Krisp’s infectious electro-rock grooves continue to enchant the Magic City audience. By mixing dance melodies with electro-indie rock, the quartet developed a unique sound through experimentation. Krisp inhabits self-confidence in their development as a band and the music they’ve created. I sat with the boys this past Monday night at South Florida Recording Studios to discuss their September 3rd show at Grand Central, the release of their upcoming LP, Sonic Monarch, and John McEnroe’s influence on the band.
Krisp is:
Roberto Villar (drums)
Alejandro Lopez a.k.a. El Chido (bass)
Juan Andres Ledesma a.k.a. Junior (guitar and vocals)
Carlos Troncoso a.k.a. Charlie Woods (synths and vocals)
Juan: I met Carlos first through a mutual friend a while ago and Carlos met Chido through another friend. They had a band and I had a band, we were all sharing the same studio/practice spot. Chido ended up playing bass for my project that later disintegrated. Then he and I started a project and Carlos kind of jumped on board.
Juan: I don’t think we were set on what (sound) but we were definitely sure of what we didn’t want.
Juan: Whatever we were playing before.
Carlos: Poppy shit.
Juan: We were learning from our past bands and the stops you get to and trying to avoid that. Musically, we were listening to the same stuff and had chemistry. But we were never like: ‘We’re gonna be like this band or that band.’ Our style is kind of developed through jams.
Juan: I don’t know how to answer that. I see songs fitting in a certain spot. For example, Black Mamba is usually a song that whether we play it first, last, or in the middle is usually a crowd pleaser.
Roberto: I like 167 because I love the drums on the song and it allows me to do things on that song that I don’t get to do on others.
Carlos: I like two songs. I really like Dust because of the dynamics and Mamani Vice because it’s cheesy but it makes everyone dance. To me, the song sounds like sarcasm.
Chido: My favorite song lately is When You Coming Home. It’s one of our first songs we ever wrote and because when we wrote it, it came out so naturally. It’s so much fun to play.
Juan: Too many to mention. Circumstances really. It’s just played out that way.
Carlos: Actually we have a new album coming out on November 20th called Sonic Monarch. We spent 9 months working on it.
Juan: It’s got 8 songs so it’s a full LP. One of the main reasons for the delay in the release of the LP is because it apparently takes a while to print on vinyl nowadays. There are only limited companies that are pressing and everyone wants to put their stuff out on wax. The album has been done for 8 months but sorting through everything has stalled the release.
Juan: From my perspective, it’s always happened at practice by fooling around with different ideas.
Chido: All of our songs have been written through open jams. I’ll come up with a bass line, someone else will add something else to it, then we’ll start singing the melody and that’s it. It’s born that way.
Chido: Lately we’ve been focusing on the songs and the order of the songs and how they fit into each other but we’d like to do something more theatrical. We have this fog machine. Actually, it’s more of a cloud machine we purchased through Kryogenefix. It’s basically a nitrogen tank that bellows out this huge cloud that envelops the entire room.
Chido: We used to do it before. We used to get dressed up. For example, during our first shows, we used to dress up like 80s tennis players—short shorts and headbands. Then we dressed in hazmat suits.
Juan: White painting suits.
Chido: Right.
Juan: Going back to the tennis player outfits, I think it was more, what the fuck was his name?
Chido: John McEnroe.
Chido: Yeah. When I yell at these guys, for sure! (Stands up and starts jokingly yelling and cursing at everyone in the room)
Juan: But honestly, we stopped doing that stuff (referring to the costumes). It got too gimmicky. It was taking away from the music.
Juan: For the new album, we worked with our friend Ian Mercel. How did that happen? (He turns to Carlos)
Carlos: I knew him from Setai Recording Studios when I worked there. I told him about my band and how we sounded all indie dance-like, and he kind of got interested. We then asked him to help us out with the album and he started showing up at our practices.
Carlos: I think dynamics.
Chido: Big time.
Juan: Structure. All of our songs were 7 minutes long and he came in and said not to do that.
Carlos: We trust him.
Carlos: Drama Dance.
Roberto: Groovy.
Chido: Orgasmic.
Juan: Fuck man, I’m no good at this.
Juan: That we don’t get along. (Everyone laughs)
Chido: That we’re good and they’re not.
Juan: No that’s bullshit. There are a bunch of really good bands in Miami.
Carlos: I think we are trying to do something different with energy. I don’t think there are a lot of people doing dance music in a band.
Roberto: I agree with Charlie. I don’t think many bands like us that are doing music that makes your body move.
Chido: It’s funny because (in the beginning) we were going for a more indie, electro/dance (sound). But now everyone is doing that so we’ve slowly moved away from that. We’re now just doing what comes out naturally and organic. I mean, at one point we all had keyboards and now we’re just going back to the basics—basic rock rhythms and funk. We basically went the complete opposite of what everybody else is trying to do now.
Don’t miss Krisp at Grand Central on September 3rd opening for Who Made Who and Pompeya
Author: Santi Sanz | @santivity