Bianca Castafiore

Let me start with something a bit odd. The name Bianca Castafiore — the diva from Tintin. There’s irony there, right? Was it a joke about being “the great diva” from the start… or did the name come first, and then you realised what it all implied?

Several months after forming the band came that awkward moment of choosing a name. In fact, to this day our producer still has us saved on WhatsApp as “guitarist band without a name”, “bassist band without a name”, etc. Anyway, we’ve always been big Tintin fans, so we thought we’d pick something related to that. We tossed a few ideas around and Bianca Castafiore was the one. We’re hoping to become great divas someday!

Left behind were distinguished candidates like Fresh Water Sailors, Flight 714 to Sydney, Oliveira da Figueira, Merchant Ramona, Tibetan Monks, or The Cigars of the Pharaoh. All things considered, it seems we chose well!

Listening to your songs I get the feeling they’re born from an atmosphere rather than a concrete idea. As if the mood and the emotion come first… and then the lyrics, the structure, everything else follows. Does it work that way for you, or does each person arrive with something more defined?

Nothing more to add — it genuinely works exactly like that, and so far we haven’t figured out how to do it any other way.

Usually it all starts with a musical idea from Antonio, which we then shape together — structure, melody, lyrics — until we reach the final track.

Right, in any band that awkward moment always comes: one person wants the song slow, another wants it dirty and loud. How do you settle those creative disagreements? Is there a track that ended up being almost the opposite of what you’d imagined at the start?

Everything gets settled by absolute majority, and usually the four of us are very aligned on the sound since we have very similar tastes. Generally speaking, we’d say we’re looking for cleanliness within the noise and the dirt. It’s true that in the studio there are always small structural tweaks where the final sound of the song gets defined, and when there’s a dispute, we let our producer have the final say (Thanks Carlos!).

There is one particular song we’ve gone back and forth on a lot before landing on the definitive version — and it happens to be our next single. It’s called “¿Qué ha pasado?” and it’ll be out in early April.

There’s something that intrigues me. Your music sounds quite intimate, almost like a conversation in a small room… but at the same time it doesn’t sound small. How do you find that balance between the personal and what then happens on stage?

Thanks so much for that — we really loved the simile. Honestly, it just comes out that way when we’re composing; there’s nothing calculated about it. And on stage, the distortion, chorus and reverb pedals help a lot!

Every band goes through a strange moment — when the first version of themselves stops working. Did that happen to you? That feeling of: “if we keep doing this the same way… it’s over”.

So far everything has been very organic and we’ve been through a really good creative period. Let’s save those doubts for the second or third record, but we’re sure Todo saldrá bien.

Listen, this genuinely interests me. It seems like a lot of music now gets made with algorithms, playlists, ten-second hooks in mind. When you’re writing… do you feel that pressure or do you try to ignore it?

We’ve always written our own songs ever since we started playing together more than 10 years ago, without paying attention to external criteria. The truth is that, after a long break, we got back together at the end of 2023 and decided to record an album just to have a memento of the band — no bigger ambition than that. We’ve been recording it slowly without thinking about results or algorithms. In the end it’s what we love most, and fortunately what was going to be a simple keepsake seems to be getting a bit more complicated.

OK, about Spain. There are a thousand scenes right now: indie, urban, hybrid things. Do you feel like you belong to a specific scene or are you kind of going it alone?

We’ve only just arrived, so it’s a bit hard to answer that question. We suppose for now we’re going it alone, but alongside Mushroom Pillow. If we had to identify with a style, we think we’d jump on the indie-pop-rock bandwagon.

I’ve been going back and forth on whether to ask this… but go on. Tell us a band story that almost never comes up in interviews. Something that happened and, in some way, changed how you see the band.

Probably the most curious one is how we met Javi and became a four-piece. We have to go back to university days. Javi and Antonio met at a bus stop and added each other on the now-defunct Tuenti. After a few days talking about music, Antonio asked if he played any instrument and whether he’d be interested in trying out with the band. Javi said he played bass and would love to give it a go. He lied. A lot. He bought the bass on eBay the day before the audition and showed up with absolutely no idea how to play. The audition was a disaster, but we liked the guy. We had no idea we’d end up calling ourselves Bianca Castafiore years later, but that was how the four of us started.

If someone told you tomorrow: “you have an infinite budget, do whatever you want”… what would you try? A weird project, a concert in an impossible place, a collaboration nobody would expect?

Oh, with an infinite budget we’d go pretty wild.

We’d probably start by fulfilling some studio dream. We’d love to record somewhere legendary like El Desierto Casa Estudio. Being able to go there to rehearse, prepare and record an album with no time constraints whatsoever, just dedicating ourselves entirely to playing and trying things out. Spending days or weeks locked in a studio isolated in the middle of the forest in the Desierto de los Leones sounds pretty incredible to us.

And when it comes to shows… we’d probably try to put on a really over-the-top production. Jorge, our drummer, has been saying for years that his dream is to have his kit on a kind of rollercoaster above the stage and do a solo while it’s moving, very much in the style of the heavy / glam rock shows of the 80s. If we can’t get the rollercoaster, at least a flying platform crossing the stage while he plays.

Basically, if they give us an infinite budget we’d try to put on a pretty extravagant show. Since they’re letting us dream, we dream big.

Musicians often say the real connection with people doesn’t only happen on stage, but in small moments. Has something happened with a fan — a message, an encounter — that left you thinking: right, this is why it’s worth it?

Nothing grandiose. But for example, at our last gig, a girl took the setlist and then sent us a photo of her fridge with it stuck up there. Or getting DMs from people we’ve never met saying they love the songs. Those moments really are incredible.

AI, but not the usual “for or against”. Imagine an artificial intelligence can make a perfect song “in the style of Bianca Castafiore”. Genuinely perfect. What do you think would be missing… even if it sounded exactly the same?

We’re not sure, but we’d say that when you’re playing live, or even recording, there’s an energy, a state of mind when you’re playing that a machine couldn’t replicate. It’s that feeling where you’re so in the zone that things happen — small improvisations, gestures — that are unique to that moment and can’t be imitated.

One more thing: the visual world — photos, artwork, videos. It’s not just decoration. How much do you involve yourselves in that side of things? Do you have some kind of internal code of colours, images, something that always comes back?

We’re very involved, always alongside Mushroom Pillow, who helps us give shape to our ideas and impulses. We think the visual side, especially the artwork, has a lot to do with the music, and in the end we try to make everything coherent and make sense — that matters.

And to close. Thanks for the conversation, genuinely. Imagine someone reads this and then goes to listen to your music for the first time… what would you want them to feel in those first few minutes?

The urge to keep going for a few more minutes.

Interview: Andrei Lukovnikov