Interview withJuls Garat (vocals) and Claudio Marcio (guitar) from Pilgrims Of Yearning
One of the most amazing things about writing for Reflections of Darkness is finding out about interesting new artists and music. Today is one of those such days. I am interviewing PILGRIMS OF YEARNING (P.O.Y) - a Boston based Darkwave band whose Chilean roots add a distinct Latino flavour to the music. P.O.Y are made up of Juls Garat (vocals and lyrics), Claudio Marcio (guitar and composer) and Sean Woodbury (bass). It may surprise you to learn that South America has a thriving alternative music scene with some very talented musicians - as I’m quickly learning myself. When I was introduced to the band, I wasn’t’ sure what to expect but let me tell you that I’ve been blown away by every song that I’ve heard!
This band is like musical a chameleon - one moment, you can hear the influence of artists like SIOUXIE AND THE BANSHEES, with 80s guitar riffs and the next minute - psychedelic. Juls’ rich, yet still ethereal vocals, Claudio’s experimental chords are the perfect combination for anyone searching for a different kind of alternative music. As a child of the 80s, their music fills me with nostalgia to the days of Lene Lovich, Berlin and even Japan. Juls’ Latina accent and the lyrics interwoven occasionally with Spanish is just perfection. I’m so excited about this band that I’m mentioning them to every other band that I know. I’m looking forward to seeing them live on Saturday when they make their own pilgrimage across the Atlantic, joining Coventry based ATTRITION in Coventry on 29th and London on 30th September.
This evening, I’m chatting to Juls and Claudio, who are joining me from their home in Boston, Massachusetts, via the wonders of technology about their musical journey, opening for THE CURE, their imminent hop across the pond and that all elusive American Dream.
Reflections of Darkness [RoD]: Hi how are you?
Juls: We are good, we are just getting ready for a show tomorrow in Cambridge, (Massachusetts). I don’t know if you are familiar with the band ASH CODE from Italy. They are part of the revival of the Post-Punk, Darkwave scene. They are pretty well-known; they are coming to the US on tour and tomorrow is Boston stop; we are going to be opening for that night.
RoD: So how long have you been living in the US as you are originally from Chile?
Claudio: A couple of weeks ago, it was eight years since we arrived.
RoD: Did you feel that as an artist you would have more opportunities in America than in Chile?
Claudio: Well yeah!
Juls: Yeah (laughs)
Claudio: Job-wise there are much more opportunities here.
Juls: And with the band too - because even when everything now is connected online, it’s never the same when you are here in the US, [compared to] when you are in Chile. Our friends in Chile, they tell us, “Oh, you are playing here, you are playing there, you are touring and stuff”. That’s the kind of thing that is very tough to do when you are down there [Chile], because it’s so far away from everything.
RoD: And it’s very expensive to get there too, I looked in to going to Nicaragua a while back and it was much more expensive than going to the US.
Juls: Yes, absolutely.
Claudio: And if the currency exchange for us now in American dollars is expensive, for people in Chile, it is even more because of the currency rate.
RoD: But I hear there is quite an alternative scene in South America.
Juls: Yes, indeed because in Latin America, we have very good bands and I’m sure that if they lived in the US or in Europe, they would be better known or at least have a better opportunity to show their work.
Claudio: For instance in Mexico, it’s such a big country - and in the capital of Mexico you have twenty-five million people. So, if you have a band, you can be very well known even without leaving your country.
Juls: Yes, Mexico has one of the most interesting [music] scenes in the world, so if you ever have the chance, definitely visit, it is very nice.
RoD: The closest I got to Mexico was a tram in San Diego that terminated in Tijuana, unfortunately I had taken the Am Trak Surfliner down from LA and it was three hours late, so I didn’t get very long in San Diego, which was a pity as the Old Town looks very interesting. I did see some of the preserved Mexican heritage in the park.
Juls: Yes, you have a lot of Mexican culture in all that area, since those territories were part of Mexico until comparatively recently.
RoD: I was surprised at how many alternative people I met who were from Mexico, in LA. Like previously I had mostly met Latino people when they were working, so I didn’t realise how many were on the goth and rock scene.
Juls: Indeed, like when we moved here, if it wasn’t for the scene and for the band, it would have been much more difficult to really make friends here. When you arrive as an adult, it’s not like you are going to go to school together, you are past those formative years - so how do you actually meet people? The band in that sense has helped a lot. We have made a lot of friends here. Then again if we were in Chile, it wouldn’t have been the same.
