Does White Noise dream of sleeping machines?

The acolytes of Pythagoras affirmed that the planets, when turning, produce a vibration that reaches the Earth in the form of sound. The music of the cosmos. Humans, according to them, couldn't hear her because somehow they always had. They called that silence. When this is mixed with a signal that contains all the possible frequencies, it generates what scientists called "white noise", whose sound waves are capable of immersing us in an environment of total calm. Its very presence can help you fall asleep. 

—We wanted to make music in times of silence— says Marcos J. González, vocalist, composer and soul of the band indie rock White Noise, after giving me the explanation with which he begins this interview. 

Later, Marcos clarifies something else: that the name of the band he shares with Raúl Nápoles (guitar and backing vocals), Alejandro Brito (guitar, keyboards), Marcos Wong (bass), Adiel Cruz (drums) and Daniel Danko Rosete (keyboards, minor percussion), also comes from a song they love, the one with the homonymous title that Izal included in his album self therapy (2018) and that speaks of "waves of lost information", of "sound born into extinction", of "white noise from sleeping machines". 

But White Noise, before being White Noise, was called Ikaros; and was born in San José de las Lajas, the largest municipality in the current province of Mayabeque. It was born at a time when only Raúl and Marcos were there, when having a musical project in high school was, perhaps, child's play. Then life and their destinies took them both down different paths. Until one day. 

"Three years later, when we were in tenth grade, the real beginning happened," Marcos continues. I remember that I met Raúl one day in the street and he told me: we have a battery! As if to say: “now, we are unstoppable”. We agreed to rehearse and realized we needed another guitar. So we call Alejandro. 

Then came the rehearsals, the first concert, joining the AHS, and military service. Ikaros did not stop, but attempts to move the project forward did not materialize. Like a straw that broke the camel's back, they lost the bassist and the drummer. The university arrived and the band needed new members. Several passed. Until the inevitable happened. 

—We put up a “Drummer and Bassist Wanted” poster. Because of that announcement, Adiel went to see us at a rock that we had in an art gallery and Marcos [Wong] wrote to us. He played guitar and all of a sudden he wanted to be a bass player. He wrote to us without mentioning that information. I don't know how many times he had played bass before. 

"Never," Wong interrupts. When I got to the first rehearsal I had my first bass just bought a few days before. 

So that second stage was a bit chaotic. Ikaros was still searching for a sound, constantly changing repertoire, not yet mutating to what it is today. It was just at the moment when the members decided to start from scratch and gain coherence that the name of White Noise appeared. It was almost like making a clean slate. 

—That reset also came with the birth of the themes of what will be our first album, songs for shadows- Marcos points out, while adding that it is an album dreamed of for almost two years.

And it is that the pandemic and isolation delayed the production of the band's full-length debut. Even so, White Noise decided to release some singles on digital platforms and in that natural niche that is, for them, their Telegram channel: Shade, change, what a way to be broken and songs for shadows, the title track of the album, became the spearhead of a larger project that has 10 songs and that today is recorded in the República Records studio. A phonogram that, according to these musicians, is about self-acceptance and the internal battles of the human being. It starts —Marcos says— from the Jungian concept of the word “shadow”, that unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious Self does not recognize as its own. 

However, the order of the album has little to do with the birth of the songs that make it up. Many of them were composed before, at the time when Marcos, Raúl, Alejandro, Wong, Adiel and Danko began to get drunk on foreign sounds, especially those defended by Spanish bands. 

What are those influences? 

Danko: Vetusta Morla, Zoé and Izal. It's funny because these three were the last ones we discovered. But the mere fact of finding bands that did such good rock in Spanish gave us a little hope. 

Raul: Yes, because we never considered not making music in Spanish.

frames: The fact that it is in our language goes beyond the metric, the way to achieve different sensations varies completely. These influences also helped us to govern ourselves as a band. In fact, lately we have taken the habit of sharing in stages what we listen to individually. This is an important exercise, that of synchronizing influences. It helps us understand the context in which an idea has value. Whenever one composes, that one brings an initial idea —be it a song, a riff, of instrumental line—, that idea is loose, it is not understood by itself. That is why it is imperative that everyone share the context. So we can all contribute and know in what directions that idea can be developed.

wong: Exact. But in addition to those three bands we had Fito Páez, Charly [García], who weren't bands, but rather soloists. And there the dynamic is different. 

frames: We had even consumed Soda Stereo, but the format is very different. And that brings me to another issue: many of the influences we had in Spanish were from another era, a few decades apart from the sound we're looking for now. 

