Interview with We Can't Enjoy Ourselves

Foto: We Can't Enjoy Ourselves
We Can't Enjoy Ourselves

Feb 17, 2012 | We had the chance to talk to Frontman Giovanni Saldarriaga about We Can't Enjoy Ourselves, their music, a hilarious story about the song "Liza" and also about Giovanni's dislike of television. It's clear: We Can't Enjoy Ourselves isn't your regular indie band - but see for yourself!

Note: © myFanbase 2012 - The interview is exclusive to myFanbase and may not be published on other websites or the like. You may share the first 2 questions or up to 160 characters if you link back to this site. Translations other than English and German may be posted with full credit including the writer's name and link to this site.

1. How would you describe your music in one sentence?

Getting sweet-talked by the abyss.

2. Was there something like a light bulb moment when you were young, maybe a concert, a certain song or a record that made you dream about a career as a musician?

I've never entertained the notion of making a career in music. No dreams, not even daydreams. The myths of music, with it dingy, dismal rise and falls has always had very little appeal to me. Except for maybe, Theolonius Monk. I've probably wanted to be him more than just once in my life.

3. Are there any artists that might have influenced you or inspired you some time?

Oh lots. I'll only name the dead ones though. Bresson, Gene Kelley, Jean Genet, James Dean, Truffaut, Renoir, John Updike, Sal Mineo, Frank O'Hara, Katherine Hepburn, Holland, Dozier, Holland.

4. How do you develop your songs? What part comes first, music or lyrics?

Foto: We Can't Enjoy Ourselves
We Can't Enjoy Ourselves

I know people generally have pretty complex processes when it comes to writing a song. I don't. I do it the easy way. I usually start pretty early in the morning. Around breakfast time after some orange juice I come up with the title for the album. Then I imagine all the song titles. That's when I take a break and go for a walk and if it's spring then I smell the flowers and splash in puddles and smoke some cigarettes and if it's summer I'll sweat and take my shirt off and roast my back and get a sunburn but I'm olive complected so that's often difficult and if it's autumn I'll roll around in leaves and get dust down my shirt and if it's winter I don't do any of this because I don't write in the winter. By then I realize it's lunch time, so I grab something to eat because I owe it to myself and anyway the songs are half way done. When I get back from lunch, I go to my card index that has all the ideas I want to use for songs and lyrics. From there I combine and recombine until the songs are coherent and don't just sound like the smacked up ravings of a madman.

5. What song is most important to you? Why and how did it develop?

I wrote this song called "Liza" about a girl I was in love with. I thought I would win her heart with it. When I played it for her, she smiled and I thought she liked it a lot. Then she told me her name was Alisa.

6. In what aspects did your music change compared to when you started to make music?

Well, I started out making frenetic hot jazz music. And now I make frenetic hot pop music. So not much.

7. What has been the best experience so far as a musician?

We recently played at an end of summer Maoist retreat at Bard College because Jon went to Bard. We played with a reggae band. Those guys were all lunatics. You have to be a lunatic to play reggae. Anyway, it was really fun. It was on a Tuesday.

8. What can you tell us about your current projects?

Right now, I working on a pretty big translation of Vivian Lamarque's poetry. She's an italian poetess from the seventies, a secondary talent of the highest order.

9. And what are you aspiring to in the future, what do you want to achieve?

We are going to release seven albums each with seven songs every year for the next seven years.

10. With whom would you like to go on tour?

The Bloomington, Indiana Men's Choir.

11. What record would we find in your CD-player right now?

"Vintage Violence" by John Cale

12. What do you think, as artists, about platforms like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace?

Avoid them as much as possible.

13. myFanbase is a website that is devoted to American television shows. Do you have a favorite show?

I loathe television. All television. Even so-called intelligent shows with vampiristic aesthetics aimed to appeal to intelligent people too lazy to pick up a book. I think it has done extensive and unspeakable damage to human mind and heart.

Maria Gruber - myFanbase

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