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ROCKWiRED iNTERViEWS CONCHiTA CAMPOS EASE YOUR MiND Honey-voiced soul songstress CONCHITA CAMPOS demonstrates ease and confidence mixed with a few jazz flourishes on her debut CD ‘NO ONE REALLY KNOWS’. Two years, earlier, CAMPOS released her critically-acclaimed EP ‘SO IT GOES’ in which the singer songwriter exercised an acoustic sound that recalled INDIA ARIE. This time around, CAMPOS’ luxuriously crafted odes to the good, the bad and the ugly sides of romance are given a positively thumping backing thanks to the San Francisco-based hip-hop band THE PARK (British soul singer ALICE RUSSELL’s touring band). The buoyancy of the production can be attributed to both CAMPOS and long time pal (both personally and musically) RACHEL LASTIMOSA. “It’s always fun, no matter what the situation is.” says CAMPOS of working with LASTIMOSA. “In terms of energy, she is such a talented and skilled musician. She pretty much plays all of the instruments and has a good idea on how to put sounds together and where to put them in. Aside from the instrumentation and arrangement, she really knew how to bring out the exact emotion to bring out in whatever song I was singing. Her skill and her know-how was very important but her energy brought more out of me than on any other recording that I have ever done.” CONCHiTA CAMPOS TALKS TO ROCKWIRED ABOUT HER DEBUT CD NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WORKiNG WiTH RACHEL LASTiMOSA AND GiViNG LiSTENERS A SENSE THAT iT'LL ALL WORK OUT  iNTERViEWED BY BRiAN LUSH ROCKWIRED spoke with CONCHITA CAMPOS over the phone. Here is how it went. ‘NO ONE REALLY KNOWS’ is a nice little surprise! How do you feel about the finished work? I’m really proud of my work. I spent a year in San Francisco finishing it up and working with people who are really good friends of mine and are people that I really trust. One of my best friends from college ended up co-producing and arranging it so the album was a real collaborative effort. Both of us put our hearts into it and I’m happy with the project. If nothing else, it was a great representation of my work and the execution of it was as genuine as I could make it. How did music begin for you? I’ve been around music my whole life. My dad was a musician. He played piano and guitar and drums. He was in a band all throughout college but eventually moved onto something else. I always grew up around music because he collected a lot of records and I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of music. Ever since then, I’ve just been in love with it. When I got to college, I was like ‘should I major in this?’ I tried other things in college. I tried majoring in film and I tried communication and I ended up deciding that I would major in music and that’s what I did. Ever since then, I have just been playing and writing. In establishing your music identity, was there ever a single influence that guided you specifically? Growing up, my dad listened to so many different kinds of music but he loved Latin Jazz and he loved things like ELLA FITZGERALD and LOUIS ARMSTRONG. He collected a whole crap load of records from jazz to THE BEATLES to MICHAEL JACKSON and PRINCE. When my brother was in high school, he was in a rock band. So it was a lot of different things. I can listen to anything just as long as it’s intelligently created. Were the songs on this album written specifically for this album or did you have them around you for years? I had one or two songs that were written prior to the album being made but during the album making process, a theme had come together and all of the songs ended up being one cohesive group of songs. Prior to working on this album, how did the songwriting process work for you? It’s different every time and it also depends on what instrument I’m using. I play both piano and guitar and primarily compose on those two instruments. With guitar, I’ve noticed that I start with some kind of rhythm. On piano, usually a melody comes first. The lyrics always follow either the melody or the rhythm that I have constructed. In terms of songwriting for this album, was there ever any collaboration? Most of the songwriting I did myself but one of the songs – ‘CHANGES’- was co-written by my friend who co-produced and arranged the album. Although most of the songwriting was my doing, just the general arrangement and the production of the album was a collaborative effort with all of them musicians that I worked with especially with RACHEL LASTIMOSA (the album’s co-producer and arranger). The two of us really sat down together and worked out what the instrumentation on this album was going to be. The backing band - that I worked with on five of the tracks – are an established rhythm section in the Bay Area. They play with a lot of notable figures in the music industry. They had a lot of input as well in terms of instrumentation and arrangements. Describe working with RACHEL LASTIMOSA. What was it that she brought to the table musically and personality-wise that made the whole process work for you? RACHEL is one of my best friends form college so when we are together we are just ridiculous. It’s always fun, no matter what the situation is. In terms of energy, she is such a talented and skilled musician. She pretty much plays all of the instruments and has a good idea on how to put sounds together and where to put them in. Aside from the instrumentation and arrangement, she really knew how to bring out the exact emotion to bring out in whatever song I was singing. Her skill and her know-how was very important but her energy brought more out of me than on any other recording that I had ever done. From the album, what songs resonate for you the most and why? It depends on my mood. NOT TODAY and EASE MY MIND tend to resonate for me the most. Those two songs just have a feeling of nostalgia for me. I wrote both of them in San Francisco when I was in the middle of recording the album. I moved there from New York to work on this album and these songs bring about a longing for New York. Are there any live performances lined up in the near future? I have a west Coast release party in San Francisco on January 30th with RACHEL’s band. Will there be any videos for any of these songs? Some of them sound like they would go great with some sort of visual accompaniment. The guy who did the photography for my website and the album wants to do a video. We’re hoping to have one done in early 2010. Hopefully, we’ll have something soon. What would you like someone to come away with after they’ve heard this album? With this album, I wasn’t trying answer the difficult questions that life throws at you. The music is all about figuring things out and who I am and what I want to be. Hopefully some one will listen to the album and will feel the same things I was feeling as I was going through the process of making it. Hopefully they will come away form it feeling that even if we don’t have all the answers, so what? Maybe they won’t feel alone in all of the confusion and get a sense of a underlying sense of hope. |