—But surely White Noise wants to distance itself from those influences and look for its own sound. Or not? If so, what would that sound be?

Raul: The sound of messing around and trying thousands of production tools in the studio without any fear, I'd say.

Alexander: What makes the band sound the way it does is the identity of each one of us. Every time we try a structure for a song, the tastes of each one always manifest, those details that are stuck in the subconscious. In the end, 15 songs come out and all 15 have different shapes, structures and sound effects. 

frames: The individual, the peculiar, the original arises from the accumulation of many different influences. Whenever we find a new influence we want to learn fervently. But it happens that the previous influences are still there; then you don't end up looking like that person or that group that you discovered and now dazzles you, but a consensus appears. There's always a point where you, fascinated by what you're hearing, say: damn, here I would have liked it to do such a thing. With that in mind, we have no reservations about wanting to fill ourselves with the sound we discover. We have never had the purpose of standing out; identity traits arise naturally over time. Also, each time a new influence appears, it constitutes a turning point or ascent in our journey. Years go by, we rehearse, but the most remarkable point is when we find an influence and appropriate it. It is a point of creative crisis, even. 

—Let's talk a little about some of the songs on the album. songs for shadows, the single, is for me one of the most beautiful, especially the acoustic version that, I think, has a better sound than the original. How was he born?

Raul: songs for shadows It was one of those songs that came out of a riff. The idea for the acoustic was from República Records, where we recorded it live. From that moment we planned to revolutionize the song and make a totally different version. The whistle was there even before the lyrics were conceived; In fact, the riff I invented it on the guitar, whistling one day. So two or three years later, when we were able to do the acoustic, I said: this is my time to whistle.

-Y what a way to be broken?

frames: That is perhaps the only love song on the album. The rest have more to do with self-knowledge and with those internal battles that we have to fight. This song, however, talks about that type of relationship in which things work by rules inside the couple that would not be understood from the outside. Not all relationships respond to the structures to which we are accustomed. what a way to be broken It has the added value of complicity. 

—Nothing happens, of which they released a video lyrics in November, is part of the disc?

frames: Nothing happens it's a song we had written long before the album. For a while we felt the need to release it, but always in an acoustic format. It never grew into the whole group format. Although it is not part of the album, it was the first song that used the concept of the shadow that we handle, when it says: “dance with the shadow of your own dance”. That phrase was later taken up in songs for shadows, the simple one, and it is precisely an allegory to the process of self-discovery of which he spoke. We decided to release it now because we were silent for a long time, due to the pandemic. It even seemed coherent to us because of that recurrence in the theme that will predominate in the album. In addition, we released it as a thank you to the support we had during the competition of indie-cool. 

At the end of September 2021, the Spanish media indie-cool launched another edition of its contest for emerging artists, whose purpose is to discover and promote new projects. More than 200 participated. White Noise appeared on the list of the 32 finalists. From then on, the competition —with a knockout model similar to the soccer World Cups— depended solely on the public and the level of call on networks, especially Instagram, that each project had. The Cubans, despite being an international event, were among the top 8 in the contest. 

That was an opportunity to connect with other scenes in the indiebeyond our borders. 

—What does White Noise mean by indie rock?

Danko: the word indie It comes from independent and emerged in the 80s when artists wanted to distance themselves from record companies and whatever was happening in the market. It is a timeless music, which is not made according to what is fashionable. Today the term has evolved so much that the indie it is associated with a sound, with an aesthetic. It is an evolution of what used to be new wave, and all those “strings” that in the indie They found a kind of new home. But, in the end, it's about making your music and that no one comes to impose anything. In the band, for example, the music is made within it. There are people who are outside and help with other tasks, but the music is conceived only by the members of the band.

frames: Exact. The indie it is the music conceived entirely by the artist, without the mediation of any external actor, be it a record company or a producer. there are artists indie, like the same Vetusta Morla, who sign with a record company, but keep all the power of decision over their work in the contract. This gives a certain guarantee of fidelity to the original meaning of the work. The journey you will take as an artist will be determined only by you. It is a new dimension of author music, a complete product where you determine the visual, the communicative, even. 

