I: Well, first of all, I wanted to let you know that we're very pleased to be able to interview you and have you playing here in Seville, so thank you very much for your time, and it won’t be much, ok?
WP: Ok.
I: So, first we’d like to know, inside the musical movements and genre spectrum, where would you place your music?
WP: Err… indie-rock.
I: Ok, and what would you say that you intend to transmit with your songs?
WP: Err… different things with different songs, in general, as for the music to have energy and to be quite raw and no effect or anything on it. But in the lyrics it’s all different things from song to song so it’s kind of something that you could dance to but also maybe be moving emotional space (not sure)
I: Yeah, so could you tell us a little about how making an album works for The Wave Pictures?
WP: Yeah, with pleasure, yeah! Well, to begin with, I write a bunch of songs and then the three of us play them together in a room, and then we pick a studio and we go and record them, we just record live as much as possible, very few overdubs here and there… little things and just try to get a good sound, a good drum sound and trying to make something as lively as possible. What we call natural sounding, which isn’t really natural, but it’s our idea of natural sounding: sounding like a band playing in a room so you hear the sound of the room and you can imagine us standing in the room. That’s the idea, yeah.
I: And, which would you say that are your main musicians or bands that have influenced you over the years?
WP: The Violent Femmes was a very big one when we were young, and The Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, Herman Düne, and lately more older things like Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Lee Hooker and, um, The Rolling Stones very much with the guitars and, yeah.
I: Ok, well, I know this is a question that maybe you have been asked many times, but I’m curious about it, how did you come up with the current name of the band, like, The Wave Pictures? What does it mean to you?
WP: It’s meaningless now to me, because we had it for so long, the name, that’s… it’s just what we’re called, but the name comes from an artbook called Arts Now, and an artist called Zoey Leonard, she did a series of pictures of the sea and she called it the Wave Pictures, and that’s it, really, it was one day I said to Fran 'Shall we be called The Wave Pictures?' and he said 'Yes', and that's it, and then we stopped thinking about it, you know. You spend ages trying to come up with a name when you form a band, and then whatever you call yourselves it's just what you’re called, it has no meaning whether it is a good name or a bad name, it’s just who you are, you know. So… it seems to matter a lot, to begin with, but then it doesn't matter at all for the rest of your life.
I: And, what motivations would you say that led you to cover Daniel Johnston, how did you come up with this idea?
WP: Uh, we did a tour as his backing band and support band a couple of years ago now, maybe three or four years ago, and we've always really liked his music, and we got asked to do a tour cover in our album, and we all really liked that album, 'Artistic Vice', uh, and his songs are really great, and we had such a good time playing with him on that tour, always, yeah, thought that his songs were great and made people happy, definitely made us happy, yeah, it seemed like a quite natural choice for us to do.
I: Any more specific reasons why you would cover 'Artistic Vice' in particular?
WP: Uh, well, specifically because there's a, you can do a lot with the songs, but the songs still come through very strong. So, a lot of albums that we considered doing we realized very quickly you would have to play the exact arrangement that they played on the record, and with 'Artistic Vice' you can play the songs kind of however you want, so we do some in a what we would think of as a 'tropical style' and then some we do rock and roll style, and some we do as country songs, and the songs still come through, so it makes it very fun for us to play, and we didn't have to sit around rehearsing it for ages saying 'This goes there' and 'That goes there', 'cause we get really bored really quickly if we rehearse, so we were looking for something that we could just do what we wanted with it, and like Johnny said we really feel a connection with Daniel Johnston 'cause we played with him and met him and love playing his songs, so for all those reasons I guess, yeah.
I: So, you've already played with amazing musicians but, if you could play with anyone, anyone at all, who would they be?
WP: (Hesitate) Well, if we could pull off playing with John Lee Hooker, might be fun, if we could join John Lee Hooker. Yes, well, I assume we could play with anyone, whether they're dead or alive, it's probably not going to happen anyway. We always think Bob Dylan could make some better albums if he had us as his band, he's gone a bit boring, we'd liven up his band a bit, I think. John Fogerty is still alive! Maybe we could be John Fogerty's band! Yeah, if John Fogerty's listening, we would be your band very happily.
I: And, do you mind answering, if you could play with anyone, anyone at all in the world, who would they be?
WP: (Hesitate) (Background: 'It's tough for him because he's already playing with us!/ 'Surely you're already playing with the top, top players!') I know, I know, I was going to say that, the playing with The Wave Pictures, 'cause I'm not really in The Wave Pictures, I'm just like...
I: That dream already came true.
WP: I know, exactly, yeah, but my dream's come true, that's how it is, so.
I: Ok, thank you.
WP: That's what Dave actually told us, Dave told us the other day that he no longer fears death, because he's experienced the highs of playing with The Wave Pictures, so he doesn't anymore, he could die now a happy man, a fulfilled man, but yeah.
I: Ok, so, finally, how would you define or describe your live performance, you know, for those potential attendees to a Wave Pictures' show in the future?
WP: Well, it's, for us, very fun to play, so it's, uh, the most important part of the band really, the live show... And how would I describe it to someone? It's super rocking, and there's a lot of bass guitar solos, and Franic is the best bass guitar player in the world, definitely, so that's the first thing I would say. And, uh, you've just got to come and see it.
I: Ok, well, thank you very much.