Claudio: Right! Here you have much more opportunities to open for bands that are touring, to make contacts in Europe...
Juls: I think there is something about the US mentality, you know, that people here have the mindset that everything is possible… that if you work hard and stuff and don’t give up, you can make it.
RoD: The American Dream.
Juls: A lot of that is b.s., you know (laughs) but at least to have that mentality that things are within your reach is life-changing. Whereas I think of myself growing up in Chile, that corner of the world, everything was so far away - so difficult and now it is at least a possibility.
Claudio: For instance, we had other bands back in Chile and if you had told me back then, “Hey you are going to play in New York,” for us that was a dream. Now we have played several times in New York.
Juls: It’s a four-hour train ride away (laughs)
Claudio: Salem here is like super famous and we have played in Salem so many times now that it’s familiar to us.
RoD: I guess when you are in countries like Chile, you are only known in Chile, whereas when you are based in the US, the world opens up.
Juls: Absolutely! There are one or two Chilean underground bands that are better known outside, like DIAVOL STRÂIN, they are also in this revival scene and they had toured Europe and the US quite extensively. But I would say they are the exception to the rule.
Claudio: They manage themselves very well.
Juls: Yes, the amount of work you got to do when you are based elsewhere. That’s why I have a lot of respect for all of our Latino scene. Because you got to work three or four times more than someone who was born and raised here to reach a certain level. I so respect that!
RoD: Where does band name come from?
Juls: Ok, so it comes in part from a term used by the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin, that talks about how we as a human species are always on this pilgrimage to the origin - to this myth of this golden era that supposedly existed some time far in the past. It’s about how we are basically always lost, wandering, looking for an idea that never really there. That together with the very concrete fact that we are immigrants - so we are in our own personal pilgrimage. The name mixes the myth and our personal history together.
RoD: That’s really interesting. I guess what you are saying kind of ties in with this extreme patriotism that is going on in many places of the world right now. People are being sold this mythical idea that their country was once so great and now it isn’t - chasing Xanadu, but it doesn’t really exist.
Juls: Exactly.
RoD: How would you describe your (band) style?
Claudio: We don’t categorise any specific genre. I mean of course post-punk is the closest type that we can relate to, but our influences are so wide - from Latin folk music to classic rock or even hip-hop. We use so many different influences in our music that in the end I would say post-punk but we try to be unique. I think that’s super important.
Juls: Yeah, I think that post-punk is a simple style we can use like a blank canvas to paint with these influences that Claudio is talking about, so for us it’s a very good media to express ourselves. Also, this revival that started around 2011 with bands like SHE PAST AWAY it’s now blooming. There is a bunch of very talented bands that are all around, in Europe, here in the US, in Latin America - in Asia too! It’s a very good time to be a musician at the moment.
RoD: I actually watched one of your videos on YouTube. I found it very dreamy - a little bit trance.
Juls: Probably ‘Rivers’ or ‘La Mar.’ (It was ‘La Mar’). So what Claudio was saying about our music - that it is very diverse, because you are going to hear that and then you will listen to another song like ‘In God You Trust’ and we did that song to talk about how fake the ‘American dream’ idea is and that song is very punk. I end up yelling all out in the last verse and there are heavier guitars, so you have that and then you have this very dreamy song, you know, and we go all over that spectrum. When you go to a show, we don’t want all of our songs sounding the same! We want people wondering, “What are they gonna be doing next?” but still it’s always going to sound like us. That’s why for us it’s very interesting and we use post-punk as this canvas, but we have this sonic umbrella.
RoD: That’s really good - keeps people on their toes!
All: laugh
RoD: So, who are your influences? Are there any specific bands who have been a huge influence on your music?
Claudio: Sure, I can mention for instance SODA STEREO from Argentina, they are huge in Latin America. In Chile you have LOS PRISIONEROS, which is a post-punk band from the 80s, coming as a response to a dictatorship in our county. They were very political and their music is very amazing, they have all this post-punk influence from the 80s from England, but it's a distinctively Latino sound, so it’s really interesting. I invite you to listen to them. That’s from Latin America and then I’m a huge fan of PINK FLOYD from the UK - so many classic bands from the UK. I love THE DOORS, THE DAMNED or PORTISHEAD for instance.
RoD: I can totally see the PORTISHEAD and PINK FLOYD influence in ‘La Mar.’
Juls: Yeah, when Claudio showed me that beat, I immediately felt like going like Tricky on the verses, I felt the trip hop influence there. I had never done that in a song, but it called me to do that and it ended up being pretty interesting I think.
