Present yourself to the readers
My name is Esteban García. I am one of the two guitar players in the band Naiv. Naiv is a new independent band from Mexico City. If I had to describe our sound, I would say it’s a mixture between progressive rock, metal, trip hop and pop. We just released our first album called “The Quest” a couple of days ago, you can listen to it on almost every digital platform.
Who composes ?...How does it work in the band ?
I am the main composer in the band. Usually when I have come up with something interesting, I show it to Ximena (the singer) first. Then we define the vocal melody between the two of us, and try to add lyrics. Once the two of us are ready, we show the new song to the rest of the band. Sometimes I have an idea of what they could do, buy many times they come up with something that I would have never thought of and change completely the scheme I had.
Who writes the texts ?..What are they talking about ?..How does inspiration come ?
I wrote all the lyrics on this album. Each song talks about something different. The song “The Quest” has one of my favorite lyrics. The inspiration came when I was reading “Journey to Ixtlan”, an amazing book by Carlos Castaneda. A part of the book deals with the idea of “erasing the personal history” to be able too be free. Erasing your past and your family ties, so you can be really genuine. I thought this subject was perfect for that song, because its music is sinister but also soothing and relaxing. Sometimes it is very easy to come up with the subject of a song. Many times I started singing the first things that came to my mind, and there they were, I had found immediately the right word for the song. I just had to fill the empty gaps to tell the story right and the song was done. But other times it´s much harder. I have struggled many times with finding the right subject for a song. On those occasions I have to do the opposite, sit down for a long time and concentrate a lot until something decent comes. I envy singer songwriters like Fiona Apple, whose songs seem to be done effortlessly. Her music and her words go hand in hand perfectly, as If the music would not exist without those exact words and vise versa.
Why the name NAIV ?
It comes form the english word naïve, which means innocent. Ximena has a childish personality. She also has a childish voice when she speaks, which contrasts with her singing voice that is much serious and imposing. We thought we could play with that word a lot. Ximena´s personality is very sweet but our music is much darker and intense.
What are your personal musical tastes and your influences ?
I grew up listening to rock music from the 60s and 70s. That was what my parents heard. Band like The Doors, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, etc. Then when I was a teenager I got into Heavy Metal, and specially into Progressive Metal. I found on my own bands like Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Riverside. Bands that were picking up what my parent’s favorite 60s and 70s band had left off. So everything went full circle and it was nice to know the new bands I had discovered but also their sources of inspiration. It gave me a better understanding of the genre. I wanted to follow with that line of music, but thing changed when we started playing with Ximena. Before meeting her, I was trying to find a male singer, just like all the band I mentioned. But Bastian who is the drummer and I thought her voice was very special and we started the band together. Her voice changed the panorama we had contemplated, and made our music sound much fresher. I think her voice will help us reach a wider audience outside progressive rock. She makes us sound less like Pink Floyd and more like Goldfrapp or Portishead, for example.
