Álvaro Benito (Pignoise): "I Used to Find It Harder to Express Myself Openly"

After celebrating their twentieth anniversary as a band, Pignoise, the pop-rock trio consisting of Álvaro Benito (guitar and vocals), Pablo Alonso (bass and backing vocals), and Héctor Polo (drums), is looking ahead. They are doing so by releasing 'Amanecer' this Friday, the first single of their new musical phase, a track that revives the bold and emotional tone that has always defined the group, with lyrics exploring confusion, weariness, and the need to escape when everything is shaking. The band, which sounds authentic, streetwise, and unfiltered once again, is already preparing a new album that "will be out after the summer," they announce following an acoustic performance in the living room of one of the homes in the HomeExchange community.

-What are your expectations with this new album? It's been many years of career, and the music scene is very different from what it used to be.

-Álvaro Benito: The last album was in 2021, so it was about time. In between, there was the 20th anniversary, which is why it took us so long to release the album. The truth is that facing a new album is difficult because you've already released many and made many songs... A band has to maintain an essence, a coherence, I mean, people who listen to the songs, who buy the album, should say: "It sounds like the Pignoise of always, but it surprises me." So, as albums go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to reach that point. But well, the truth is that I've gone into an intensive composing frenzy, and we are super happy with the album. I don't know how people will receive it, but we are very happy and eager to see the feedback from people.

-How do you maintain the style? Does getting older mean you can't sing the same things as before?

-Á. B.: Yes, and I also think that when I started writing songs, I found it harder to express myself and open up without reservations. Also, when I was starting with Pignoise, I didn't have the tools I have now as a songwriter. The lyrics were more naive, different. This album has songs with a richer message.

-Regarding the audience, do you notice much difference between the audience from twenty years ago and now? Is it people who have been following you since then, or is it new?

-Pablo Alonso: They have known us for 20 years, yes, because they were 2, 3, or 4 years old when we were at our peak. They couldn't come to the concerts; it was an audience we didn't know we had. Before, minors couldn't enter the venues. So there are many people now who are 22, 23, 24 years old and tell us it's the first time they've seen us in concert, even though they've been listening to us since they were 6 years old.

-Á. B.: It's surprising how many young people come to see us. In this concert, there was an example of a mother who has been playing our songs to her daughter since she was little. And it also happens with older siblings and younger siblings. Or simply because kids keep playing the songs in bars, at friends' gatherings. When we came back after those almost 6 years without playing, what surprised us the most was that. We thought: "Where do these 18-year-olds who know all the songs come from?"

-Héctor Polo: Most of our audience is between 25 and 35 years old. It's quite a young audience.

-And after the album, will there be a tour?

-Á. B.: This summer, we will first do festivals, which we've been doing for a couple of years, and after the summer, we'll release the album, and we don't know yet when we'll do the tour, whether in spring or after summer.

-Will there be collaborations?

-P. A.: No, not for now. We released an album, the 20th anniversary one, with twelve collaborations. We don't rule out that once the album is out, we might release an extra song that we can do with friends we want to play with, but not on the album.

-We are going through a somewhat melancholic period. Many bands are coming back, there's a 'boom' of nostalgic festivals in 'remember' mode... How do you see it?

-P. A.: I suppose people miss bands that play live, so it's logical. When you go to a live show, what are you going to listen to? Live music, right? Going to listen to music that is already pre-recorded and triggered makes less sense to me. I don't undervalue it, but the charm of live music is listening to things live; otherwise, there's the album. And live music has to be what you feel, what comes out. Songs don't always sound the same live. There are days when you sing them one way and others when you sing them another.

-Á. B.: For me, the 'remember' thing is a bit of a lie because when people go to see ACDC or the Rolling Stones, they don't go for their latest album. So, what is that? A remember? Those who go to see Melendi do so because they like Melendi, not because they want to do a 'remember' of his songs.

