At 43, the Chilean singer-songwriter Gepe has been traveling back in time. “Maybe it’s an age thing, but lately I’ve been connecting with my childhood,” he says. “Many of my friends are also paying attention to the music that they listened to when they were kids. Must be a sign of the times.”
The artist says that so many of his childhood memories — and the music he grew up on — shaped his just-released album UNDESASTRE, one of the most exquisitely layered projects of his career. Since the release of Gepinto, his acclaimed solo debut in 2005, Gepe’s sound has followed an ethereal pop vein, enriched by incursions into the traditional folk roots that inform so much of Chile’s current scene. He is also self-assured enough to dive with authority into reggae, cumbia and electronica.
Boasting stellar contributions by Mon Laferte, Colombia’s Monsieur Periné, and Café Tacvba lead singer Rubén Albarrán, among others, UNDESASTRE takes his vision further. Just when things get a little too precious (like in the languid pop candy of “playaplaya”), Gepe keeps things edgy by interpolating random snippets of field recordings — that’s the daughter of iconic singer Violeta Parra at the tail end of opening cut “araña pollito” — and lets his imagination go wild on soaring gems like “Paloma” and the orchestral “DESASTRE.”
Connecting via Zoom from Mexico City, Gepe talked to Rolling Stone about his fusion of styles, the influence of folk music, and the importance of allowing songs to remain emotionally vulnerable.
Did you ever imagine that you would be doing press to promote your tenth album?
I never even thought I would get to make a single record. My musical dreams were just that, something like an open secret. I grew up in a middle class family from Santiago de Chile, a world where being a musician didn’t seem tangible unless you had money or came from a musical family, which was definitely not my case. It was seen as some sort of hobby. In order to preserve my mental sanity, I’ve always approached the future in short-term increments. Now I’m going to make a good album, now I’ll try to play the best possible show, now I’ll enjoy doing this interview — those kinds of things. Outlining a plan for world domination would have been too neurotic.
You spent a long time producing this record. Why?
My third album, Audiovisión, was a long time in the making, and the experience left me with an unpleasant aftertaste. Now, I found myself with the desire and resources to take my time and finish this record only when I felt that I was fully done. We worked on tracks like “playaplaya” and “DESASTRE” over a long period of time, letting them rest and revisiting with fresh ears.
I’ve always loved the Spanish word for failure: desastre. Why is this album called UNDESASTRE (“A Disaster”)?
This was the first time where I had the album title and cover art before we started recording. I wanted to give this record some sort of theoretical framework, and I thought that naming it UNDESASTRE left the songs unprotected — it made them vulnerable. Most people will tell you, “How can you name your record like that?” But these are broken songs, and the person singing them is in a state that fluctuates from euphoria to madness and melancholia. Calling it a disaster is like leaving a trash bag open. I was also influenced by photographer Erik Kessels and his book Qué Desastre, where he compiles a bunch of botched pictures and generates a sense of visual poetry from them.
Like many Chilean musicians of your generation, your songs include plenty of folk references —the sharp crackling of wood, the purity of stringed instruments…
Our tradition is anchored on the charango, cuatro and arpa paraguaya. That sense of fragility and austerity has been there since the days of Violeta Parra. Most of the people in my band are folk musicians. “araña pollito” is like a tango with a Venezuelan air to it. “Paloma” draws from Andean and Afro-Colombian sounds. “Bandera de Arena,” is a tonada, an ancient song format from the central region of Chile.
You are also known for blending pop with many other genres.
Growing up, I was the youngest in my family, and I listened to the records that everybody else was playing. My cousin loved Latin rock, and my neighbors listened to Chilean metal and rap. I grew up with this colorful salad of sounds that seemed perfectly normal to me. On a single day, I would listen to Blur and Los Tres, Violeta Parra, and Rage Against the Machine. In my music-making process, it’s all about the song. It can be a bachata, bolero, tango or cueca. What matters is taking those elements to their fullest and most honest potential.
“DESASTRE” is such a grand, gorgeous track — the orchestral arrangement, and the piano at the end.
That song marks my first foray into Paul McCartney territory. It has that “Golden Slumbers” and “The Long and Winding Road” vibe — the big piano chords and the loud singing. I was actually inspired by the Mickey Mouse segment on the movie Fantasia. I imagined Mickey as the sorcerer’s apprentice, wearing his red costume and conducting a musical score that keeps falling apart because of a barrage of extraneous noise: out of tune harps, guitars, thunder, lightning, random conversations. I also thought of Queen’s “Innuendo,” a song that I thought was dark and strange, and was always playing in the background when I was growing up.
Were those early listening experiences a big influence on this record?
A good 35 percent of it is based on childhood memories. There was a Jon Bon Jovi song called “Miracle,” from the Young Guns II soundtrack, that I loved as a kid. I had completely forgotten about it, and fell in love with it again a few months ago. Those bands seemed so huge and impossibly out of reach. I remember watching Guns N’ Roses and Mötley Crüe, wondering how long it would take to assemble those massive drum kits. I was a young boy and thought I would never be able to become a musician. I consciously tried to push all that gigantic mystique through a funnel and into the songs on this album.
Is it safe to assume, then, that you had a happy childhood?
It was, yes. I think it was happy because I managed to preserve myself. I now realize that I found refuge in my inner world. I knew that if things outside failed, I would be fine with everything that remained inside.
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