Los Campesinos! Interview - Ollie Campesinos!

New semi-album/ep "We are Beautiful, We are Doomed" is coming out soon. We had great privilege to talk about it with one and only Ollie Campesinos!

A while ago we have been talking about "Hold on now youngsters" but mere months have passed and here you are with another great album worth collections of songs. I've seen you saying this is not your second album, so what exactly "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" is?

We had always intended to bring out an ep to keep the output continuous. We like playing new songs and we feel audiences appreciate it if bands play new stuff instead of playing the same songs all the time. We recorded 10 tracks and we liked each of them so much we decided to put them all on the record. We have to admit that it is a long ep but we still regard it as an ep rather than the "second" album. We didn't go into the studio with the mindset of recording an album.

Even is it's not an album, "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" is quite an amazing collection. Where did those songs come from? What's the story behind it? I thought you'll be quite busy with Touring and all that.

Tom is always coming up with ideas so some of the songs were musically completed before we toured North america in the spring. However many of the lyrics were written whilst on the road. Gareth took some of his experiences and turned them into lyrics. In your newsletter, you said that "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" will have no singles? How come? In our opinion some of the songs on it deserve to be singles (especially You'll Need Those Fingers For Crossing).

We didn't want to put out singles because of the whole idea of it not being an album. Generally singles aren't released off eps. Thank you for thinking that they deserve to be singles.

The interesting thing about "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" is that it comes with bonus DVD and fanzine written by some of your heroes. How did this collaboration came to be? Are they interconnected with themes on the album?

As it wasn't going to be an album we wanted it to be more special therefore there is the dvd and the fanzine. Touring and playing festivals enables you to meet your heroes so Gareth managed to ask people to contribute. The topic was to write a piece with the title We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed and the contributions are brilliant! www.shredyrface.com is quite an interesting idea. Can you tell us the story behind it? Can we expect the same coverage on the european tour? It would be a neat thing to have.

We like to tour with bands that we like and we wanted it to be extra special and allow more involvement from the audiences so this seemed the best way of doing it. To avoid sounding arrogant we just want it to be an amazing tour and for people to regard it as one of the best tours ever. You will be able to expect the same thing from the European tour.

So when can we expected proper second album?

We will be recording it next year so it will out either end of 2009 or early 2010.

Thanks a lot for another great collection of songs and here's hoping for the third interview to come soon.

With it's limited run "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" is destined to become collectors item in the years to come. It mights easily become long-lost Los Campesions! cd. So preorder it now to save disappointment because "WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED" is not something you want to miss.

kris // 14/10/2008