How fortunate are Spanish Love Songs to have an audience eager to listen? For Dylan Slocum, the band’s singer and lyricist, every opportunity to connect with listeners and discuss their music feels like a privilege. This humility and excitement are palpable as he approaches the release of their highly anticipated fourth album, “No Joy.” Slocum, who once aspired to be a magazine writer captivated by in-depth features, finds the tables turned and embraces the challenge of articulating his band’s journey and creative process.
Fans who have followed Spanish Love Songs know that relatable angst and poignant lyricism are their hallmarks. Their 2020 album, Brave Faces Everyone, solidified Slocum’s reputation as a lyricist who can articulate the anxieties of a generation. Like many millennials navigating the complexities of the 21st century, Slocum grapples with overarching fears and a sense of unease, translating these feelings into universally resonant lyrics.
Reflecting on the writing process for Brave Faces Everyone, Slocum recalls a period of intense focus and personal challenges. “I wrote that [record] in 2019 – we had just come off tour,” he explains. “I had mono, which was fun. I had lost my job to go on tour, and so every day I would go down into [Meredith’s] parents’ basement and pour through lyrical ideas that I had written down. I did that for like 10 or 11 days straight.” This period of isolation and introspection fueled the album’s exploration of income inequality, mortality, and existential dread.
Brave Faces Everyone struck a chord with listeners who resonated with lines like, ‘Don’t you know you were born to die poor, man?’ and ‘Every city is the same – doom and gloom under a different name…’. These lyrics captured the frustrations of many facing political turmoil and societal divisions, particularly in the US. Slocum describes the environment that shaped these themes: “Being in LA, watching things change, watching the price of everything drastically increase, being sort of underemployed and not making any money – I was seeing people suffer through certain things, friends dying… It was a few years of late 20s, early 30s bullshit washing over me. By the time we got to Brave Faces*, it was just sort of at the forefront.”
Known for their increasingly melancholic albums, Spanish Love Songs jokingly anticipated their next record would be even sadder. Following Giant Sings the Blues (the ‘divorce album’), Schmaltz (the ‘I suck’ album), and Brave Faces Everyone (the ‘world sucks’ album), Slocum wondered what emotional territory remained to explore. “After Brave Faces…, I was like, ‘Okay, we did the divorce album on Giant [Sings the Blues], we did the ‘I suck’ album on Schmaltz, and we did the world sucks album on Brave Faces…. I don’t know what’s next! But we’ll figure it out because something will always go wrong that will trigger enough Notes app lines to write an album.’”
The release of Brave Faces Everyone in February 2020 was met with immediate disruption as the pandemic unfolded, derailing the band’s extensive touring plans and casting financial uncertainty over their future. This real-world validation of the album’s themes of societal anxiety was not lost on the band. Dylan candidly admits, “I think we navigated it…not greatly,” reflecting on the challenges of the pandemic era. “I was pretty vocal about our fears, to the point where certain people had to offhandedly mention that I should probably shut up a bit because it sounded like we didn’t want to tour anymore, or even be a band anymore, which was never really the case. I think it was just real-time coping with different things.”
Despite the hardships, the support of their community proved crucial. “We got through it with the support of a ton of other people. The Patreon that we started was a huge help when none of us even had jobs coming off of touring. People took a chance on us and gave us some jobs during a pandemic.” The band had even given up their apartments in anticipation of a year and a half of touring, finding themselves in a state of limbo. Looking ahead, Dylan expresses a mix of hope and cautious realism: “Hopefully it’s smoother sailing from here, though I don’t expect it to be. I’m always waiting for the next catastrophe, whatever that may be.”
Emerging from this period of thematic darkness and global upheaval, Spanish Love Songs consciously sought new sonic landscapes for No Joy. Set for release on August 25th, the album marks a departure from their signature wall of guitars and crashing drums, embracing a more refined and accessible sound. This evolution is a deliberate artistic choice, as Dylan explains, “I am not really interested in repeating what we’ve done before. [No Joy] definitely felt different enough that it felt justifiable to make.” He critiques Brave Faces Everyone for its sonic mirroring of its lyrical content: “My biggest critique of Brave Faces… is that it’s an album that is sad, and also sounds sad. Most of the time, with a few exceptions. That’s just too on the nose for me. I’d rather it sound one way and you feel a different way, that’s more in line with what I enjoy and the music that I truly love.”
