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After unveiling their cards with two smashing singles, the Italian punk rock band Jaguero released their debut EP, Worst Weekend Ever, in collaboration with Epidemic Records last month. The four friends came up with the name Jaguero during a night of partying, a crazy union between a wild animal and a soccer player. They immediately fell in love with the idea, imagining Jaguero as a lucha-libre wrestler, who spends his life between obscurity and glory. The four come from disparate experiences: Slander (Matteo Marangoni), La Fortuna (Andrea Cichellero) and Regarde (Guido Dal Prà and Andrea Campesato Segnini) and in an exclusive interview with The Punk Site they share some insights into the band and their debut EP
Jaguero was born from the union of musicians already involved in different projects. Which elements did you propose among those put into play in the other projects? And what did you try to develop from scratch?
For sure, we’re taking our past experiences about songwriting and being in a band, and it helped a lot to determine our purposes and views on Jaguero’s music. As any other new band, we develop the overall sound from scratch, not to be associated with any stereotypes of our genre and to be as personal as possible.
You debuted with the single “Mild Safari” and then you hit the jackpot with “Negative, Awesome!”. What are the strengths of these two tracks?
The strength of both songs can be summarized in their “genre-fluid” nature: they can be seen as usual sing-along songs, where a particular theme is repeated during the evolution of it, but as can be noted, we’re constantly changing mood. This represents different shapes of punk/hardcore music, and many people love this feature!
The band is in its infancy but you have announced your debut date, in your city Vicenza (Italy) together with Delta Sleep. Which other bands could Jaguero be paired with in a show?
Well, probably we can be paired with most of the punk/hardcore bands in the scene, but dreaming a little bit and talking about big names, for sure Drug Church, Angel Dust, Joyce Manor and Get Up Kids. Other Italian shows will be announced soon with fantastic bands, you will see!
Do you have other shows coming up? Are you considering plans for tours and dates outside of Italy?
Yes, and actually, it is one of our main goals to play outside Italy. As of now, we’re still “nobody” in the scene, but we’re working hard to take Jaguero to the next level and become worldwide.
In the press release it is stressed that this band does not want to be a source of stress, but pure fun. Have the other musical projects in which you are involved (or have been involved in the past) been difficult to manage
Not particularly, but as 4 guys with our main jobs, it is difficult (but not impossible) to manage two bands at the same time. Rehearsals, live concerts, money to invest in music : it’s all about time management, and working 8-and-more hours per day makes this challenging. At this moment we’re succeeding at it, so no stress!
How did you approach writing the songs? Did the studio work transform them or did you already have clear ideas?
Songs from our first EP “Worst Weekend Ever” were written entirely in the rehearsal room, plus some homework for lyrics. With our guitar player Andrea, we pre-produced all the songs in detail, and then we headed to La Distilleria recording studio in Bassano Del Grappa. We worked with Maurizio Baggio as sound engineer, and all the songs didn’t change too much (just small details), but they were taken to an upper and more professional level thanks to Maurizio’s help. With him, we focused more on gear selection and to represent the true sound of the band that we’ll present during live performance.
How would you describe a Jaguero show to convince someone to come and see you?
Our show is wild: prepare paper-tissues for emotional sections, but be careful not to get hurt during the more aggressive ones. And that’s all.
You are Italian but you sing in English. How is this perceived in your country? And how are you perceived abroad?
In the underground scene it is pretty normal to use the English language for lyrics, but Italian is often used too. Maybe some bands pretend to speak proper English, and then an english-speaking person could acutally hear some stereotypes about the Italian accent. But during the recording process, we cared a lot about pronunciation, especially for the possible non-italian audience.
What other Italian music projects should we listen to?
Probably Mondaze are one of the most interesting projects around right now because they represent the shoegaze section that was missing in our scene. Also, well know Messa are one of the big names right now in doom metal. Then, if one is interested in cool italian-lyrics projects, Eddie Bunker (post hardcore) and Delicatoni (jazz, r&b) are jewels from our city, Vicenza.
You can find the Worst Weekend Ever EP through Bandcamp and digital platforms