In preparation for his upcoming tour and album, iconic Mexican singer/songwriter León Larregui talks with Off Record about all things music, touring, and favorite museums.
León Larregui is known for works with rock en español band Zoé, along with collaborations with Natalia Lafourcade, Caifanes and Mon Laferte. He has also released two solo albums Solstis (2012) and Voluma (2016), with a brand new album on the way. Leon Larregui will be making his way down to Texas in Mid-May with stops in El Paso, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and McAllen. Leon’s 3rd solo album Prismarama will be released on May 11th. Off Record Blog had the opportunity to catch Larregui before he embarked on the tour:
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ORB: How are you doing? What have you been doing in your free time besides getting ready for tour?
León Larregui (LL): I’m so happy to present this new stage of my life, especially the album, which will be fifteen songs. In February we started releasing the songs in pairs in February – two in February, two in March, and two in April, then the main Album May 11th. The tour will start before the album is released and I will be playing the new songs for the first week of the tour, which is going to be cool.
ORB: Let’s talk about your upcoming solo album Prismarama! Your works sound very different from the stuff you make with Zoé! How would you describe the transition from finishing Sonidos de Karmatica Resonancia to this mindset of Prismarama?
LL: I did my first solo album, Solstis, in 2012. I was looking to experiment in this branch of songs that I wouldn’t consider to be part of the sound of Zoé. I was experimenting with the bossa nova and bolero sound, things that I felt were very personal. This new album is the continuation of this path where I’ve been experimenting in solo mode. It sounds different because I give myself a chance to experiment with things that maybe Zoé wouldn’t experiment with because of the sonic identity. For example, I played around with slow Columbian sounds and malaria rock & roll. This space is my solo work, where I experiment or give myself the chance to experiment with the sound.
ORB: How is Prismarama going to be different from Solstis and Voluma?
LL: In my first album, we couldn’t use, for example, synthesizers because everything was super organic. It was just cameras, drones and bass guitars. In Voluma (the second one you mentioned was released in 2015, or 2016), that’s where I included a new mode, where we could introduce synthesizers. The new album is relevant, and I call it Prismarama because I felt like there’s so many colors. There’s 15 tracks, and all of them are very different. It sounds so different from each other rather than just showing us different colors! Like every morning when I started working, I would pull out a card and I wouldn’t know how to read it out, but it allowed me to put the true experiment to the test. I would think, what would this image be? So yeah, it was really interesting to use that tool to solve. I also think Chris Moran has a very experimental style that is really cool, which is what I also wanted to do. I was really looking just to explore myself and to react, to play with something I haven’t done before.
ORB: The Zoé Documentary + album Panoramas was released in 2017, and it showed the band’s songwriting journeys in depth. Do you have the same songwriting process for your solo works? What was the songwriting process like for Prismarama?
LL: I mean, for Zoé, everybody writes in their free time and then when it’s time for a new album, we get together and then we choose the best songs. We also write together, usually it’s like a song or two. In this case, they are all my songs! I always put the lyrics at the end. I feel like when you try out anchor text, you have a point where you roll with whatever you like, and it limits the melody. I worked through the melody, and I put the words that go with the metric. They were just phonetics of that memory, and that’s the technique I used, something that’s always felt natural for me. This album is no different in that aspect. For this album, the main thing is that I produced it myself. The last two albums were produced by Adan Jodorowsky, and this time I wanted to do it myself. My wife also pushed me to do so, she told me that my songs sound completely different from when I play them around the house versus when they come back. Producing was a big challenge for me – I’ve been in the music scene for about 30 years but I’ve never done it myself. You need a challenge, otherwise, everything becomes a repetition of what you’ve done before. I discovered that having the objectivity of the artist and the producer is hard, because it needs to be distanced. Because of this, I invited Sergio Acosta (the guitarist of Zoé), Felipe (the drummer of the band I have now) and Jack (the guy that worked with me on previous albums in Paris) to help give me some input because at some point I was like “I lost it”. (laughs) In the end, we didn’t change anything and I didn’t want anyone to reinterpret my ideas! They definitely helped with confidence and took it in a good direction. I was looking to do something different and creative for myself.
