally, I spent less time on the lyrics on this album than I’d done on any previous album. If there’s no such thing as coincidence, I suppose you could say I was guided. I don’t know. But the music kind of evolved through the guitar riff development and the tempo and rhythm of the tracks which in some cases had a demonic feel, in some cases a kind of religious supplication - I’m only talking about a general initial feel here, there was no original intent to have a religious theme. The Phrygian mode has a Spanish-cum-Arabic feel which can sometimes feel kind of satanic, well to me at least. I mean, I gave each track a name, a working title in Spanish where applicable with which to identify the track I wanted to work on, but a final title only came about after a given track was musically complete and the lyrical content came from a stream of consciousness as I scribbled what I was feeling when I was listening to the music. It so happened that, yes, out of these sessions came a tendency to write scenarios of conflict of good and evil. I’m normally more clinical about lyric writing but doing it it this way I found the lyric would complete itself quickly. These ideas of good and evil also may have been influenced by current affairs assumed into my subconscious. Maybe. All except for the album title track. I already decided on a name for the album before I had recorded most of the music. Los Perros Del Inferno or The Dogs of Hell in English had to have appropriate lyrics. I couldn’t have had that as a happy song! I mean, most of the album is pretty dark which is why, when I was concluding my last three or four sets of lyrics, I decided to lighten the mood slightly by including a couple of songs with positive, hope-filled lyrics. Hopefully, I thought, they’d balance out the doom and gloom!
Q. The album opens with the fast and furious ‘Burrito’, but the album’s not all hard rock mayhem. Can you talk about the basis of the tracks and how the lyrics for each came about?
Well, as I’ve said, in this case the music mainly dictated the lyrical content from what I was channeling at the time. Burrito was actually a working title which became a real title. I think I came up with the riff after having listened to some old Aerosmith tracks and this was probably the first lyric I came up with and I felt it had to have a cheeky, tempting, almost devilish approach. A burrito is, in culinary terms, what it is but it’s also a current expression commonly popular with young American females for a substantial male member! The double-entendre I think is tongue-in-cheek in the song in the same way as in Van Halen’s Ice Cream Man or even in Tom Wait’s equally-named song, neither of which have anything to do with ice cream! With La Plata, I must have been channeling Carlos Santana. Somehow, the lyrics became dark, much darker than I’d intended at the start. Llama-me Bastardo and Danza De La Guerra both have that heavy metal double pedal kick drum going on in a kind of shuffle beat. “Danza” translates into English as dance, but the nuance is that it is more of a jig than a general dance for which the Spanish would say “Baile”. Therefore the rhythm of Danza is jig-like and that conjured up visions of the Devil dancing a jig of joy over watching various wars going on. With “Llama”, I decided to use more of a rap-rock approach similar to Rage Against The Machine for the lyrics and again this is more about unbridled evil than anything else. Danza’s pretty much in the same vein. Angels and Demons - the title pretty much informs the lyrics - came about musically when I was playing the guitar riff to Genesis’ “Turn It On Again”. I used part of the riff for the chorus, but the verses, I reckon I was channeling the Foo Fighters. Similarly, Temptation No. 5 is Foo Fighter-ish. The title dictates the subject matter. Refugio - more about God but could be anyone of a good disposition - was modeled musically on Tom Petty’s “Refugee”. My title is a homage to Tom Petty. I was a big fan. The two positive tracks lyrically are O Serenity and Let The Sunshine In. I think these balance out the darkness in the other tracks. O Serenity is typical US Pop-Rock verse-chorus with only two chords in the verse and has a borderline worship lyric - again unintentional. The Killers-esque Let The Sunshine In is to my mind the odd-one-out on the album with its quasi-Europop beat is unusual in that the encouraging and upbeat lyrics are often paired with minor chords and the chorus ends on a minor, but for me that strangeness works. Of the other tracks, Desierto is pretty much a straight forward desert rock instrumental movie track and Si Los Desejos Fueran Caballos (If Wishes Were Horses) is experimental being in 6/8 time with a be-bop 5/4 time middle instrumental with a spoken vocal in Spanish in the 6/8 section. The lyrics are about a regretful fugitive and again are pretty dark, dictated by the music. I suppose you could say that the upbeat middle section contrasting the slow 6/8 meter of the rest of the song represents the pursuit of the fugitive. At least, that’s how I interpreted it. I pretty much thought I’d completed the album content then I heard a play-out track to an action movie which was a kind of a slow gospel-blues heavy beat rap/rock crossover and I started trying to emulate the drum and rhythm tracks and used the 5-string bass to get that low B note rumble in parts. It morphed into something altogether different from what I’d heard in the movie more along the lines of a “Rage In The Machine” style track with a rapped verse and a sung chorus. Medicine Man’s lyrics came together very quickly one night and is about an evil drug dealer. And that led to another track with a similar chord progression but guitar heavy with a bit of a skippy rhythm, almost Americana in feel but but definitely not country with major mode chorus and minor verse. Again, the lyrics to Hatred & Jealousy came together very quickly, within an hour..
