Getting to Know… SlowKiss | Interview 🎤

In the 323^rd Q&A in our Getting to Know… series, we get the inside scoop from female-fronted Chile-based band, SlowKiss.

“Our songs take you to other times, they make you travel and feel in another era..” Cool, 🎙 SlowKiss! The female-fronted,  Chile-based, alternative band adds, “We take you from one mood to another, from the most extreme to delicate moments. We will not leave you indifferent.” Like our many other Getting to Know Q&As, we get the inside scoop on SlowKiss: the genesis, goals, musical influences, and of course, current, and future musical endeavors. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into 🎤 Getting to Know… SlowKiss: Interview No. 323!

For those who may not be familiar with you, what would you say makes SlowKiss distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

🎤 The energy of SlowKiss live is unstoppable like a derailed train, the show begins and just after you get to wake up from the K.O we are already playing the last songs and you’ll be asking for more, it is a high impact show. The first thing that stands out about our band is that it’s led by a female guitarist with a powerful, beautiful and heartbreaking voice, the noise of our guitars and the precision of the drums. Our songs take you to other times, they make you travel and feel in another era. We take you from one mood to another, from the most extreme to delicate moments. We will not leave you indifferent.

Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did … form and what were some of the goals or visions you had early on?

🎤 The band was formed in 2014. Elisa had been playing for 8 years with her melodic punk band, with a super youthful and happy vibe. But the band had a hiatus and that was when she decided to put together SlowKiss, a much more alternative and mature project, and with darker lyrics with no limits when it came to composing and mixing styles, and that’s how we started. At the beginning the band was made up of two women and two men, a concept that we liked a lot but over time it became difficult to maintain. Now we are a trio, and we have a guest musician on bass, although we never lose hope that one day someone will arrive to stay permanently.

Let’s talk more about goals.  Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

🎤 SlowKiss is a band conceived from the beginning with great clarity and vision of the future. From the beginning we were clear about what we wanted to do, which to begin with was to have an international band, that’s why we chose to sing in English, which is not the native language in Chile. In the artistic part, we’ve always taken great care with the aesthetics and concepts of our records, always trying to work with artists from other disciplines, from the covers of the albums, and our live shows, to our video clips, merchandising, etc.  We also always cared a lot about the quality of our sound, we’ve wanted to achieve the level and professionalism of other foreign bands we listen to. We are continuously working for this.

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Whom would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

🎤 In truth we come from a huge musical background considering that we are from different cities, even countries. Richi is a melomaniac of melodic punk, he knows millions of bands, if you ask him for one he surely knows it. Ale likes the LA scene of the 80s and also the English scene, but he also knows a lot of Latin music influenced by his religious family who didn’t like him listening to rock, and when he was a kid, threw his records in the trash. And Elisa is more of the alternative wave, heavy and darker. She likes rock, metal, new wave, triphop and is the most experimental. In general, we listen to a lot of music together and we show each other the new discoveries and mix all our influences when it comes to playing where finally, instead of marked influences, a trail or a vibe remains that reminds you of something, but you can’t find the resemblance because we always try to be original and give the songs the SlowKiss touch.

Ah, the fun stuff.  What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance?  Feel free to be creative.

🎤 More than crazy things, shitty things are always happening to us, haha. ​​Now I can’t think of anything else than the arrival of our last European tour to our country with some money from the band in our pockets but during the following weeks Traffic fines didn’t stop coming for having been playing crazy with speed limits in Europe. After 10 tickets it already seemed like a joke haha… in the end we spent all the proceeds.

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

🎤 Every era of the band has its special moments and important songs, but in the last era, within our LP, 💿 Patio 29, one of the most significant songs we recorded was 🎵 “In Vain”, a very visceral song that was the last one we wrote in the album and that finally became the 1st single and a signature of  the album. We crossed the Andes mountains to go record it with producer Alejandro Taranto, our first work with a renowned producer. It is also a very special song because it is the first one we wrote together with Ale, and it marks a whole new stage for the band.

And for the “live” part, 🎵 “Enough” is particularly powerful and creates an awesome effect on the audience and especially on women. We love that vibe, it is a song to wake up!

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

🎤 We are an independent band that lives on pure self-management and that everything we have done so far we did it by ourselves, in the pure DIY style. From the music, the concepts, the production, the management of social networks, the ideas, we are even involved in the merch, posters, and videos. We are a band that lives looking for ways to connect better with our audience.

Closing out, what is SlowKiss currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure. 

🎤 These days we are finishing our new album titled 💿 K.O.. We hope to be able to show the 1st advance single soon. We hope to release it at the beginning of ‘23. We are also preparing a European tour during spring-summer. So, if you don’t know us yet, we invite you to look for us on your favorite digital platforms so that you can join us at the shows and vibrate with us!

Follow…SlowKiss: IG • FB • Twitter • Spotify • YouTube

Getting to Know… SlowKiss: Interview No. 323 [📷: Brent Faulkner, Darkmoon_Art, luis2500gx, The Musical Hype, Pixabay, OpenClipart-Vectors, SlowKiss]