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Writer's pictureABQ Green Room

Q&A: The Talking Hours

By August Edwards

 

It’s like lifeblood, really. That’s what Karie Paez of the Talking Hours answered when asked about the value of playing music after all these years. Yeah, it’s like breathing, Mauricio Paez would add. Those attitudes are reflected in the very music The Talking Hours put out. Transmissions to Missy, the latest album from this electronic rock duo, is both cerebral and emotional, taking on a life of its own.


I had the great pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Mauricio and Karie, so keep on reading to hear more about their creative process, the story behind their first concept album, and their love for their music community.


Listen to Transmissions to Missy:




ABQGR: Listening to the album, I was thinking of calling it industrial-sounding because of some of those looped rhythms and riffs. And I can also imagine it, having seen you guys perform, I can imagine it being played live and the athleticism behind it. It feels very immersive. That being said, what about on the other side—what did the songwriting and composition process look like?


M: The way we write is like, when we rehearse, Karie might start playing a beat or something that I like, that’s like, oh, keep playing that! And what we’ll do is just record on the phone to kind of get the idea down—and you know, like some guitar riff or bass riff might hit me, and we’ll record. And then what I do is, I record that riff, transfer it over to the computer, and I just listen to it, and [then] ideas hit for the programming. And we do a lot of programming—I have keyboard controller, and software and stuff, and you name it, you can pull up any kind of instruments in it, all kinds of synthesizers. I’ll start composing the loops that I want her to trigger when we play live, that I want going behind the song idea we came up with.


K: That’s all his mastermind—those loops are all him. I just turn them on.


M: It’ll just be in rehearsal, something will hit, and then it gets into, like, oh, that’s a really cool idea. And I’m gonna program electronic stuff behind it that we can play behind it. The other thing is I’ll just be fiddling around and come up with a loop and I’ll be like hey, check this out, and I’ll load it into her drum pad and she’ll just like, trigger the loop, so it’ll be the other way around. It’ll be like, you play whatever beat. Or just start playing! And see what happens, you know.


K: Yeah, different starting points, but hopefully a decent end product.


ABQGR: Totally, so, technology, it sounds like, is a huge part of the process, too. Is that natural to both of your artistic processes? Or was it kinda like, a hurdle?


K: It was a huge hurdle for me. When we first started messing with and incorporating loops and playing to a click and all that, man I was just—I was just mad all the time. Like, this is terrible! Takin all my freedom away, man! But now if I don’t have that in my ear, I feel so naked. I feel out of place. So, I’ve become very accustomed to it. And I also really appreciate that we incorporate this to the level that we did, because being forced to play to a click has really, really helped my pacing and my timing.


M: Another thing we do is we’ll create loops, and we won’t do backing tracks. We never create a backing track and then play to that, because then, when you’re live, you’re stuck to that backing track. But if we have a loop—like, say the breakdown in “The Wolf”—we always kinda jam on that live. With the loops you can have the freedom [to say], “We wanna keep playing this part, just jam on this part.” Karie can trigger loops whenever she wants to, and we can play along to that.


ABQGR: I’m glad you touched on your performance, too, because I was wondering—do you have any sort of specific philosophy or mindset when it comes to putting on a performance?


K: Yeah, absolutely.


M: When I play, it’s an all-out, like I’m gonna unleash all my anger. I’m not an angry person!


K: No, you’re not—that was a good choice to start with. I’m so mad!


M: I’m just gonna unleash all my whatever, and I cannot—I’m not a stand-around-on-stage player. We’re not as crazy as some bands out there, but we’re also not shoegazers. It’s a lot of emotion when we play. We like to play hard, and just let it all out on stage.


K: To me, energy is the most important piece of the show. From the band, but also from the crowd. It’s a whole collective. If anything goes right, hopefully somebody in that collective can be impacted or just have an experience for that twenty, thirty minutes, an hour—however long it is, just exist in that collective energy. Similar to how [Mo] described it—putting it all out there, just being mindful and present.


M: We wanna put on a show. If there’s 200 people there, 10 people there, 50 people there, we wanna put on a show.


K: Yeah, you wanna feel something. On both sides.


M: It’s almost sports-like. I’m still—I can feel it in my neck and shoulders from Friday still. You have a few days where you’re just sore.


