Agoraphobia – U.S. Debut at SXSW

By Angel AguilarMarch 11, 2015AB's Top Music News, Music
Agoraphobia – U.S. Debut at SXSW
By Angel Aguilar | March 11, 2015

 

Agoraphobia – U.S. Debut at SXSW

Photo Credit: DotBeat!

 

From the town of Boiro in the A Coruña region of Spain, an all girl band by the name of Agoraphobia has been making some noise since 2006, and after participating in several music competitions in Spain and opening for several top artist, the band released their debut EP, Dirty Little Things in 2013, and next week, Agoraphobia will make their U.S. debut at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX.

Agoraphobia, whose band name was taken from the Incubus song, “Agoraphobia”, has been described as an indie garage rock band, but there’s so much more to this band as they explore the confines of the American blues and rock & roll with a little bit of the glam of 70’s British rock and the energy of punk, and, they sing in English.

To learn more about this Spanish band, we spoke via telephone all the way from Spain with Aislinn, lyricist, guitarist and backing vocals.

Al Borde (AB) – Tell us how you feel about your first visit to the U.S.

Aislinn – For us is a dream to be able to play outside of Spain, we are small town girls and to be playing Austin, TX, it’s simply incredible.  We are also looking forward to getting to know the city, the culture, all the great music and meeting the musicians and all the different people who participate at the festival and then we just found out that Incubus has been confirmed to be playing SXWW, so I hope we have the time to take it all in.

AB- Tell us about the history of Agoraphobia

Aislinn – We started when we were about 17 and still in school and we loved punk music, so a group of 4 of us decided to put a band together.  We didn’t know how to play, but we taught ourselves and we began playing punk music in Spanish with lyrics that touched on the social situation in our surroundings. As school continued, the band slowed down and some members took different paths in life and from the original line up there’s only the lead singer Susana and me left.  Our music has changed as we learned more about music and as we matured and the music is now more rock & roll and more garage rock.   Although we still sing about social issues, we now do it with a touch of sarcasm but the ideas are still there and we also decided to sing in English as we like the way the language sounds.

AB – In Spain there are several bands that sing in English, like Dover, Bigott, Los Labios and others, have you ever had issues with the Spanish music fans for singing in English?

Aislinn – We have had some people come to us and questioned us about it, they tell us that we should sing in Spanish or even Galician, which is the language of our region in Spain, as they would be able to understand us better, but we like to sing in English and we feel that people will get into our lyrics even more as they will have to try to understand and even make them their own, and English is also an international language, which can reach more people.

 

AB – Tell us about your album Dirty Little Things, as it has a very urgent and refreshing sound?

Aislinn – We are very spontaneous as musicians and we like to try out new things and if we like it, we try to incorporate it to what we are working on. While we were recording in Madrid, Sabela, the other guitarist, and I would stay in our rooms playing around with different arrangements and when we went back to the studio we would try them out and many of those last minute arrangements ended up in the album.

AB – Do you have any plans to come back to the U.S. after SXSW?

Aislinn – At this point we don’t have anything confirmed yet, but we do want to come back to the U.S. and we also want to play in Mexico and other places in America.

Agoraphobia will be having two showcases at the SXSW festival, the first one on Thursday March 19, at 10 p.m. at Javelina on 69 Rainey St. and Saturday March 21, at 11 p.m. at the Clive Bar on 609 Davis St.

You can follow Agoraphobia on Facebook and you can download their album in iTunes and it can also be streamed on Spotify.