Last month Dark Entries released the debut album by Europa, a quartet from Valencia, Spain. We asked keyboard player José Luis Macías to answer some questions about the “La Última Emoción!” album and this is what he had to say:
Dark Entries: What part of Spain are you from? What was it like growing up there and what music inspired your teenage years?
José Luis Macías: I’m from Valencia, where everyone wanted to buy a motorcycle or be footballers. I’d rather buy records, the rarer the better, I loved to skip class and spend hours listening to them in stores.
DE: How did you decide to form the band and choose the name “Europa”?
JLM: I was in another band and when I heard what Europa was doing I loved it and started to collaborate with them, in part because we were great friends, which continues to this day!
DE: When did you start writing music for the “La Última Emoción!” cassette
JLM: They had almost all the songs written, I helped them fix them a bit as I had experience with production and as a four piece we wrote some more.
DE: Do you remember the set up and equipment for recording your earliest songs
JLM: Very basic, with 2 tracks recorded all live music, then added vocals and did some arrangement in the other 2 tracks.
DE:How did the evolution of the synthesizer in the 1980s have an effect on your sound?
JLM: At that time our sound developed very quickly. The big jump was synthesizers with memory storage!
DE: What were some inspirations for your lyrics on this album?
JLM: It is difficult to answer, from George Orwell to comic books or Surrealistic things entirely. We were not tied to any single issue.
DE: Why did you change your name to Última Emoción after releasing this cassette?
JLM: Apparently we could not use the name Europa commercially.
DE: Who were your musical contemporaries at the time in Spain or around the world?
JLM: I would say no one. Spain had never done anything like this so far. Synths were used by some groups of symphonic rock and little else.
DE: So much creative and diverse music came out of Spain in the 1980s, what do you think caused this rich and talented culture?
JLM: The arrival of the new musical currents like Punk was a great help to us all. It was a unique time.
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DE: I first heard your song “Sentir Tu Cuerpo” on youtube last year and your vocals and speedy synthesizers got stuck in my head for days! How did you create your unique “sound”?
JLM: We spent hours taking sounds, was the only way to get something special.
DE: Many of the songs on “”La Última Emoción!” are perfect for the dancefloor. Did you write music to make people dance?
JLM: We danced while we played the and the audience did too, it was not premeditated.
DE: Can you describe your most memorable/favorite live gig?
JLM: Perhaps the first time that we played. It was all very funny!
DE: How do you feel about the renewed interest in your music?
JLM: These are things that encourage us as a band and make us feel good.
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La Última Emoción! is now available in the SHOP