In Conversation With Así Así: New Album & Old Sayings
Photography by Hannah Sellers
In 2012, Fernando de Buen López left his home of Mexico City—and his band, El Mañana—to study design in Chicago. It was his ambition to reform El Mañana in Chicago, but working and studying forced him to put the band on the back burner. Even when his workload abated, de Buen López faced the harsh reality of finding bandmates.
It took five years to cull together a group of musicians de Buen López deemed suitable for El Mañana 2.0. The band coalesced in 2018 only to face another roadblock—another band had registered the name El Mañana. Thus Así Así was born.
The de Buen López of 2012 couldn’t have imagined how the ensuing decade would unfold. But ten years, one pandemic, and countless posts to the Chicago musicians' section on Craigslist later, Así Así has self-released its debut album, Mal de Otros.
With de Buen López on vocals and guitar, Celeen Rusk on keys, Sam Coplin on bass, and Ben Geissei on drums, Así Así tracked Mal de Otros at the vaunted Palisade studios. The final product blends an eclectic mix of genres, from ’80s synthpop to neo-psychedelia to cumbia. And listeners seeking a healthy dose of indie rock won’t be disappointed, as de Buen López’s warbling guitar and infectious arrangements evoke El Mañana throughout.
It may have taken ten years to get here, but the wait for Mal de Otros has been well worth it.
These Days: Can you describe how the band formed in Chicago?
Así Así: I moved to Chicago in 2012, and at first I didn't do much. But about five years in, I decided to bring back an old project from Mexico called El Mañana.
TD: Was this a project you started in Mexico City?
AA: I was in Mexico City, yeah. In Chicago, I met our drummer, Ben, our keys player, Celeen, and our old bass player, Charlie. We got a handful of shows under our belt, but then the pandemic hit. So we used that time to write and record the album. That’s also when we met Sam, our current bass player. Since the pandemic lifted a bit, we've been playing a lot more shows. We recently played our first show with our new guitarist, but he’s gonna miss our record release show. We're gonna play that one as a four-piece.
TD: What motivated you to re-form the band after a five-year hiatus?
AA: Having the time and space to make music again. Work and study got in the way for a little while. But also it took a while to find people. In Mexico City, I grew up with my friends from high school playing music. That organically grew into a group of musicians. I was used to having this community of musicians, and I thought, 'Oh, this is how it's gonna happen in Chicago.’ That's not how it happened. That's what led to the five-year hiatus. The plan had always been to keep making music.
TD: What was that like? To really want to be making music but not fully being able to?
AA: It was frustrating. It is one of my favorite things to do in the world. And there's a false narrative that you can age out of the music industry. Like, 'Shit's happening. Shit's moving past.' That's actually false and who cares, but it’s still a frustrating feeling.
TD: Yeah. Like I'm not 19 and making it so I might as well stop.
AA: Yeah. I might as well give up and get on living my adult life. But I'm also stubborn in that way. I'm like, no, I'm gonna keep going.
TD: If you blew up, would you drop everything to do music?
AA: That's a good question. Maybe. But I do like doing many things and I like thinking about many things. I feel like my music benefits from me thinking about other things as well. And so in a way, yes I would. But I would also think of ways to diversify where my mind goes. I feel like that creates the space and energy to do other things like make music. But that being said, if we blew up, I would be like of course I'm gonna do this.
TD: Who wouldn't? So the album—what was it like writing the album during the pandemic? And what did the songwriting process look like?
AA: It was interesting to say the least. We could all work from home, and that created a space for doing this comfortably, which cannot be overstated. I would work nine-to-five, and then at five, I would force myself to sit for two hours and work on music. Half of the days were just absolute shit and I'd be like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But you need those bad days for the one day that is good.
When I'm writing songs, I'll get stuck. And that's where I usually take it to the rest of the band like, 'Hey, here's a thing. Help me unstick it.' But I couldn't do that because we weren't rehearsing during the pandemic. We were stuck at home. So I had to develop my own approach to get unstuck, which was actually a really good thing.
I started by covering my own songs from a different vantage point. No guitars, for example, even though guitar's my main instrument. Or I’d play an acoustic version. I’d play a disco version or a techno version. In doing that exercise, the song would get unstuck. Once I got the songs to a specific place with that exercise, I had to figure out what the actual song was. Because I’d have five different versions of it. So then I would solve it with my guitar and voice. I didn’t do this for all of the songs on the record, but I did for six or seven.
TD: How many songs were up for consideration for the record?
AA: I mean, the starting point was like 35-40 demos. My original idea was to do three albums.
TD: That would take crazy long to record. Did you record everything yourself?
AA: No. About halfway through the process of making demos, we started working with our producer Marcus Reese. He plays keyboards with Wyatt Waddell and is an amazing musician. We started doing Zoom sessions where I’d share the sound from my Pro Tools and vice versa. Eventually, we got the songs to a place where we thought they were good enough to go to the studio, but at that point, we didn't have a bass player. So Wyatt played the bass. We literally rehearsed four times, maybe three, as a band.
For six of the songs, all of the drums, bass, guitar, and keys were tracked live and then we did a bunch of overdubs. Then there are two songs that don't have drums or bass in the way that a typical rock song does. We recorded it all at Palisade studios—Marcus had a connection there. That's how we met Alex Burns, who was the audio and mix engineer. And then we still did some final overdubs and harmony parts at my house.
