San Fermin| Interview

Ahead of the release of their sophomore album ‘Jackrabbit’, bandleader and composer of San Fermin Ellis Ludwig-Leone chatted with Goldenplec about solidifying their identity as a band and updating their sound accordingly.

Their origin story is somewhat unconventional. Ludwig-Leone composed the entirety of their debut alone, only piecing together a group of musicians to record the album after it had been completed. ‘San Fermin’ featured 22 players, amongst whom few actually form the current line-up.

However, by April last year, when the band were playing their first ever Irish dates, lead vocalist Charlene Kaye joined the band, marking the beginning of a period of stasis that allowed them to settle into their skin for the first time.“It was definitely a transition, the identity of the band was still kind of in flux. it took us a while to arrive at the line-up of the band that we have now. it was sort of the last piece of finding the identity of a band.”

Having spent the past year on tour together becoming a tightly knit unit, he was able to approach the composition of ‘Jackrabbit’ with the personal specifications of his fellow band members in mind. “Its a whole different thing when you know who you’re writing for. When you’re travelling together you form strong musical relationships from playing together all the time.

"Now when you write the horn line you’re thinking about the horn player, when you write the guitar line you’re thinking about the guitar player. So that really informs how you’re writing for those instruments.”

This more settled period drove him to adapt the sound of the band somewhat, “I wanted to try find a sound that was unique to us, I was trying to push the music in directions that were a little bit darker, a little bit more aggressive. Where on the first record the songs build kind of slowly, on this record there’s a spikier kind of arrangement to them.”

“I think this record is more personal in some ways. In the first record i had to be very explicit about writing for two characters but on this record i was able to blur some of those lines. Allen and Charlene’s vocals are less defined as to what each of them is talking about. they’ll change from song to song.

"On a song like Emily he’s kind of depressed and internal, whereas later on in Woman In Red he’s more aggressive and looking for something. I tried to make those voices feel more fleshed out by allowing them to try out different identities for a bit.”

A large part of San Fermin’s appeal is their counterpointing of the male and female voices. “I really like having the two voices because it allows you to look at both sides of anything that you’re talking about; you’re not committed to one thing. If Allen says one thing Charlene can say another thing and both will exist. I think that's really important for me because often I find myself feeling one thing really strongly and feeling the opposite at the same time. It's a nice way to manifest that.”

However, Ludwig-Leone spoke of a wariness of letting the conversational tone of their debut define their sound;”I was trying to be careful with this record, I didn’t want it to evolve into this shtick where every record we put out there was this conversation between the two singers - there’s a theatricality to that that I would like to avoid.”

Emily, the lead single from ‘Jackrabbits’ is a belting, danceable pop song with contrastingly melancholic lyrics, a common juxtaposition in their music.“Often, when I write a big pop song, I try to find ways to undercut that feeling with the lyrics because I think it makes for a more interesting experience, and its more true to my experience of the world.

"With a song like Emily I was trying to write something that people could dance to because I had never done that, but in doing that I thought, ‘If i’m gonna write a song about people being at a party, I’m gonna write about someone feeling alone at that party’. Often it works like that; the only way I can write a song that sounds one way is to talk about something else.”

Emily’s more complete and clean-cut sound reflects the positive effects of the band getting into their groove, and exhibits a lot of promise for their forthcoming album. “It definitely feels that when we’re on tour its a tightly knit group of people. live on stage, especially on the second record, the songs just fit the players better I think. If you played 200 shows with a band over the course of a year and a half you will inevitably tighten and get closer.”

San Fermin's new album 'Jackrabbit' is released in Ireland on April 24th, and they play Whelan's on April 28th.