Hinds: “We didn’t know if we could keep doing this”

In the early years of Hinds’ career, they changed their band name. Caught in a legal situation with another group who had a similar moniker, the Spanish alt-rockers switched their name to the now-familiar Hinds. The new alias took some getting used to: “we didn’t feel represented with that name, and for a very long time we were feeling lost in how we felt with [it]” the group’s co-founder Carlotta Cosials explains, chatting on cosy sofas in the band’s label office in London. It was the group’s loyal fanbase who helped them settle into this new era: “Fans started to scream this thing at the shows, saying: ‘¡Viva Hinds!’ to make us feel more comfortable with the name; and we completely own it, and it has remained like it for years.”

It’s a statement that has become part of the Hinds lore, the celebratory outcry a beacon of positivity shared between those on and off stage. Now though, almost a decade into the band’s existence, it’s also the name of their upcoming fourth album.

Stuffed full of killer riffs and grunge inflected sonics – and boasting guest appearances from Beck and Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten – ‘Viva Hinds’ is a record that lives up to this victorious title. And it’s also a name that marks this record out as a pivotal moment for Hinds after a tumultuous period of change.

“These last couple of years have been really tough for us,” Carlotta explains honestly, “and there was a moment where we didn’t know if we were able to keep doing this and stuff”

“There was a moment where we didn’t know if we were able to keep doing this”

Carlotta Cosials

Initially formed by Cosials and her bandmate Ana Perrote (the duo have always shared lead vocal, guitar and songwriting roles in the band), Hinds started releasing music in 2014, the band later becoming a quartet with other pals joining the fray. The buzzy group were picked up by press and supported acts like The Libertines on tour, dropping their first record ‘Leave Me Alone’ in 2016 to largely positive reviews. 2018’s ‘I Don’t Run’ and 2020’s fantastic ‘The Prettiest Curse’ followed, the band’s following growing all the while.

Yet after the release of their third album, this trajectory faltered – and not just due to the global lockdowns restricting touring. “We were in a moment where we were changing management and we weren’t in a record deal, and suddenly the two band members left, so it just felt like ‘Oh my god the whole castle is falling apart’” says Cosials, adding that the band members leaving was “very painful”.

“If we were looking for signs to stop the band, the signs were everywhere. The signs were slapping us in the face,” adds Perrote. “We realised we weren’t done with music, and if we were going to stop the band, it wasn’t going to be because of a pandemic or because of two band mates leaving. It’d be because we wanted to stop the band, and we never stopped wanting to be Hinds.”

“If we were looking for signs to stop the band, the signs were everywhere. The signs were slapping us in the face.”

Ana Perrote

Despite the unsettling time, it was something that united Perrote and Cosials. “It actually somehow made us stronger,” Cosials reflects, “Like: ‘this isn’t going to beat us’”. This resilience could also be down to the duo’s strong creative bond and friendship; our interview is peppered with jokes, and Cosials and Perrote regularly finish each other’s sentences, comfortable in a way that feels familial. 

When it came time to start writing new material, the duo initially avoided the idea of making a new album during this strange in-flux period (as they wouldn’t have been able to tour it). Cosials starts to explain: “we were angry at the idea of creating a new album, meanwhile the other one hasn’t been really…” 

Perrote continues her sentence: “Enjoyed or [experienced].”

Cosials finishes: “…And then, when we changed our mind, we were like ‘that song, that could be the beginning or something’”.

Work began in earnest in October 2022, heading to the countryside in France with producer Pete Robertson (Beabadoobee) and engineer Tom Roach. “There were several nights [in the studio] where after takes of vocals or doing a guitar take, that we felt like: ‘Oh my god, we’re doing something big here’.”

This writing taught the duo how to trust in themselves and trust in the process. “We were in such a low place on so many levels,” explains Perrote. “We weren’t thinking ‘Oh my god we have the best album we’ve ever written in our hands’ – we really didn’t think so”.

It was when the band started sharing the record with pals and their team that they began to realise there was magic imbued in it. Perrote muses: “It’s the first album where we don’t have the expectation that it has to be the ‘breakthrough album’ that’s going to take us to the next level, it’s quite the opposite: it was just like: we need to release music, we’re a band… it’s been four years since we’ve had a release.”

Cosials sums it up: “It didn’t feel glamorous or pretentious, but we knew that we had between our hands something super cool”.

‘VIVA HINDS’ crystallises all the essential parts of Hinds sound, combining it with fresh new influences and bold guest appearances. Inspired by far-spanning artists like Daniel Johnston, Courtney Barnett, Daft Punk and The Weeknd, there’s fearless riffs, direct dual vocal delivery and honest-but-humorous lyrics (the wicked ‘Coffee’ begins: “I like black coffee and cigarettes/And flowers from boys that I’m not sleeping with”). Yet there’s also slinky lashings of soul (‘Mala Vista’), dreamy shoe-gaze (‘The Bed, The Room, The Rain and You’) and jangling kaleidoscopic indie (‘Boom Boom Back’).

The latter saw Hinds team-up with indie hero Beck, their first meeting being a self-confessed “very, very LA story”. The duo were initially meant to spend a day in the city of angels writing with an unnamed musician, but this session was cancelled. Keen to spend their day creating, a tenuous link through “a friend of a friend of a friend” found them heading to a studio where they smashed out 80% of ‘Boom Boom Back’ in rapid time. That evening, they attended an entirely un-Hinds related film screening and there was “a little afterparty in a very small underground bar”, where they spotted Beck. Introducing themselves, “we sat there with our big smiles and were like ‘hello! We have a band,’” Perrote recalls, the duo clicking with the legend right away. Staying in touch and hanging out throughout the rest of Hinds’ time in LA, they eventually wound up showing Beck an early demo of ‘Boom Boom Back’, “he loved it…and [we asked]: ‘do you want to…sing on it?” He did, of course, say yes.

Hinds’ collaboration with Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten came on the driving, surf-rock infused ‘Stranger’, a song that juxtaposes sonic sunshine with candid lyrics that question day-to-day existence (“I’m a stranger to myself”). Having first met at a show in Dublin where Hinds played with Fontaines, they persuaded Chatten to join them in the studio in London to work on the track. When it came to recording the final version: “He waited until 3am the day before the last studio date to send us his vocal take,” Perrote laughs of collaborating with Chatten, adding that fortunately “the first version was perfect“.

All of these moments – and the small, tight-knit circle of collaborators – has led to Hinds creating what could be the strongest record of their career. Ultimately, ‘Viva Hinds’ feels like a celebration. A statement of intent from a band now a decade into their career, who’ve pushed through stormy times to emerge in dazzling sunshine. With its euphoric title, this is something the band agree with too. “It felt like a reaffirmation of us and ourselves,” says Cosials, finishing:”and the triumph of music that we’ve been able to do.”