K: Oh god! Yeah.


M: You’re just sore from like, bangin your head on stage or whatever you’re doing. Moving. That’s our philosophy. Energy. Put out the energy.



ABQGR: Totally. So [movin’ on]—why a concept album and why now?


M: So—the cover of the album is a picture [Karie’s] mom took of our dog. That’s actually a picture of a dog, and that’s what happened with the exposure—


K: Yeah, it’s super weird. Like, what even is that?


M: She was laying, I think, in the corner? Against the wall?—


K: I don’t even remember if it was dark—


M: Maybe the room was dark? I don’t know! But she took a picture and she sent it to us on the phone, and she’s like, “I took this picture of Charlie and this is what I got.” And it was like this little light streak.


K: Yeah.


M: And our dog has seizures,


K: she’s actually been solid for a long time,


M: she did for years, but now for years she hasn’t, but we always used to say that when she had a seizure, she was transmitting information to Missy, who was Karie’s brother’s dog that went missing, which we always said was abducted by aliens. Because they never found Missy! And so, they were like, oh, the aliens took Missy, because she’s gone.


K: Listening to you tell this out loud—I think we were defending ourselves from certain realities. Oh, she got taken by aliens. Charlie’s just sending her information. It’s worked though! It’s turned into an album! Anyways, interesting—


M: Yeah, and so we’ve always talked about how when she had her seizures, she’s just transmitting to Missy in space. And this is like, seven, eight years ago that we talked about this. Like, forever, right? And then when Karie’s mom took that picture and that came out, I was like, oh my god, she’s transmitting! And then, we were like, we have to turn this into a story! And so, transmissions 1 – 9, if you look at the back of the album, it goes 1 – 9 up to her, so it starts at the bottom. If you look closely there is this radar going, there are these circles that are like the transmission. Each song is—if you read the little blurbs, it kind of explains what the transmission was about at that point. Some of it is social media related and how stupid it is—like “Beautiful,” the first one, talks about how you get all these pictures with all these people with these filters on and you’re like, what the fuck is that? And then you see them in person and you’re like, who the hell are you? You’re fine just the way you are—you don’t need to use a filter. So, that’s Charlie on “Beautiful” just talking to Missy about people using filters, and she doesn’t understand it because they’re already beautiful to start with. So, there’s one example of one song. Some of them are political, you know. They’re just transmissions of the goings-on of earth.


K: Yeah, goings-on of earth, the state of our world. Messages about the state of our world from Charlie’s perspective.


M: “Farewell Missy,” the last song, is like,


K: like, keep trying.


M: like, keep the faith, ‘cause we’re gonna fix it.



ABQGR: Seeing as this is your first concept album, what was different about making this than your past couple of albums?


K: When all was said and done, it definitely felt more intentional—not to say our other albums are just like, aw sure, just slang it on there, cool, call it a day. But obviously we write for some period of time, and gather up enough things to feel like, okay, I think we’re ready to go try this and record. With this, everything had to fit. Had to fit to the concept. So, that felt different. And I felt really—I don’t know, I was particularly happy with it when it was done, and that might be because it was all a whole concept together, from the artwork on. It was really neat to see it all come together.


M: Biggest difference to me—basically the writing process of the music was the same way we always do. We write, and whatever we like [stays]. The biggest difference to me was the lyrics. Having to write about something in particular that all kind of flows together…writing lyrics is the worst part of writing music to me. When I get to it, I’m like, I just wanna quit, I don’t even wanna be a musician when it comes to writing lyrics! I love to write music, but then writing words is like, oh my god, now I have to come up with words for this stuff. So it was really fun doing a concept album because it was fun, like,


K: telling a story.


M: you’re telling a story. So, to me, it was just so much easier writing a concept album. Like, we should just keep doing concept album. Because you’re telling a story. So, each song, it’s just easy to come up with words. For me.


K: It’s interesting too, thinking about this, because I think we had a number of songs already written when we decided on the concept.


M: Yeah, we probably had half the songs written before we decided this is gonna be a concept album. It just all came to be perfect for us. The stars aligned, you know?


K: Yeah, and I always get so excited when, like, a band you really like comes out with an album and you find out, oh, it’s a concept album? I don’t know, there’s something about it that’s very intriguing.


