Kieran Webber
Director and Founder of CLUNK Magazine, CLUNK Events, and other CLUNK affiliate businesses. You’ll probably find me tucked away somewhere sending emails, listening to music, and creating content.
Bristol based Los Dedos talk us through their latest release ‘El Salado’, musical influences, and much more
The wild cinematic sounds of Los Dedos come flying out of the speakers and instantly take you to hazy sands of Mexico. Yet, these three banditos are not from Guadalajara or Mexico City, no, these likely lads come straight from the grey skies of Bristol, UK.
After getting our ears around the new ‘El Salado’ EP we wanted to know more about the surf guitar twanging group and their story. So, we caught up with guitarist Willy to chat about their influences, how they met, and everything else in between.
Kieran: Hey, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. How have you been?
Willy: Hey! No problem, we’ve been good! Exciting times.. our new EP ‘El Salado’ just came and it’s been getting a great response.
Kieran: So, let’s start at the very start. How did you all meet and at what point did you want to create music together?
Willy: Well I (Willy, guitar) and Sam (drums) have been playing in bands together for quite a few years.. After 12 years with our previous band it was time to go in a new direction and I really wanted to start a surf/garage three piece.. super simple, not many members.. and instrumental.. Through a mutual friend I met Picu (bass) and we shared a love of that music so when I asked if he was up for it he absolutely was..
Kieran: Now, your sound is VERY unique for Bristol or anywhere in the UK for that matter, you make music that belongs on the sandy shores of Guadalajara or in Bandito country, how did you stumble across this sound?
Willy: Ha, cheers. Our sound naturally emerged from us playing and writing together. Individually we have a pretty broad range of musical tastes but when we formed Los Dedos a mutual love of soundtracks, surf music, 60’s garage, exotica, blues and traditional Spanish music steered us along the route we wanted to go down. We wanted it to be instrumental, cinematic but also to bring in a wilder, rock element to it too.
“We formed Los Dedos a mutual love of soundtracks, surf music, 60’s garage, exotica, blues and traditional Spanish music steered us along the route we wanted to go down.“
Willy – Los Dedos
Kieran: Are there any artists that directly influence your sound?
Willy: Dick Dale, forever and always the King of surf guitar.. Langhorns, a Swedish surf band from the late 90’s.. They had an amazing mix of surf and exotica that really influenced us .. Link Wray! He had the swagger.. great riffs, incredible player and just an amazing sound.
Kieran: Describe your sound in three words?
Willy: Wild, Cinematic Surf!
Kieran: You recently dropped your ‘El Salado’ EP, can you talk us through the writing and recording process of this release?
Willy: We wrote the tunes over a few months. Usually one of us will bring a riff or idea into the practice room where we get to work turning it into a tune together. Our last EP, March of the Crabs, was only 4 tracks and we wanted this one to be a bit longer. It’s always useful for us to demo the tracks first, work on arrangements & see how they fit together before selecting out the songs that make it onto the record. With this latest release, El Salado, we wanted to showcase the mixture of different styles within our sound, from Spaghetti Western flavours to dark blues & exotica. Once we’d dialed in the tracks we headed out to Giant Wafer Studios, a beautiful spot in mid wales, with our long time friend and engineer Ben Capp and got to work on recording.
Listen to ‘El Salado’ here:
Kieran: The sound you create is very much party influenced and I imagine this is translated in a live setting, can you talk us through your live show? What can we expect?
Willy: Yeah, we have a great time playing live! These past couple of years we’ve been busy up at some incredible festivals – Glastonbury, Boomtown, Greenman, Shambala to name a few. Each time it allows us the chance to connect with a new audience, it’s a niche style of music so often people don’t know what to expect when we start playing our set but we take them on a journey through our sound and it often ends in chaos. We’ve had some incredible reactions, our EP launch last week was crazy! Another thing is that as it’s all instrumental the audience can decide where a song takes them and how to interpret it, which is cool. You asked us to describe our sound in three words “Wild, Cinematic, Surf”. That probably sums up our live show too!
Kieran: If you could collab with any artist who would it be and why?
Willy: Oof.. tough one. There are so many incredible artists out there! Marc Ribot.. incredible guitar player and musician, he’s got an amazing style.. Rob Lind, the sax player from The Sonics would be amazing to work with!
Kieran: And lastly, what else do you have planned for 2024 and beyond?
Willy: So next up we’re releasing a video to the second track on the EP “Hot Rob Bob”, it will be up in the next month or so. Beyond that, we’ve got a run of festival gigs coming up over the summer including – Glastonbury, Secret Garden Party, Kendal Calling, Endorset. We’ll be down at the Sink Inn in Newquay in late Aug (thought I’d mention that one for your local Cornish crew!) will be a fun one. We’re also planning a UK tour in November, hitting up some spots around the country that we’ve not ventured to yet, so give us a follow on the socials and keep an eye out for news about that!
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