At that point, we had our record but we still didn't have a bass player. I posted on Craigslist and I met Sam, our current bass player. This is also when everyone started getting the vaccine, so we could start rehearsing.
TD: So when did you officially finish the record?
AA: The final, final record was ready like October 2021. Maybe November.
TD: Why did you wait until now to release it?
AA: That's a good question. We're doing everything ourselves.
TD: Was that a deliberate decision?
AA: We considered shopping around for a label, but we weren't very good at it, to be honest. So there were learning pains. Since we self-released, we had to get all these things in place. That's why it took so long.
TD: Got it. Are there any artists that inspired the record or specific tracks?
AA: I'd been listening to this band called Soda Stereo. It's one of the seminal '80s and '90s Argentinian rock bands. It has a very lush, '80s sound that permeates a couple of my songs.
One of the songs that doesn't have drums —it's more keyboard-based—is the song called “En El Suelo.” Marcus and I were jamming on Frank Ocean's “White Ferrari” when we wrote that one.
TD: Was there anything non-musical that inspired the record?
AA: A lot of the stuff in the songs reflects the frustration of the first year of the pandemic. The fact that everything was just out of control. And the last year of the Trump administration, which was absolutely brutal. The record isn’t a specific commentary, but I think that sense of frustration and despair permeated the original idea to make three records. One record was going to be despair, one would be surrender, and one would be hope. Or not hope, but ánimo in Spanish, which kind of means hope. Surrender mixed with hope.
Obviously, we didn't make three records, but I feel like those were some of the guiding thoughts. And Marcus was always asking, “What's the concept? What's in your mind? What's the thread for this set of eight songs?” I think it condensed to despair, surrender, and ánimo. In a way, the last song on the record is actually a positive song, the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. Whereas the first parts of the record are maybe a little bit darker, at least lyrically.
TD: Was there any significance to the title track being instrumental?
AA: Not by design. There's a phrase in Spanish, at least in Mexico: "mal de otros, consuelo de tontos," which means the bad things that happen to others are a fool's consolation. It's just the first part of that phrase, the evil that falls onto others. In the middle of a global pandemic where we don't know what the fuck is happening, “mal de otros” feels pretty accurate.
TD: What is the direct translation of Así Así?
AA: That's another funny story. With the whole name thing, another band registering El Mañana, we had to find a new name. And you know, I sing in Spanish, but we are in the U.S. The rest of the band is American, but I'm Mexican. So I was adamant that the name of our band needed to have a dual meaning in both Spanish and English.
Something that cracks me up is that people in the U.S. get taught that the word “so-so” is “así así,” which no one in Mexico says. That's not the translation. That's a literal translation to so-so, but that's not how we say that something is so-so. We say “mas o menos” or we say something different. And so for me, it was funny. It's in Spanish, but it is actually an American saying.
TD: What is your favorite song on the album to play live?
AA: "Ya Lo Sé." It's very energetic, but it still has a psychedelic feeling to it. It always gets me excited. It's a very simple song too. I'm just strumming so I don't have to be concentrating, whereas other songs are more involved.
TD: I get that. Besides COVID, were there any other challenges that you faced in trying to get the album done?
AA: It was a learning process to do this completely on our own. The couple of records I released back in Mexico were on small labels. But there's so much to releasing an album. It's not just making the record. You gotta do PR. You gotta think through the cadence of singles. Are you making a video for the songs? Well, how are you gonna make that video? What's the right timeline for that? Who do you have to call for this? Who do you have to call for that? We had to figure out all those questions. I knew the answers to some of them, but I was rusty cause it'd been a while. I hadn’t put out a record since 2014. And a lot of them were new questions.
TD: How did you figure it all out?
AA: Asking friends. Asking a lot of my friends in Mexico who are still involved in music. We're recording and being like, 'Hey Alex, what do you think about this? Hey, Marcus, how did you do this?' And doing research online.
TD: I understand that. So I know you've referenced '80s stuff. Listening to the album, I definitely heard '70s and '80s psych rock and some cumbia. How do you use those influences while keeping the music fresh?
AA: That's a good question. What is fresh music? For example, “Yo Lo Sé” is a song that has a cumbia beat. It was part of that cover exercise I mentioned. I had never written a cumbia, but I was really into it at the moment. That's how it came to be. If you listen to the first demo, the song is there, but it's a rambling thing. So for me, fresh is when this diffused idea forms into what a group of songs needs to be. And it's never an individual song—it's the sound of a collection of songs.
TD: So, where do you see the band going in the future?
AA: Well, more music, but in a different way. I wrote most of this record. Only one of the songs, ”Nómada,” was arranged in rehearsal. And you can actually hear it in the arrangement. It's energetic and different. So now, I'm really looking forward to co-writing a lot more with the band, 'cause they're all incredible musicians.
And then, I just wanna play more shows and get more people to listen to us. Every person that listens to us is a gift. An incredible gift. And I don't want to sound greedy, but I want more of that. One listener is great, but a hundred is greater. We're talking about playing in Milwaukee, going to Madison, going to Columbus. Doing a little bit more outreach. And we want to go play in Mexico. It's been 10 years, so a lot of the things that I knew from back then, like venues, don't exist anymore. It's been a bit of a reality check for me. But I still have a lot of friends there that do music and it would be great to connect with them on this level. I still connect with them when I go back home, but usually, it’s for a drink. Now let's go do a show.