Sometimes it takes 7 years and 6 releases to discover a band from the other side of the world and realize you love it like anything you’ve heard in recent months. That was exactly the case of Buenos Aires’ emotive punks OSTENDE, who joined the army of literally thousands of bands that reached out to me via IDIOTEQ, and offered a chance to discuss their work and captivating new record ‘Las pasiones no están muriendo’. We took it instantly and here’s the result. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the record designed to give you all the feels, “Las pasiones no están muriendo” by OSTENDE!
See the full interview below.
Hey there guys! Thanks so much for taking some time with us. How are you? How’s Argentina?
Hey there!!! we are pretty good!!! Actually, we started to record new songs last weekend, we are so exited for this.
Argentina is in constant growing with new bands and awesome musicians, here the scene is different than America or Europe, because it’s more tiny, less resources and it’s all centralized in Buenos Aires, the city we live.
I’m really surprised I haven’t heard of you guys before, so I’d really like to start off with a little wider introduction to your local music scene. How has it affected you as an individual, as a band, and subsequently your organic sound?
Our local is smaller than american or european scenes, but, is in constant growing up, we had fewer economic resourses, places to play ( you have to pay to play in most places), our music culture is different too, most of our influences come from outside from argentina, we try to take this influences and mix it whit our personal influences and sounds, to be more personal with our music.
We know we don’t have de better conditions, that makes the musical evolution slower, In despite of that we put lots of energy, love, and good vibes to improve and creat better possibilities, that is something that has been happening over the years and makes me very happy yo have found a athentic sound and our own personality as a band and as a musician.
The main idea is, no matter what, create better music, always improve, always give everything!
Looking back at your early days with OSTENDE, were there certain local bands or DIY venues that had helped you along the way? How would you say Buenos Aires has helped shape your work?
There’s a few venues that had helped us along these years, unfortunately these venues are closed right now for diffrentes problems whit the government, the police,and all this corrupted sistem we have, it’s all a dark burocracy, thats what this kind of places are always whit problems and obstacles to stay open, there’s no Gilman’s or Cbgb’s here, these places have a shorter life cylce, then, when new places appear, they close them, and that’s all the time.
This kind af things don’t makes us weaker, in fact, that makes us stronger, we are always searching new venues to play and keep our music alive.
All I can say is, Buenos Aires taught me not to give up before the difficulties.
Ok, so how do you feel you have evolved since 2009? What do you think is the common thread between all of your steps with the band?
The evolution was good, maybe a little slow, the idea was always to combine different influences to creat an own sound and explore the music as much as posible, that was something that was achived with the passing of the years.
The common thread is definitly never stop playing, making music, records, shows, I could never stop, music means everything to me, and i’m glad for that.
Gig-wise, how thriving is Buenos Aires nowadays?
The Buenos Aires scene has changed, there are many bad ass bands here, they play pretty good, we are constantly growing.
On the other hand, in what is current as a country, things are not so good, we have a awful president, with an awful sistem, he is very similar to Trump and is taking this country on a neo – liberal path, this is something that is not ok.
Concerning all countries, cities and venues you have visited, do you have a particularly memorable show you played?
I will always remember the venues in Lima, Peru, great shows, great bands and great kids.
Also a venue in Santiago de Chile and The presentation of our last lp “Las pasiones no estan muriendo”, in Buenos Aires, it was a blast.And some venues were we play disguised as footbal players and other as doctors.
Ok guys, so let’s dive deeper into the content you serve. Lyrics wise, what do you write about? What was the thought process behind ‘Las pasiones no están muriendo’?
Lyrics talk about diffrents concepts, for exaple:
Fractales is about a combination of mushroom trips, when i saw a millon face over de mountains of Gran Canyon (I was there on 2015).
Veske is a story of a friend, Expedicion is about other tripo, but this time was in Bolivia and Peru whith more psicodelic moments as well.
Compañerismo Real is about how i met my girlfriend, that is the love song!!,
Incontentables talks about how our governmet imposes a modsel our life,they see us all like a flock of sheeps, this is what they want, I think we got to struggle to reach our goals no matter what they say.
Las pasiones no estan muriendo talks abour how the band resisted and reinvented themselves, we have been throug several problems between 20014 and 2016, but despite that, we knew how to replace and get the best record so far, the main idea of this songs is give everything, always.
Crisalida is about how the people around you have changed,and you have saw all this process and tryed to assimilate this changes, the main idea here is “never gave in to conformism”be what you wanna be.
Is there anything in particular which keeps you open-minded to all the themes you write about without feeling like you need to shrink yourself or words? What is writing to you?
Honestly I don’t used to write so much, but something happen and suddenly I started to write songs about different kind of things in my life and it was a good experience for me express my thoughts and my feelings throug lyrics and music.
Anyway I prefer play drums, my very best shrink!
There’s a conception that overtly political art can’t have aesthetic value. Do you believe that political and socially involved messages degrade the aesthetics?
I think that question is kind of retoric, Talking about aesthetucs is very ambiguous.
I may like a particular music or particular messages in music and someone else may look like shit,there is much variety today.
Our music has a lot of DIY influences,so i pay a lot of attention in what to say and how to say it, we first make the music and then the lyrics, our main intention is to be transparent with both things.That is, I must express what I think,What I see and What I belive.
I like the band or artists who give a message and leave me reflecting but I also enjoy the music without a clear message or just regular lyrics like the same old topics.
Alright, so lastly, which writers and bands have been your strongest influences recently?
I am listening a lot of current jazz drumers like Ari Hoenig, Pipi Piazolla,Chris Dave, Eric Harland, I love the way this guys play drums, but I never stop listening to the masters like Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Papa Jo Jones, Art Blakey the list is very extense.
Anyway I am always listening a mix of diffrent stuff every single day.
I never had a strong influence of an artist or a band in particular, I just listen music all day long,current stuff and bands i’ve listened since i was a kid.
Great, thanks so much for your time! Feel free to wrap it up with your plans for the coming months and final words.
Thank you for this great interview!!! All I can say is listen to Ostende if you want and we are going to put out a new record very soon!
I’ll move to Netherlands next October, we could stay in touch to go to some shows or something!
Awesome! Let’s keep in touch then. Thanks and cheers from Poland!
