SXSW 2015 Interview: Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia are a Spanish five-piece girl group from Santiago De Compostela, the capital city of Galicia in northwestern Spain. While they were not on the bill at the Sounds from Spain showcase that took place at Brush Square Park’s West Tent on Wednesday afternoon at SXSW 2015, as is the case for UK bands who show up at the British Music Embassy at Latitude 30, the girls appeared at the event to chat with Spanish industry folks and fans of Spanish music, as well as partake on drinks and paella that the Sounds from Spain contingent so kindly provided to us punters stopping by the tent.
The band’s name is the medical term for severe anxiety with panic attacks, which seems like a strange way to name your band. The girls quickly explained to me though in this interview that they chose their name after listening to and falling in love with the hard-hitting sound of the 2005 song with the name by American band Incubus, who also turned out to be in Austin for the week as well. (You never know; as people say, anything can happen at SXSW, and as you probably expected, all of the few appearances Incubus made during SXSW were rammed. A disappointed BBC staffer told me later in the week how gutted she was not being to get into a venue to see them.)
Anyway, back to Agoraphobia the band. Their sound is an upbeat, guitar-driven, garage-y, indie sound seemingly plucked from the ’60s and not wholly unlike Hinds (formerly known as Deers). Which begs the question, why have we not heard of Agoraphobia yet? Admittedly, I didn’t know much about the band when I met the girls, but their enthusiasm for their music – and their region’s food specialty, octopus – yum! – is evident in this interview.
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