This pursuit of sonic depth and nuanced songwriting has been a gradual trajectory for Spanish Love Songs. “Getting into something a bit more nuanced and textured and trying to explore songwriting as a craft in a different way has always been in our trajectory as a band – really reacting to what came before. I think this is the first time we finally felt confident enough to pull some of it off.”
Venturing into a different sonic direction carries inherent risks, potentially alienating fans accustomed to a band’s established sound. However, Dylan seems unfazed by this prospect. “When we first put this album out to our friends, one of them said, ‘this is gonna surprise people – probably in a good way. But, some people are gonna hate this.’ And that’s fine. That means we did our job if people are having some sort of visceral reaction. The worst thing I think we could do is put out an album that people think of as ‘fine’. I want you to love it or hate it, I don’t want you to just sort of be okay with it.”
Listeners are likely to fall firmly into the ‘love it’ camp with No Joy. Spanish Love Songs have followed up a critically acclaimed album with another potential masterpiece, showcasing a distinct sonic palette. Synths and acoustic guitars are more prominent, highlighting Dylan’s vocals in a new light. While the band’s core energy and insightful lyrics remain, No Joy represents a shift from the wintery discontent of Brave Faces Everyone towards a summery, albeit still introspective, vibe.
The lead single, ‘Haunted,’ stands out as one of the band’s most accessible and catchy tracks. ‘Marvel,’ a mid-album highlight, encapsulates the band’s instrumental complexity within a polished framework and features the quintessential Spanish Love Songs lyric, ‘I’ll stay alive out of spite’.
Another standout track, ‘Clean-Up Crew,’ delves into disillusionment with personal dreams, resonating deeply with the universal experience of unmet expectations. ‘Fuck the garden and the yard, I can barely tend to my own dreams…’ Dylan elaborates on the song’s inspiration, revealing a sentiment of envy and self-reflection. “It’s a song of envy,” Dylan admits, “just watching other people have better moments than us. I have a hard time keeping my eyes on my own paper, because… I’m a human.”
He continues, delving into his own journey of chasing various aspirations: “I was trying to understand why certain things were happening for certain people but not for us. I started really looking at my own life – I grew up playing baseball, went to college for it and my goal was to become a professional baseball player. I had been scouted for the pros, then I got hurt and stopped because I wasn’t really loving it. So I almost made it… but not quite.” His ambitions extended beyond sports: “Then, I moved to LA, trying to write for TV and film,” he continues. “I did the whole thing where I had representation and took a bunch of meetings, but it was never quite right. Which is fine. Then, I got into this band sort of as a joke. We started taking it seriously and felt like maybe we could make a career out of it. And then COVID, and other stuff, et cetera, et cetera.”
This introspective look at his life’s trajectory fuels the song’s central questions: “Why do I keep chasing these sort of big dream lives that are really not attainable in any fundamental sense? They’re pipe dreams and I can’t stop doing it. I’m 35 now, and I’m still doing it. What’s wrong with me? What’s broken with me? Like, why can’t I just be happy moving to the suburbs having a nice, quiet life? Every time I think about it, I shudder with fear. That’s what ‘Clean-Up Crew’ is about: how do you give up on your dreams when it feels like they’re not going to succeed for you? But also, like, fuck that – I’m not going to give up on my dreams just because it doesn’t seem like they’re going to succeed. I don’t want anything else! “
Despite these reflections on ambition and uncertainty, Dylan expresses genuine gratitude for his current path. “I’m very aware that I’m lucky to have had a guitar at the age of 13 so I could start writing songs and learning [to play]. So yeah, there’s an inherent guilt in all of this – wrapping your head around these things that feel like the biggest deal on Earth and they really aren’t, but it feels that way to you. There’s really very few people who get to live out their dreams in any consistent manner. But goddamn – wouldn’t it be nice?”
Ultimately, Spanish Love Songs’ appeal lies in their raw humanity. No Joy, like their entire catalog, explores the complexities of human emotion with unflinching honesty and relatable vulnerability. This is a band that understands the push and pull of ambition and contentment, the ever-present undercurrent of anxiety, and the enduring power of connection through music.
No Joy is released on 25th August via Pure Noise Records. Fans can purchase the album from the band’s webstore HERE and catch Spanish Love Songs on tour with Hot Mulligan at the following venues:
Aug 31 – Kingston, UK – Pryzm
Sept 1 – Leeds, UK – Stylus
Sept 2 – Manchester, UK – Academy 2
Sept 3 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3
Sept 5 – Nottingham, UK – Rescue Rooms
Sept 6 – Bristol, UK – SWX
Sept 7 – London, UK – Electric Ballroom
Sept 8 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Academy 2