Q. You said you made this in your project studio. What did you record it on and what instruments did you use?
I recorded it using Ableton Live Suite 10. I’m odd as a producer in that I’ve not yet used ProTools, considered to the industry standard Digital Audio Workstation. I’ve used Logic (Mac) and Cubase (PC) before, but I find Ableton (both Mac and PC) is a really good one-stop shop for all the sounds and audio/digital effects once you get used to it. It’s so versatile. Considering it was originally designed for DJ’s to be able to alter a recorded set while performing live, it works great for every kind of recording. It’s been popular with electronica musicians for years now. You can do so much with it. You can actually use it for Mastering too. I do use other-market plug-ins that are compatible with Ableton. For guitar and bass sounds I’ve used IK Media’s Amplitube 5.0 - it’s got some great amp and effects simulations - and for some orchestral sounds IK Media’s Miroslav Philharmonik 2 but for everything else - brass, strings, synths, organ, piano, choir etc, it’s all Ableton. Vocal mics were either by AKG, Audio Technica, Samson or CAD, recording through a Focusrite Scarlet interface/preamp. Guitars: G&L USA ASAT Classic, G&L USA Comanche, Fender Custom Telecaster FMT, Fender Deluxe Telecaster Nashville, Jet JS-400 and Squier Cabronita Telecaster. The Squier I bought to use on the album extensively as it’s made for that Tex-Mex sound, but I only used it on a couple of tracks in the end. Basses: Samick Artist Series 4-string retrofitted with DiMarzio P-Bass pups on most tracks and a Squier Dimension 5-string on two tracks. I monitor on AKG “Quincy Jones” studio headphones to get a rough mix, then on Yamaha MSP-5 monitors. And when I’ve mastered a CD, I’ll burn it in lossless audio from a burn playlist I create on the Apple Music app on my Mac and listen to it on my car’s stereo, then I’ll go back and make any necessary corrections and burn the CD again.
Q. Your drum sound is pretty punchy. How did you achieve that and other sounds on the album?
I used a lot more compression than I used to use in previous projects. That goes for most individual recording tracks including vocals. I used less compression on the last project because that one was acoustic guitar-based and needed to demonstrate dynamic range. I didn’t need so much dynamic range with this project and needed the tracks to punch. It’s also easier to mix with more compression on, I find. I decided the drums and hi-hats should be gated pre-compression to eliminate boom tails which sometimes overloaded the mix but I also used parallel compression on all drums and cymbals. It cleaned up the mix and gave it punch. I’ve used overall kit compression before, but I’ve found it’s worth spending the time on each drum sound to get the individual drum compression and EQ right for the kit rather than a broad brush approach to the overall kit. On a couple of songs, as an experiment I supplemented the drum track with an identical track at about half the drum track volume using a 505 or an 808 digital kit rather than sampled drums and I used an overall drum compressor on this track rather than single out individual digital sounds for treatment and no gating and no EQ-ing. The effect was a bolstering of the overall drum sound. I gated the vocals to eliminate sub-45dB noise and rumble and removed everything which didn’t contribute to the track. I also use an ‘NYC’ parallel compression return track on the overall drum track, in one variation or another, normally between 30% and 50% which generally make the drums punch without overloading the sound and without compromising cymbal shimmer. Also, I gated the guitars and bass sub-45dB to eliminate unwanted string contact noise or sometimes AC hum, automating the gate to turn off if a guitar note had to have a long sustain, say for instance, at the end of a track. But spending time mixing drum sounds, even if they originate from samples is time well spent as the drum sound really dictates the rest of the mix, I’ve found. Knowing your way around your DAW is very important. I used two rhythm guitars in most tracks wide-panned to create space for the vocals and lead instruments for the most part which suited the style of the music. Likewise, where used, latin percussion and horns tended to be wide-panned, but not so that that they ended up fighting with the guitars or, in some cases, an organ or other keyboard or the occasional wide-panned percussion. Sometimes it was back to the drawing board with an arrangement, simpler often being better. There are some synth pad sounds very low in the mix to create a wider ambience in some tracks. You’ll hardly hear them, but if I took them out of the mix, you’d notice the difference.
Q. When and from where is Los Perros Del Infierno the album going to be available?
It’ll be available to buy from my website (www.jimmythedog.com) from mid-November 2024 both as a lossless download and a mail-order CD. I currently use Distrokid for the digital distribution worldwide which will distribute the album to streaming sites as well as online stores.
댓글