-P. A.: It's a bit like the lyrics you mentioned earlier. The Ramones spent 40 years playing and making the same lyrics all their lives, and they went out to play and sang songs from high school when they were 50 years old. But that was their thing; they were the Ramones. Here, what happens is that we sing in Spanish, and the lyrics we made when we were 20 years old are not the same as we make now, but there are bands that do it, and they're really cool. I find it totally respectable. You have to know how to defend your music at the moment you're in. We try to make songs that we like because if we don't like them, there's no point in releasing the album. We have to fall in love with the songs. Now we're struggling with having 20 songs and not knowing which ones to include in the album.

-Has the creative process been complicated, or has it come out automatically?

-P. A.: We've been working on the new album for almost a year and a half.

-Á. B.: There are already 80 demoed songs; it's crazy.

-H. P.: To give you an idea, a month and a half ago, the album was going to have 12 songs that were more or less chosen. Of those, three remain because Álvaro keeps composing.

-P. A.: And we can't stop that process because you never know when the definitive song will come out. He keeps making songs, passing them to us, and we keep liking them.

-Á. B.: My hobby is making songs. It relaxes me, I like it, and I'm eager to have some time in the day to start composing.

-P. A.: It drives us crazy because, in the end, we don't know which one to include (laughs).

-Have you discarded any song that you later recovered?

-Á. B.: I'm very much about looking forward.

-P. A.: I have a bunch of folders... With 'El tiempo y el espacio', we spent a year without playing to make the album and recorded a hundred or so songs at my house. They were demoed, recorded, drums, guitars, lyrics, vocals, everything. Thirteen were chosen for the album. So, I have 90 folders at home of songs we've never revisited. We compose in processes.

-Á. B.: For me, an album is a vital moment, and it has to reflect that moment. In the end, I listen to one of my songs from five years ago, and I know it's from five years ago. To me, it already sounds old. Although maybe I play it for you, and you say "it sounds the same," to me, it doesn't. I know how I change the methodology.

-P. A.: The same happens to me. I listen to the songs from the previous album, and it doesn't seem like the moment now. I wouldn't take any from the 'Diversión' album to include in this one, for example. And there were great songs in 'Diversión'.

-Á. B.: The thing is, when the repertoire was closed, it seemed to me that the songs were cool, but the album was a bit serious. So I said it had to be more mischievous, and that's how it turned out. We recovered a bit of the spirit of the first albums with the current texts.

-And now that many artists release an album every year or year and a half... Can you imagine doing that?

-Á. B.: It depends a bit on your functional need. Fortunately, with one album, we can tour for two years and then take a year off, release another album... We go more or less at one album every three years. But I understand that other bands that still need to climb need a diffusion tool because right now, Spotify, for example, only picks up new works.

-How has the industry changed all this time? Twenty years ago, many more albums were sold than now...

-Á. B.: We already experienced the time when they weren't selling. Now a lot of music is consumed, more than ever, but the money that record companies earned, which ultimately affected everything because if record companies had money, it affected you making better music videos or recording in better studios and having many more tools... That money disappeared. Now record companies are cutting back a lot, but fortunately, on the other hand, there's more live music than ever. Now there are 900 festivals a year in Spain, and you can be playing if things go well, 50 or 60 concerts calmly and very happily.

-P. A.: And festivals allow you to play without the expense of going out alone to play in a city. The festival puts you in front of an audience that isn't yours. Before, you had to rent the venues.

-Á. B.: And also, Spotify has a good thing, which is that you don't need to make a physical album to get your music known. The fact of being able to release digitally helps emerging artists a lot.

-P. A.: You can even record the album at home, upload it to Spotify, and suddenly, maybe if it hits, imagine. Before, you had to go through the process of going to the studio, spending a lot of money, saving to enter the studio, to record a demo. We had to give concerts to save money to record the first demo because it was expensive. Now we record at Álvaro's house or mine. We've always tried to find a way to work comfortably and with time. In the studios, you had limited time and high costs.