Interview: San Cisco

It’s 3:30pm and I’m upstairs in The Death Institute with Jordi and Scarlett, one half of San Cisco. They’ve just come to check out their room for the night and it’s grim: two bunk beds fill a tiny room. Jordi laughs it off with the type of carefree ease which runs through San Cisco’s eponymous debut album.

Recently completing a U.S tour and nearing the end of a European one, you’d think they might be lagging, but when I inquire about the toll, Jordi dismisses it with typical unconcern “America to home to back here”. So what about relaxing? “Whenever I go home I disappear for a while, like I do something completely different which usually involves surfing but on the road I go for runs. Scarlett goes for long walks by herself”. Scarlett tells me of their plans after the European tour: “going back home, chilling out for a bit, writing the next album”. Jordi is keener: “yer, yer, yer as soon as we get home, start writing and stuff”.

All this seems a bit fast: the album was only released in the U.K this month; but it’s easy to forget that it has been out for almost a year in Australia. San Cisco meanwhile undertook a mammoth session of touring. “U.S tour was pretty good. South by Southwest was really fun. Lollapalooza was definitely a highlight, we just had a really big crowd and yer it was fun”.

For an album filled with short, bright indie-pop melodies and catchy riffs, the darker tales of bittersweet relationships told in the lyrics are sometimes disconcerting: “I made a mix tape/ With all the songs that you hate”. Did they intend to create an album obsessed with love and relationships? “No it wasn’t the intention, I just find that the easiest thing to write about” says Jordi. “It’s probably where most of my emotions are or what I recognise.” And new material? “I haven’t really written a song all year, we’ve had so many life experiences and like grown up quite a bit so I dunno what’s gonna come out, got a few ideas, there will still be quite a few things on relationships, there’s just so much to write about, so many different view or angles you can take on it, and words”.

As with all new bands, San Cisco have been compared to everyone from Artic Monkeys to The Flaming Lips. I suggest Vampire Weekend and MGMT, but they seem hesitant, to affirm or dismiss their influence. Jordi begins, “I think that they were our inspirations. We used to play folk music and I think that they were sort of our inspirations to change. But I think you know, that real comparisons between us and them is that they just, we both play pop songs and that their pop songs are a little bit more… the jangly guitars”. Scarlett is likewise cautious about drawing comparisons. “In the end of the day they’re just influences, you don’t go out and try and replicate what you’re hearing”. They go on to cite listening to Metronomy, Gorillaz, and Dirty Projectors whilst making the album. “I guess you just sort of, we listen to lots of different music and you just take bits of like your musical knowledge, we’ll be playing and Scarlett will pull this reference from a song like thirty years ago about a drum roll and we’ll be able to translate it into what we’re doing. We won’t copy it. And you’re always doing that, it’s impossible to do something original” says Jordi. Scarlett adds “I think the way to move forward for us is to use technology. Josh uses a lot of synth stuff. You can’t reinvent the wheel”. Whatever, it’s clear their influences are disparate when I ask about what they listened to growing up, Jordi names “Jack Johnson”. Scarlett says “The White Stripes, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Reggae. Whatever my parents were into”. I suggest varied, “Big time” she replies.

As a young, new band I wonder what they make of the recent controversy about Spotify and its royalty payments to artists. “It’s a tricky one” Jordi says. “If it wasn’t for Spotify everyone would be stealing it anyway. I guess it’s sort of the middle ground between people stealing music and then buying it off iTunes. It’s a shame that it has even come to that, because it has crippled the music industry”. Scarlett, is likewise perceptive in her response: “realistically no one’s going to make lots of money from albums and if Spotify is getting people to your shows it’s a good thing and it is a bit shit how much they pay artists. It’s still different to owning the album. I don’t know why you’d  want to own a CD anymore.” At that I leave the two members: Scarlett studying her fingers, Jordi getting up already; Scarlett has eaten too much cake, Jordi wants to continue unloading, when is the next interview? They’re not sure. And something in that captures the chilled, bristling energy which defines San Cisco.

San Cisco’s self-titled debut album is out now.