Claudio: ‘La Mar’ is not a Post-Punk song, it’s a Darkwave song to me, but it’s still our sound.
Juls: You’ve got to keep things interesting, I think many artists make this mistake of tying their influences exclusively to genres that are similar to what they are doing. I love music, I love *most* genres (laughs) and finding inspiration beyond music too - and I think that makes you a better artist. There are goths who will only listen to goth music… I mean to each their own of course but to myself that’d be kinda limiting.
Claudio: And Juls and I, we have a lot of different influences. She likes a lot of Japanese music for instance and even speaks a little Japanese. She loves romantic singers from Latin America, has a very extensive background in opera and classic music.
Juls: Yes, so my influences as a singer are quite different from…
Claudio: From mine! That’s very interesting, I guess.
RoD: That’s really interesting. You’ve mentioned a lot of bands, if you could support anyone in the world, who would that be?
Claudio: Opening for? We had the chance to open for THE CURE once with our previous band back in Chile. That was 2013. That was with our previous band, AMÖNIACÖ, very Darkwave / 80s influenced kinda sound. Juls was part of that band and I joined them for the first time for that show in the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile in front of 60,000 people. So, if you ask me about the dream, I think I would love to open for THE CURE again with our own project of course (laughs).
Juls: Yeah - it’s kind of hard to top that, I don’t know - I would love to open for PORTISHEAD.
Claudio: LADYTRON!
Juls: Yeah, I love LADYTRON, but yeah, I don’t know - that experience with THE CURE, we can die happy (laughs).
Claudio: And of course, SIOUXIE is playing now, so maybe one day we can open for SIOUXIE.
Juls: Well - you never know. Whole we were still playing in Chile THE CURE happened so I don’t really think that there is anything out of reach - We’ll see. Time will tell!
RoD: And what does the future hold? Obviously, you are going to be playing in Coventry and London at the end of the moth, with ATTRITION. Are you doing the whole tour with them or just the UK dates?
Juls: Just the UK shows. This happened because we had met Martin [Bowes] some years ago at a festival in Brazil. We were DJing at there and Martin was with ATTRITION and the organisation had these cabins for the international guests, so we were neighbours for a week and we have kept in touch since. Then we were invited to play this festival in Poland – the Return to the Batcave Fest, which is a do-it-yourself festival that is very respected in the community. When we were invited to play that festival, Martin reached out to propose these UK shows. I haven’t seen him in a long time, and I’ve only been to London once, so I’m super-excited!
RoD: Have you ever been to the North of England?
Juls: No, I haven’t been any further north than Coventry, but funnily enough, someone from Leeds reached out to us and wanted us to play in Leeds, but we didn’t have the time. We are hoping to come back to Europe in 2025, so hopefully, we can play in Leeds that time.
RoD: Besides the UK tour, what else do you have in the pipeline?
Juls: We are working on a new album, I don’t want to talk about the concept yet, because it is still in the works, but we have a very interesting idea playing there.
Claudio: We have new songs that we are already playing live.
Juls: Yeah, we are gonna play one of them in the tour - so it’s a brand new song that is unreleased.
Claudio: New members of the band. We are practicing with them, trying new musicians.
Juls: Yes, we are trying new musicians, for the tour, trying to revamp our whole sound and stage presence and the performance, because ultimately, we are performers and our job is to make people happy. They are going to see our shows and we want them to have a great time, they are spending their hard-earned money there.
Claudio: Then we have some dates when we come back from the tour, a couple of dates on Halloween, then we are planning a USA tour in 2024.
Juls: I am already laying down 2024 calendars, it’s still up in the air, but working on that - you got to work in advance because if you start too late, everything is booked. I would say that the most important things that we are working on is the album, the new members and rebranding of our stuff. It’s a lot of work right now. But Boston is very cold in the winter and you can’t really go outside, so you get a lot of indoor time to be creative and get planning.
Claudio: And by the way, we work with some artists from Chile, some old friends - very talented artists who we work with online and that works pretty well too.
Juls: All our merch is created by Chilean artists, so any time anyone is buying a T-shirt they are supporting Chilean artists as well. We are working in a partnership for some cool, original merch - we want to get creative in that aspect too. As a fan, it’s fun to get something different.
RoD: Thank you very much for your time.
Juls and Claudio: Thank you so much Michelle!
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pilgrimsofyearning / https://pilgrimsofyearning.bandcamp.com/
Picture by Hannah Rose Photography (Instagram @hannahroseosofsky)
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