{"id":48971,"date":"2022-10-12T16:51:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T14:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elgarajedefrank.es\/?p=48971"},"modified":"2022-10-13T10:33:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T08:33:02","slug":"interview-the-soft-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elgarajedefrank.es\/en\/interview-the-soft-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: The Soft Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haunting and hard-hitting, The Soft Moon grabs you by the throat in much the same way Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, and Front Line Assembly did during the heyday of electro-industrial hybrid. Dig a bit deeper, and you will find an extraordinary story about music as a driving force in uncovering your past. During the current European leg of The Soft Moon Tour 2022, Luis Vasquez had a conversation with El Garaje de Frank on WhatsApp right before stepping on stage for a sound check at Santeria Social Club in Milan. Tough questions were fielded, and many left unanswered, as we traced his journey from a dysfunctional childhood in Victorville to artistic self-discovery in Berlin and back home to record The Exister<\/em> in the Mojave Desert \u2013 where he found out something unsettling that would change his life.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013First, let\u2019s set the scene. You were born in L.A. in 1989 and moved to Victorville in the Western Mojave Desert when you were 9. How was your experience?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Oh wow, I\u2019m surprised you know about the Victorville part! [laughs] Well, actually, when I first moved up to the desert I wasn\u2019t very happy because I had to come out of school. As a kid, you make friends and when you\u2019re separated from your friends to go to the middle of nowhere, I was pretty frustrated. But that\u2019s what led me to be more creative, so it was kind of love-hate relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013You\u2019ve previously described your family as \u201cpoor and violent\u201d. I hope you don\u2019t mind me asking this, but how violent are we talking about?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I had a stepfather. Around the age of five, I believe, that\u2019s when he entered my life. And there was a lot a lot of fighting, like physical violence, police coming over quite often to arrest either my mother or my dad. Knives were taken out, I got thrown through a glass window, things like that. It was really bad, yeah. I was witnessing all this stuff as a kid.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013But regardless of that background, you got into music at an early age. How did it happen?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Well, I remember when I first discovered MTV, I would watch it before going to school, and I was just so drawn to it. I guess it was around the end of the glam-rock phase. And I\u2019d just see these guys with long hair playing crazy guitar solos, specifically Slash from Guns\u2019n\u2019Roses<\/strong>. And I was like: \u201cI wanna be that. I wanna make those sounds with a guitar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Right.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I really wanted a guitar and I eventually got one from my uncle from prison. And a funny story is, I didn\u2019t know that it required an amplifier [laughs]. I was playing my electric guitar without an amplifier, I was like: \u201cHow do I make those sounds?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u2013I noticed your WhatsApp profile picture is from Thriller<\/em>. Also, you have the word \u201cSad\u201d tattooed in your arm in the same font as on the album Bad<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u2013Oh!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013What is it about Michael Jackson<\/em> that\u2019s so important to you?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I guess it was again an MTV thing. He\u2019s like otherworldly, especially to a child, witnessing him for the first time. I just really liked his music videos were epic all the time, specifically Thriller<\/em>. He was a great performer. I think he\u2019s had an impact on me in terms of wanting to be musician, not on the rock side, but on the pop side.\"\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013That\u2019s interesting. Right, let\u2019s talk a little about Europe, now that you\u2019re here. How come your ties to the Old World are so strong?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013All I knew is that at one point I wanted to write something abroad, and I just felt like I needed that kind of challenge to be away of my comfort zone and away from anything familiar, maybe inspire things that I\u2019ve never felt or seen before. But then after writing Deeper<\/em> I ended up staying in Europe for about six years and a half years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013In Berlin?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Yeah, I went from Italy to Berlin. Italy is where I wrote Deeper<\/em>, and then I moved to Berlin and that\u2019s where I wrote Criminal<\/em>. I think I\u2019m more connected to something that\u2019s not familiar. I always tend to run away from my family. Going back to one of your previous questions, you can probably understand why.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u2013Absolutely. They say<\/strong> Berlin is a city that can bring out the best or worst in you. Which end of the spectrum were you on?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013It did bring out both, I would say. It definitely brought out my worst, which is interesting because that sort of thing benefits my music and creativity. I seem to have this reoccurring thing where I borderline sabotage myself in order to feel something and bring something out. Berlin is definitely a place where you can sabotage yourself pretty easily. It\u2019s maybe a little bit too much freedom for someone like me [laughs].<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Could be, yeah. You mentioned Criminal<\/em>. There\u2019s a lot of anger on the album, which culminates in Like A Father <\/em>where you sing \u2018you\u2019re the ghost of my problem\u2019. What did you mean by that<\/strong>?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I\u2019m speaking about my father who I never met and how I feel. Of course, not having a father will definitely affect a child later in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013True.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013In ways that I\u2019m still trying to figure out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Sure. Is that where the anger comes from?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013How Berlin can bring out the worst and the best, well, I was at my peak of my worst when I was writing Criminal<\/em> so I was very frustrated with myself, I felt ashamed, I felt guilty, I\u2019m literally calling myself \u2018a criminal\u2019 on the record. That\u2019s where all the anger comes. I was full of hate at that time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u2013Towards yourself?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Towards myself, mainly. The lack of discipline that I have, not being able to say \u2018no\u2019, not having any boundaries, all the shit that I discovered about myself. That\u2019s what the record represents.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Well, all those feelings are there, absolutely. Ok, moving on to The Exister<\/em>. You\u2019ve said that it\u2019s your child self that you hear all over the record. The album was also recorded in Joshua Tree – also in Mojave Desert – where you moved during the pandemic. What prompted you to return back home physically and musically?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I had felt like making amends with my mother while I was still in Berlin, and I had this illusion that things will be better, so I wanted to come back and heal this relationship that I\u2019d had with her my entire life. That was one of my main intentions. I needed a complete contrast to Berlin, something way different on the opposite side of the spectrum. I needed peace. I needed to at least try to search for peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Hmm\u2026 I see.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013And I knew that I wanted to write a record where I could just go full blast, and I can sing the way I\u2019ve always wanted to sing, I can play the actual drums and not bother anyone cause I\u2019d written everything in apartments up until The Exister<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I\u2019ve understood you already had a very clear idea of the album until you went back to Victorville. First you had a run-in with your mum, and then your uncle got out of prison. What happened?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Well, first of all, he was the first one who believed in me since I was a child. He always knew I\u2019d be doing something in music. He was the only one who supported me. So then, you know, all this time goes by, he gets released, and then I bring him to Joshua Tree. We spend a few days together, and he filled me in on all the shit about family that I had no idea. So I was really shattered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Could you elaborate a bit more on that? <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u2013Finding out about family members I never met because they were kept away from me. And finding out about the reason why I didn\u2019t have a father was never my father\u2019s fault in the end, and things like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013Right.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013I was about 70% done with the record, and then the concept of the record basically just changed. It was all about emotions and experiencing different things, and my relationship with my mother. Like, those tracks I started writing later. The album became more about the relationship with a mother and a child when my uncle came out of prison, so it definitely shifted a lot of things.<\/span><\/p>\n