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Music is here with us today in these “Encounters at the Library” at Instituto Cervantes Dublin.
Felip Carbonell is our guest, he´s a member of the band “No Crows”. Welcome.
- Thank you, Carmen. Pleased to be with you. - Listen... Thank you, Felip. When and how did “No Crows” start? 0:00:20.255,0:00:27.195 "No Crows" began in October 2005, if I´m not mistaken.
The four original members of the band met in a bar, in one of those sessions that we do here in Ireland.
Once a week, on Wednesday night. And without even noticing, the four of us became a band.
And started to play together, not knowing very well what was the direction that we would take.
Because the four or us come from different musical backgrounds. But instead of arguing and trying to prevail over each other we try to mingle.
And that´s how the idea of “No Crows” started. We´ve been playing in the same bar in Sligo, the city where we live, every Wednesday night since October 2005.
- How was the evolution of the band? - Well, it was kind of fast in the beginning.
We started in October 2005 and three or four months later people started to say: “hey, why don´t you release a cd or something?
And after eight months we were hired to play in a festival and after the festival we said “well, let´s start to work”.
The idea was relesing an album. We recorded it in a bar of Sligo, in Strandhill, the town where I live.
And that´s it, we recorded it in three days.
And it was in the street after two months and it was sold out after three months, the first edition of 1.000 copies.
- So, it was fine, we started and it was, how do you say…? - A success? - To pull it off at the first attempt?
- To pull it off at the first attempt, yes. - How do you define the music of “No Crows”?
It is difficult to define, I think. It´s complicated as all of us compose, all of us listen to music of other countries, different ways, different cultures…
We like music, “world” music and we bring our own compositions or traditional songs from different countries and we convert them into “No Crows”.
This is the magical recipe, making it sound as it sounds with our instruments and that´s the way we work.
- We all bring our little things and then each of us manipulate it. - Team-work.
- Yes, indeed. - Besides Sligo, where else do you play?
Well, we started to go out almost since the beginning. We have been in Majorca several times, we have been in Switzerland in several festivals, in Belgium.
We have been in UK, in Glastonbury. In Germany and...that´s it.
And in the rest of the country, in Ireland as well. 0:03:23.585,0:03:31.830 Yes, from time to time. Every time we release a new album we try to tour a little bit to promote it and sell a number of copies.
- You have three albums so far. - Three albums in the street. The first one is the one that we recorded live in 2006, “Live at the Strand”.
In 2008 we released “Magpie” and in 2010 “No Crows on the Moon”.
- Is there a new album on the way? - Following the progression, every two years, 2006, 2008, 2010…It would be time to release another one in 2012.
But we are pretty late and it´s already February.
I don´t think we have it ready this year, no. But well, we are working in the new material and who knows. Maybe we suddenly decide to go for it and we end up recording it in two weeks at the end of the year.
- Who knows. - When people see you in a concert, they always say that it´s obvious that you have good vibrations.
- Apart from working together you are good friends. - Yes and that is one of the things…In every band where we had previously worked, it was one of those important things.
To have a good relation, to tolerate each other…Even though there are sparks from time to time. But there is a very good atmosphere and musical and personal understanding.
We accept one another with our good and bad things. We have a good relation and above all we enjoy playing together very much.
I think that is the basis to be able to…Music is communication, we communicate with each other and we can surpass what we want to say to the audience.
The audience, the public give us feed-back and we establish a good communication.
- Do you dream about playing in bigger places? - Somehow we are already living the dream.
Because what we are doing even if it doesn´t mean…None of us is precisely a millionaire, no even close.
But I think that we are enjoying what we do and that is the dream of anybody in any kind of job.
In any kind of art. Being able to survive with our music is the most important thing for me.
The truth is that if we keep working in what we do, playing concerts a little bit bigger, making more money and buying a Mercedes Benz instead of a Fiat Panda, it would be nice all that.
What it is clear is that what you do makes people dream, specially for those who go to your concerts, that´s true.
- Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. - It was a pleasure.