PALE PREACHER - INTERVIEW : "Melancholy pushes me to be more creative than joy"
In February this year, Pale Preacher's “Like Alfredo García's Head” was broadcast on Austrian radio. Listen to this track, and you'll understand why we wanted to get to know this band created by Francisco Jose Galacho Sánchez! Today, he answers a few questions.
You're a member of Blackberry Clouds. Can you tell us a bit about the band's history?
Blackberry Clouds started around 1990. I joined around 2000, when I left my previous band The Intoxicated Men. At first it was rhythm guitar, but with the departure of the singer around 2010, I adopted the role of guitar and singer. Since 2010 I have published three albums with them, until 2020 when we decided to open a hiatus so that each member could dedicate themselves to their personal projects.
Why did you decide to create The Pale Preacher?
The paralysis of everything related to music during the pandemic caused Pale Preacher to emerge. I wanted to do something outside of Blackberry Clouds for a long time and this was the right time.
In 2021, the first album you released under this name, Sadness Makes Me Less Unkind, must have surprised fans of your other band. Why didn't you release it with Blackberry Clouds?
I wanted to make these songs with a different perspective, more focused on the composition, recording and production of the songs than on the dynamics of an album made by a band. In the Clouds albums we always reflect the direct sound of the band. This time I wanted to do something more intimate and personal.
Can you tell us about its gestation... Did you think at the time that you would release more?
As I said, the songs were born during the lockdown. The fact of being isolated from the band was what led me to do it as a different project. During 2020 I wrote the songs and prepared the recording, which was completed at the beginning of 2021. I didn't think it was a long-term project, I only planned to do Sadness, but I continued writing songs and I felt very comfortable doing it this way.
Where did your love of gospel and country music come from?
Listening in my adolescence to the bands that I liked at that time (Birthday Party, Beasts Of Bourbon, Scientists, Nick Cave, Hugo Race, etc.) led me to blues and country, which I have not stopped loving since then.
Evildog's singer Victoria Villa sang a lot on the album, can you tell us about her?
Victoria is a great singer and a wonderful woman. Evildog recorded his first work at Holler's Analog Studios. Máximo RB introduced me to them and I liked what they did and especially her spectacular voice. I proposed to her to collaborate with me and she was delighted to accept. Victoria contributes in a very special way to the songs.
The album includes a cover of Hoyt Axton's "Daddy Walked In Darkness". Tell us about this song and your cover.
Daddy impacted me from the first time I heard it. It is a raw, hard song, with an incredible power to overwhelm you. I've always wanted to do it, I love that song too much. The first Pale Preacher album was the time and place to do it.
You've practically played all the instruments on your own. Did you no longer feel the need for a band, or was it more the desire to try new things that guided you?
I wanted to give the songs a more personal air, not subject them to a band that involuntarily or not finally imprints its character on the songs. The best way to keep the songs away from the Clouds style and tie them to the Pale Preacher path was to dedicate myself to playing almost all the instruments. Even so, there are collaborations from the members of the Clouds at specific moments in which I needed their good work because they are incredible musicians.
Your latest album, from 2022, is called "Hanged, Drawn, Quartered... And Forgotten", a very dark title. Who was Hugo Despenser?
Hugo Despenser, the Younger, was a 14th century English nobleman who was tried and executed as a traitor to the English crown. I was shocked to read in detail how he was executed by the "hanged, drawn and quartered" procedure, which was the way traitors were executed in England. I guess when you finish an album you feel a little "hanged, drawn and quartered"
What is it about darkness that attracts you?
Most of the time there are feelings of sadness, melancholy or pure depression. In an average life, moments of true and genuine happiness are not many. I think there is more to exorcise in the dark moments than in the bright moments. At least in my case, melancholy pushes me to be more creative than joy.
Why did you add an EP to the LP?
I wanted to pay tribute to some of the songs I've loved most by Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams and others, but I didn't want them to get lost within the album, or for the covers to overshadow the Pale Preacher songs. I thought it was a beautiful complement to the album.
Since I was a boy I have been curious and interested in all music that sounded different, or that had a very marked personality. Velvet Underground, Stooges, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, Glenn Branca, Scientists, Birthday Party and stuff like that fueled me as a teenager. I was not a prisoner of grunge, metal or any other musical mass movement of the time, although I did have a special interest in Australian bands and their particular way of revisiting American music. With that suitcase of songs it was normal that I ended up looking for their sources: blues, country, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt (the best singer the United States has ever had after Hank Williams), etc.
You attach a great deal of importance to the aesthetics of your records. Can you tell us about your work with Manolo Luque?
Manolo is a great friend and a magnificent cover designer. He is very thorough and knows perfectly the vibe that the covers should have. He has done a lot of design work for Trio Mudo and Alexander Hacke, among others.
You live in Malaga, Spain. What influence does this have on your artistic life?
None. Absolutely. Malaga is not a music-friendly city. What you do here you can do in any other lost part of the country.
I don't conceive my music sung in Spanish because I don't like rock in Spanish. I believe that rock and traditional American music have been articulated around the structure of the English language and is part of its essence. It would be like singing flamenco in Russian.
What are your next musical projects?
At the end of July, Pale Preacher's third album "As we lay dying" and an addendum called "Dead Damned Thing" will be released in streaming. Both will be released in CD format after the summer and I suppose we will do some live shows
Thank you Fransisco
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