ORB: Your art direction is very unique! How do you come up with artwork ideas for your singles and albums? Does it correspond with the song or is it you exploring your creative art side?
LL: I’m more involved with the videos, I directed two of the six videos that are out already, as well as the video that will be coming out soon. I am involved with the visual aspects in a way that illustrates the music. I have this amazing “Dupla” [team] with my cousin Andrea, and she helps me put down the ideas for the artwork. For the album cover, I met this Irish painter last summer, and I loved his work, so I invited him to do the cover! The cover of the album is essentially a painting of my friend Peter Doyle. One of the videos that I didn’t direct, I invited a filmmaker to do the video that steers away from your typical music video. I wanted to have more of something you can see in a gallery. Inviting such beautiful, genius artists to work with was great.
ORB: Do these beautiful, genius artists also have something to do with the visual elements for the tour?
LL: (laughs) No, I mean, there’s such an idea of integrating those visuals into the live aspect. We’re still in the planning stages, especially for the big concerts where we can integrate dance and backdrops. I’m referencing the video for “Alba,” which features works from Mexican Israeli artists, a really cool aspect and experience. Otherwise, we have the scenography designed. Part of the scenography is in the latest video that I directed, so it can be coherent. We’re still developing this idea for the US tour, and then expand it even more when we go to Mexico, as we’re playing bigger places.
ORB: Your tour starts pretty soon! You have been in the game for so long and have done multiple tours, both solo and with Zoé. How do you keep yourself balanced? Do you have any pre-show rituals or daily things you take part in?
LL: We always try to eat well, and sometimes it’s hard to find the right food. We also like to go running, since a lot of the time we have dead hours. We also like to go to museums, but if we aren’t in a city with cool museums, we like to go to the park or do something together with the team. We do a lot of soundchecking and then we travel, it’s really intense, but you learn how to survive it. It’s a challenge, but the moment is unforgettable, you make memories from these experiences, you witness the emotions come and go, and you get to see all these cool interesting things. I love to spend time with my family in between tours as much time as I can, as they really keep grounded. Hotels and traveling can get lonely, and my family keeps me sane (laughs).
ORB: You like to go to a lot of museums when you go on tour. What’s your favorite museum that you’ve been to?
LL: New York has the Frick Collection, which is one of my favorites because of the really old paintings. We also love visiting contemporary art museums in big cities like in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Oh we also love going to places with weird or private collections! Last year, when we were touring with Zoé, we visited this town that featured cowboy Wyatt Earp and they kept the wild wild west town as it is. The whole town is an experience that you live in the wild wild west! We stayed the night in a house that belonged to Wyatt Earp, and this is just one of the crazy experiences you get to see on tour. This is out of context in terms of museums, but I consider these cities to be very historic.
You guys have been to Texas a lot! Have you guys visited Marfa, the little town near El Paso?
LL: No, that’s actually on my bucket list! A lot of people tell me that I have to go, so maybe this time around we’ll head down there. A lot of the time, we’ll try to visit interesting places around the city, even if it’s not that close. We’ll go on the off day to visit the places! We went to Phoenix and we went to the house/school that belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright, and it was amazing. I love seeing beautiful architecture.
We hope you get to visit Marfa this time around! Just a quick wrap before we let you go, everybody wants to know – what’s your favorite thing to do in Texas?
LL: I love Texas, the history is super rich. I always like telling stories about when Zoé was barely starting, we used to play South by Southwest in Austin a lot. Austin is definitely the place where everyone is moving to now! I have a lot of friends that live there. I just love Texas in general, it used to be a part of Mexico where I’m from. It’s so huge, so amazing. I love doing anything and everything in Texas.
(NOTE: ALL OF OFF RECORD BLOG INTERVIEWS ARE MINIMALLY EDITED FOR LENGTH)
Keylee is a full-time music journalist/photographer from Houston, Texas. She has received a B.S in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as an M.A in Mass Communications from the University of Houston. As an avid concert-goer and movie fanatic, she aspires to create her own path as a content creator by bonding with others over the power of local music and media. If she isn’t listening to her favorite band Paramore, you’ll catch her hanging out with her brothers or playing with her husky Luna.
