The Guitar Magazine – September 2019

GONZÁLEZ

WORDS DANIEL ONG PHOTOGRAPHY MALIN JOHANSSON

From playing in hardcore bands to

spinning covers of electronic tracks

to touring with a 22-piece orchestra,

José González is a balladeer whose pensive

acoustic songs belie his constant craving

for change. He’s also a sometimes-DJ,

a dancehall enthusiast, producer and,

in one strand of his multi-threaded life,

a PhD candidate in biochemistry.

We chat with the singer-songwriter

and get him to spill the beans...

J

osé González slinks into our interview with

furtive steps and stolen glances. He greets us

in hushed tones, carefully choosing his words,

as though aware that he shouldn’t betray the

autumnal indie-folk persona he’s grown to inhabit

over the course of his career.

Three solo studio albums, each a study in late-night

introspection, have earned him that reputation. But

this isn’t a performance. Secrecy is, in person and

song, his medium.

The singer-songwriter, born to Argentine immigrant

parents in Sweden, is an enigma waiting to be solved.

He isn’t a technical virtuoso in the traditional sense,

but his nylon-string fingerwork is unassumingly deft

and agile. He’s often pigeonholed with Bon Iver and

Iron & Wine, yet the depth of his influences extends

far beyond rock, indie and Americana. He had

embarked on a PhD in biochemistry, yet his music is

more at home in a library than a laboratory.

The 2013 film The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty,

which his tunes soundtrack, is an apt analogy for

González’s sound: bittersweet, life-affirming and

painfully romantic all at once.

“When I listen to music while running or even

DJ’ing, I enjoy music from Africa and Nigeria,” the

40-year-old reveals. “I like everything that’s dancehall

or dancehall-ish. That’s always an inspiration. But

I think I incorporate [those styles] without thinking

about it, when I’m trying to find new rhythms, new

arpeggios. So I have, I guess, parallel lives.”

THE SWEDE LIFE

González grew up in a suburb of Gothenburg, an area

he describes as a “music city by the ocean”. Growing

up, his tastes were informed by his father, whose love

THE SECRET

OF

JOSÉ

LIFE

JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ

GUITAR MAGAZINE 51