Whatchumagenre

When I started this interview, I wasn’t expecting much. I figured I’d shoot the breeze with Lesser Gonzalez, post the interview, and carry on with life, never to read it again. Could I have been anymore wrong? Alvarez proved to be an interviewer’s dream—a true delight. When I first asked him to be interviewed, I was shocked (shocked!) at how quickly, and kindly, he responded. But that’s simply a petty reason to like him. He answered every question I posed with an honest, almost naked, panache. He delivers inspiration by the carriage load, and to top it off, is just a true likeable character. I once believed that David Bazan was the most honest, and authentic musician I’ve ever come across… David Bazan (and everyone else) meet Lesser Gonzalez.

We’ll start it off simply. How have you been recently?
Well, the past few months have been very trying, I’ve had a tremendous loss this year and I’m sort of just now starting to get a grasp on things, it’s come at a time when lots of good things are starting to happen which has made it very difficult to really appreciate those things. There’s been pressures from lots of different sources coming down all at once, all great productive things that need to be done, but all of them have just sort of sprouted at the same time. Slowly things are settling.

You were born in Havana, Cuba until moving recently to Baltimore. What have you found to be the biggest difference between the two areas?
Well I moved to Miami with my family in 1990 where I was raised from the age of 8 to 18 when I moved up to Baltimore for school. I’ve actually been living in Baltimore for about 6 or 7 years now. Baltimore can sometimes seem like a third world country, but I’d have trouble comparing them to each other. I was too young to really see any of the socio-political issues but I guess the difference is in Cuba you lived simply out of necessity and here in Baltimore I live simply by choice.

You’re credited with starting the short-lived band Cache Cache, which unfortunately disbanded weeks before playing SXSW in 2007, leaving you to virtually create a band weeks before the show with friend and bandmate Jared Paolini. How hard was that to do? I can’t image the pressure.
Well In that week me and Jared came up with an entirely new set based on snippets of songs I had started to compose and ideas we had had for a while, and Cache Cache always moved pretty slowly before then, I think when it became just the two of us we just sort of flew through the whole thing, we were hungry to compose new stuff, it took a couple of all nighters but it got done.

You currently have two music projects: The Tall Grass, and your self-titled, solo project. Which one do you spend the most time with, and “take care of” so to speak, the most?
Well The Tall Grass is Me, Jared Paolini, Yutaka Houlette, and Geoff Grace. Grace does the songwriting while we all sort of compose them into fuller pieces together. The chemistry between all of our playing styles is really exciting, we tend to just sit down and start playing and almost always come up with interesting little bits here and there to use for his songs. It’s a really naturally moving band, Cache Cache took alot of coaxing, but when I sit down and play in the Tall Grass it all just sort of happens, which is wonderful. We haven’t played much lately because of other things demanding our attention, and I’m definitely fearful of having to focus on my solo work to the point where I cant play in the Tall Grass as much as I’d like. I think I enjoy both equally, my friends are a big source of inspiration as musicians and people and part of my work comes from being able to bounce ideas off of them and listen to their work, etc..

You’re album entitled “Why Is Bear Billowing?” is scheduled for release on Carpark Records, August 19th. I assume you must be very excited.
I am excited about it, I’m particularly excited about starting to play some of my newer stuff that isnt on the record, this first one is sort of just a simple collection of songs I’d written, to have for myself, and to give to friends, I put it together using borrowed equipment mostly as a document of where I was at the time.

When I heard your song “Mostly A Friend” for the first time, I couldn’t stop until midnight. That of course picked up again on the bright the next morning. Have you ever made a song and thought, “Wow, this is golden! I really nailed this one!” ?
I’m always pretty critical of my own work, be it drawings or songs, so I never tend to think a song is finished until pretty late, if at all. Sometimes I do come up with a melody or a chord progression that really strikes me as interesting and I’ll stick with it, but it’s difficult for me to step out of myself and listen to it as a first-time listener does, as it’s happening it’s a pretty blind situation.

On the contrary, have you ever grown fustrated with a song?
All the time, I’ve got a couple of songs I’m starting to write now that I just want to completely scrap, it’s just me being overly-critical and sometimes I just have to go ahead and record it or finish it as best I can, to use as a stepping stone towards the next one. Some take alot more hammering out then others.

You’ve also produced music for The Ruby Stallion Ensemble. It’s a very different sound than your own music projects. Was it a challenging experience?
I spent alot of time at roller-rinks in Miami when I was younger, so in a way that stuff is an extension of me as well, everything I do I think seems to come from my infatuation with the surreal or space or something, I wouldn’t say it was challenging, it was definitely fun, but it wasn’t as fulfilling.

Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez
“Mostly A Friend”
Why Is Bear Billowing?
Carpark Records
Released 08.19.08
Listen/Download

I’ve been reading up on your background and resume listed on your website. You seem to be quite the jack-of-all-trades. Your work ranges from paintings, to photography, to video animations, to of course, being a musician. Have you achieved all you’ve wanted to or are there more goals on the horizon?
Living creatively is very important to me, you have to make your entire life your work, and always debunk any notions you might get too comfortable with along the way. I don’t think medium matters very much to me, as long as it’s creative work. I’ve done a bit of theatre and that was exciting, I was the Lawyer in Wham City’s production of Jurassic Park which was an incredible experience. I’d like to give acting for films a try, I’m very inspired by the sort of naturalistic acting happening in a lot of classic seventies films like Dog Day Afternoon. I’m also a huge early Tom Hanks and Chevy Chase fan.

You’re works have appeared around the world—locally in Baltimore, as well as the Netherlands and Brazil—is your footprint as big as you want it to be?
For a while in college I never showed anyone any of my work, I was stuck making things and keeping them to myself until I came to a realization. A really important part of making work is having it be digested afterwards, critiqued, and I got used to that going to art school so I started doing that with my music as well. I’m skeptical of having too big a footprint, it sounds counterproductive somehow, but I think I’d enjoy having the sense that my work is being digested.

Has there ever been a song you’ve heard and wished you wrote it?
Wow, to some extent yeah. I’ve experienced that with musicians I’m close friends with mostly. I think the interesting thing is that you hear a melody you’d never think to come up with and it sounds so new and taps into some part of your mind that you didn’t even know existed, and to them it came naturally because that’s their body chemistry almost.

Who, or what then, would you say is the main influence on your music, illustrations, and other works?
Anything otherworldly I think. I tend to make very escapist work and I’m fine with that, I somehow need to make work that pulls me out of nihilism and functionality. I like putting together words and images that don’t normally appear together for the sake of generating an unusual spark in your brain. I have this weird association that combines Doo-wop music and deep space; When I was young I would stay up late to listen to this radio show called the “Doo-wop shop”, it always came on at about 2 or 3 in the morning and they played great doo-wop stuff that had this really vast emptiness to it, it seemed to wrap right around the dense silence outside and in my bedroom in a way that I’ll never forget. I’d always picture these old doo-wop groups singing from some remote satellite just echoing out through space, I think that’s a pretty big influence.

As busy as you are, it would appear you have little down time. When you do get it, what helps you unwind and relax?
Swimming, and old movies.