Raul: In our case, we have always had total creative freedom at República Records. Nothing and nobody has limited us to testing what we have found in the studio, to achieve the sound we want. To give you an example, in songs for shadows there is a voice far back that I recorded in my house, which is placed in a very special way, little is heard, because I recorded it with a low-cost microphone. When I took it to República, at first they looked at me strangely, but then it stayed and it worked.

Danko: Also all the content that is on networks has been produced by us, with the exception of some video clips or the covers of the singles. the same video lyrics by Nothing happens Marcos did it, for example. 

"But don't you think he indie rock also goes through a spirituality?

Danko: Yes, I really think so. The indie It is more than a musical genre, I feel that it is a kind of attitude towards art. 

frames: We have used music as a transforming element in our lives. In my case, making songs goes hand in hand with my personal, spiritual path. It is a process related to my concerns. But in the end we also depend on the relationship with the public. And there several questions appear: what is worth saying, how is it worth saying, what has more strength, what moves me to the point that it can make another person move, the human dimension is very important.

White noise. Photo: Lucy Gmorell.

Do you think there is a scene from indie rock in Cuba? Which bands do you recognize yourself with? 

wong: Yes. There are many bands and with a lot of quality. Los Locos Tristes are my favorites in Cuba. Now, there is something that cannot be left unmentioned, and that is that within that scene there are two “big” studios that, I think, took or are taking the initiative a little further: BandEra Studio and República Records. Many interesting things have come or are coming from there, not only indie rock, but indie usually. 

Danko: Bands like Los Locos Tristes, which Marcos already mentioned; Compaz, De Grises, Miel con Limón, Sweet Lizzy Project that is no longer in Cuba. 

frames: Here for a long time there have been private studios where the artists go to record because it is very complex to reach the state studios. But now something is happening that is of great importance and is related to República Records. These people are making click directed above all to achieve the sound that the artist wants. We are very grateful, because we came with a proposal that was not the same as what the studio had done, and they had the patience to find the sound that we wanted. What is nucleating in Republic could become a scene indie Cuban, with very different sounds, with very different realities. With BandEra I think this did not happen, because the studio imposed its sound, it did a lot of work for free, but a common BandEra aesthetic remained. Neither position is wrong, but there is a difference.

wong: A scene doesn't depend only on bands and artists, it also needs media that support it, concert halls, festivals, spaces. I think that the bands have the potential to attract the attention of a large public, but if there is nothing to push them, that scene will not grow. 

frames: For me it's the other way around. I think the bands will make those spaces arise. The relevance that the movement acquires, regardless of the support it receives from the institutional sector, will make the spaces grow. For me the determining factor is that the public exists and I think it exists. At this time we have the means to produce ourselves, that's why the good ideas that exist are being realized. In previous stages, perhaps a scene was not consolidated because the tools of today did not exist. 

Precisely with this mastery of the tools that the modern world offers the music industry, Ruido Blnco recently became the first Cuban band to release music in the NFT format. To that universe of almost science fiction for Cubans, the band entered the hand of Ernesto Cisneros —pianist, arranger and composer responsible for the soundtrack of the Cuban soap opera the face of the days—, who saw in them the potential to enter that market. 

"This is a unique creative exercise," Danko says. With NFTs we are halfway between creating content for social networks and creating a more complete product. In the coming months we will launch some collectibles in this format, starting from songs for shadows. They will be reinterpretations of the intro of the song with visual interventions. This world is a kind of limbo, a curious creative dimension that we want to exploit to continue dreaming. 

"And what is White Noise dreaming of?"

"We dream a lot, we do it constantly in rehearsals," Marcos jokes. But we have one that is an eternal dream: to make the music that we want to listen to. Take our career to another level, be recognized in the Latin American and Spanish market, which is where our influences are; but, above all that, we dream of being the band that we want to listen to and we want to be in Cuba.