What an incredible year for the Madrid girl group Hinds! Anyone who went to their last Brighton show at The Joker last January 2015 will understand why there is such hype surrounding them. Now at the beginning of 2016, they release their debut album Leave Me Alone.

Having nearly toured constantly since the later stages of 2014 with only a couple of singles, performing a mammoth sixteen times at the 2015 SXSW festival, dealing with the forced change of the band’s name from Deers, as well as shows in Asia and preparing for their second headline tour to promote the release of their much anticipated début album Leave Me Alone. The garage rock quartet have already had a careers worth of experiences in just eighteen months. As well as being extremely hard working and constantly bringing a mighty live shows, Hinds are refreshing unpretentious and genuine, making them one of the most likeable bands around. I spoke to guitarist Ana Perrote (second from the right) on a rare day at home in Spain to find out more about the Hinds phenomenon.

Where did you grow up?
Carlotta, Ade and I were all born and raised in Madrid. Amber was born in Holland but was also raised in Madrid since she was 2 years old.

Is there much of a music scene in Madrid?
We all kind of met at gigs. There was this small but very strong scene of garage bands who taught us everything we know when we were starting out, helping us choosing our guitars and our amps, they would come to our rehearsals and listen to our songs being really positive. One of the bands were The Parrots, their lead singer, Diego García, recorded our first two songs and is now the producer of our album. It is so nice because everyone helps each other and are very supportive.

Where did you all meet?
Carlotta and I first met in 2009 because of ex-boyfriends, as they both had a band together. A couple of years later we met Ade as we had friends in common. We met Amber just because of the band as we were looking for a drummer who was a girl and she appeared, and she is great!

What kind of music were you brought up on?
I now have my dad’s vinyl collection. My mum is French so there is a lot of French songwriters but my dad was more into The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel and Credence Clearwater Revival, which my dad was a big fan of. Cosmo’s Factory by Credence Clearwater is my favourite record. I don’t have too many records, only about twenty or thirty.

Where you always destined be in a band?
No no, I only started playing when I formed the band. Carlotta and I, in 2011, went to the beach on the coast of Spain for a holiday and we had two guitars. We were just traveling in her mum’s van and as we had so much space we filled it up with towels, a mattress and pretty much everything we had, including these guitars. We were very bored and had worked out these three chords for a Bob Dylan song, I already knew four chords which I taught her and that is how we started. I have been learning how to play, whilst we have been playing.

What are the bands main influences?
As we had two different starts, being just Carlotta and I at the beginning, it’s different. When we were first playing covers in 2011, we were more into the classic rock bands (The Rolling Stone, The Beatles, The Who, Pattie Smith, Credence Clearwater Revival) as well as new acts like The Strokes and The Virgins. I was only 16 years old at the time so I didn’t have this developed music taste, it was only the basic stuff that you would give a kid when they would first listen to rock’n’roll. After a break, in 2013 we came together to write our own songs which was when we discovered garage rock music which we really enjoy and write at the moment. We were listening to a lot of Mac DeMarco, Fat White Family, The Parrots, Shannon And The Clams, The Growlers and lots of other garage rock music from North America.

How do you approach the writing process?
We always start with the music and then do the lyrics and vocals after. It usually starts with guitar chords – Carlotta and I will meet up when we have time with acoustic guitars and come up with melodies, then we will start jamming with our voices by making weird melodies and sounds with them. We will then take it to the rehearsal room to work on it with the girls together. The writing this year has been very very crazy, we have been touring forever and we only write when we are home, as we like to take a lot of time to write. When we are touring we are always exhausted and hungover, then running to the next gig and are late for an interview, then we have a sound-check and then another interview. We then sleep, get dunk to play, then we are drunk so we party – so we can never write when we are on the road, only when we are home.

Do you prefer writing music or performing live?
Playing live – no doubt. I just love playing my songs live, if you know what I mean. Seeing people singing, kissing and getting crazy to the song you have made with your own hands is special.

