Hugo Nubiola of Imperial Jade knows a thing or two about going
against the grain. For one thing, he plays guitar with a 70s-influenced
Spanish rock band, in a country dominated by electronica and reggaeton.
For another, his Barcelona blues rockers also come from the Catalonia
region, whose recent bids to break away from Spain have rubbed
its countrymen the wrong way.
But Nubiola enjoys the challenge of outsiderdom. “Being out
there on our own as a rock band makes it feel more special,” he
says. “We do hear some people talking bullshit about us. There
was one time we heard a woman say to her friend at a show: ‘You
didn’t tell me they were Catalan.’ But at the end she wanted us to
sign a CD. I wrote: ‘From your Catalan friends.’ So you see how
music can change things.”
Formed in 2012, Imperial Jade have spent the last seven years
converting the country, one venue at a time, led from the front
by singer Arnau Ventura. “Our shows get very hot and sweaty,”
says Nubiola, “and we all get kinda crazy on stage. It just comes
naturally. I start kicking the air like a nut.
“One time, we were driving to a festival and there was a police
control point,” Nubiola recalls. “We had a little weed, just three
joints. They stopped us, and there were dogs, all that stuff. Canyou imagine having been on the road for fifteen hours, and you get stopped
by the cops? We were like: ‘Fuck off, man. Is this really happening?’ But we
made the festival,” he continues, with a grin.
Support slots with Rival Sons and Europe – plus the new material from
second album On The Rise – should speed things up. Listen to the galloping
slide guitar on Sad For No Reason and you might broadly deem them blues
rock. But there’s a deeper invention too, with the dovetailing vocals, quirky
instrumentation and proggy touches on tracks such as The Call showing
why Nubiola offers Steely Dan, Pink Floyd and The Beatles as key
influences, alongside the obvious touchstone of Zeppelin.
“Some of these songs are about our problems,” he says. “Rough Seas
is about when everything is against you, Sad For No Reason is like an
old blues love story about a broken-hearted man.
“Hand Of The Puppeteer,” he continues, “came when I started
thinking about all those occult powers that rule our world. Y’know,
all the things we do without noticing: what we read on the news,
what we buy, what we eat. That song is about rebelling against
those powers – or at least showing people that they’re there.”
But perhaps it’s the yearning Glory Train that sums up where
Imperial Jade are at. “There are moments when you think you’re
never going to make it,” says Nubiola. “But Glory Train is about
those chances that you only get once or twice in a lifetime. That’s
the same feeling that we’ve got now. Like, this is our chance.” HYOn The Rise is out now on Listenable Records.Meet the cop-dodging Spanish rebels
turning their nation on to rock‘n’roll. Olé!Imperial Jade
“It’s obvious that Led
Zeppelin I, II, III and IV
have had an impact on
us, as well as Abbey
Road and The Dark Side
Of The Moon,” says
Hugo Nubiola. “But for
a more special album
that’s influenced us, I’d
say Steely Dan’s Can’t
Buy A Thrill, which we’ve
been listening to for the
last three years, and
we must have played
thousands of times.”FOR FANS OF...“It’s obvious that Led Zeppelin I,
II, III and IV have had an impact
on us, as well as Abbey Road and
The Dark Side Of The Moon.”
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