You have toured all over the place in the past year and a half, which have you most enjoyed and is there anywhere you would like to play that you haven’t been?
Playing in Hong Kong was incredible. To have people in Hong Kong listening to our music is amazing! America has been a blessing too, as everyone there is so warm and the culture is a little more similar to the Spanish. It felt very comfortable to be a musician over there. In London we have our biggest crowds and the UK in general, it has been so great since the beginning. We have fans that have been coming to our gigs since day one, we are starting to recognise them now. We have been doing so much over the past year, it is like trying to choose the highlight of the last ten years. Next year I would love to go to South America, which we are planning, as well North Korea too. I would really like to play in a jail as well if that is possible? The world is so big – whenever we talk with other musicians, they say there are festivals on boats and on islands, music is just way bigger than what we think. A few weeks ago we headlined a festival in the south of Vietnam!

Tell us a bit about you debut album Leave Me Alone?
We had most of the songs written and finished before we started recording the album. Song number three, ‘Warts’, was the only track we wrote when we were at the studio. We already had an idea of what the album was going to be as they are all songs about this year and how we have been living it, The songs are about love, as it is the thing we are most passionate about. It feels like these songs are twelve different faces.

What has been a musical eye-opener?
I have had lots of different moments. At the beginning it was listening to The Virgins – they were one of the first bands that I really enjoyed and would go crazy to all their songs. 2013 was when I first listened to the second album by Mac DeMarco, 2, and I can remember Carlotta giving me the album to listen to whilst I drove to Uni – it was four in the afternoon, it was sunny and I had the windows down – I didn’t know what genre it was and I could believe how much I liked it!

Who would be in you ultimate supergroup?
Mac DeMarco, Julian Casablanca, Juan Walters, Jared Swilley from the Black Lips. They are all great musicians and Mac DeMarco can also play the drums, so I don’t really mind who does what as long as they all write together. I would also have Carlotta in there too.

What would be your perfect line-up of any 3 acts for a concert you are putting on and where would it be?
Everyone would love to see The Beatles, but I think it’s more important to think about artists who are active now. 100% I would have The Virgins playing as never got to see them live because they never came to Spain. Public Access TV – they are from New York and are supporting us in our UK tour. They have everything to be the best band in the world. Los Nastys are our heroes from Spain. They are so cool yet they don’t even know it – they are better than all the bands they listen to and admire. It would be somewhere in the south of Spain where it is very hot and very sunny, on a closed beach where there is good Spanish food as well.

If you could work with any artist, who would it be and what would they bring to Hinds?
I would love to do a collaboration with Mac Demarco as I really think he is a genius. I think he would appreciate something of Hinds that he doesn’t have. It would be something very different from what he does and what we do. I would love Mark Ronson to produce something of Hinds too – I cannot believe how many great things he has done.

What music are you listening to at the moment, any recommendations?
I’m obsessed with King Gizzard And The Wizard Lizard. I cannot stop listening to their album Quarters, which is four songs that are all 10 minutes 10 seconds. I am constantly play the riff from ‘God Is In The Rhythm’. I am really liking this Spanish band call Ex Novio.

Any gigs you have seen stood out for you this year?
When we are touring we always go and see our supporting bands, and have discovered so many great bands like that. We also love a band called Furrs from Brisbane in Australia and have seen them a lot of times. We really like bands that give everything they have live. We also love how Fat White Family perform live.

What makes you happiest when you are not playing music?
It sounds cheesy but being with friends. We have a lot of friends in Madrid and all around the world, and it is so good when we see them. We go by van to our gigs in Spain from Madrid and it is really cheap for everyone who comes with us, so we invite everyone to come with us. As in everything, friendship is very important – the four of us, Carlotta, Ade, Amber and I are all really great friends with each other and after touring we still spend time with each other just being mates.

What are your future plans?
We are going to go to New York for Christmas. We are doing an album launch party there on the 6th January, we release the album on the 8th and there is a London album launch party on the 10th. We are then touring Europe and the UK till February. We are doing a little tour of North and South America in March. In April we are going to Japan and Australia, and then in May we start all the summer festivals. Then I don’t know….

Website: hindsband.com
Facebook: facebook.com/HindsBand
Twitter: twitter.com/HindsBand