ABQGR: You’ve been a band for damn near 10 years now—you’re active in the comminute with shows and going to shows—showing support—and you regularly put our music. What’s the value in sticking with it? And what keeps you going?


K: That’s a doozie. There’s nothing but value in it.


M: I don’t know any other world…I can’t imagine…


K: It’s like lifeblood, really.


M: Yeah, it’s like breathing. It’s something you do every day and you don’t think about it. There’s no—it’s an involuntary response to life. Have you ever heard the word called “lifer?” In the music scene? There’s like, lifers. They’ll just play until they can’t. Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen. But there’s lifers that aren’t famous. They’ll never be that level of success. I can’t imagine not playing. Even if I’m in my 70s, I’ll probably be—you know, if I can! I’ll be jamming in some way, fashion, or form. It is what it is.


K: Absolutely. Ultimately, I find that it brings a ton of joy. Whether you’re playing or you’re going out to support the other awesome local musicians. And being part of that community—going out to a show, and you see all these people you really love and enjoy and have become buddies with. You make all these connections. It’s all very special to me. And I think it’s important to take those moments out, to take a minute and reflect on that. Like, that’s how I met so-and-so, and then we played with so-and-so, and then they invited their friend, and then this happened. It’s a very special web that comes from it.


M: And I don’t think in my head there’s an end goal. I’m not trying to achieve any certain thing, it’s just something I have to do. It’s just part of me, and I kind of get bummed if it’s not there. If I haven’t practiced, or noodled, or written a song. And then you sit down and you play and you just feel really happy. So, you know it’s just part of your—part of your being. Even just watching, going to see bands. Whether they be local or national.


K: It’s good for the soul.


M: We travel so much to see shows. We don’t even take vacations! We don’t even have vacation time at work because we travel to so many shows. We were like, okay, 2025 no more traveling. No more! And then like a few days ago—we already bought tickets for a show next year. So, it’s an addiction. Just watching live music.


K: The full experience—the merch, man. It’s terrible.


M: Oh! The merch. It’s out of control.


K: We’re merch collectors. We could stop. But we don’t—it’s part of it. Supports the bands. So, there you go.



ABQGR: This is kind of a silly question, but I’m just personally interested to know—do you guys dream about your music? Do you dream about your practice, or what you’re gonna make?


K: Dreams, I don’t think so…I’ll definitely get, like, out of nowhere this beat, like, that’s really cool—


M: Are we talking about daydreaming? Or dreaming at night?


ABQGR: At night, yeah.


M: I have a problem where I can’t remember my dreams.


K: Yeah, you do.


M: I’ll have nightmares, and I’ll wake up. And I have to go watch TV ‘cause it was so horrible. And Karie will be like, what happened, what was it? And I’ll be like, I don’t know. I cannot remember my dreams when I wake up. If I dream about my music and stuff, I wouldn’t know.


K: Every now and then—and it’s always really strange—if ever I dream about our music, it’s like a live show. A lot of times it’ll be these very unlikely situations. Like we’re playing with The Kills, or Mo is playing with The Kills, but we’re supposed to be on a show, and then you ditched me. Weird stuff like that. But I never get to the end of them. I don’t know what that means.


M: I sure do daydream about our music a lot. Like, playing certain things, or playing certain places. Like, how cool would it be to play a huge festival? or something like that. So, I do daydream about music.


ABQGR: Thanks for humoring me. So, I got my last question for you guys—what’s something you love about being a major part of the Albuquerque music scene?


K: What do we not love about it?


M: I just like it ‘cause, well, I work at Music Go Round, so I’m just like, in it. All the time. I never get out of it.


K: I was thinking about this recently, like how cool it is that you see people in the scene all the time, because they’re always in the shop. You help keep me tethered more than I would be. Every day, he’s like, I saw so-and-so, saw so-and-so, this person’s playing at this time of night. It’s like a hub.


M: They’re playing this show, they want us to come. Yeah. I just love it ‘cause it’s a really tight-knit kind of family.


K: It is.


M: So yeah, I’m in it like 24/7. At work, at a show, going to a show, playing with people—man, I know so many people. It becomes like a big family.


K: Albuquerque scene does, to me at least, very much have that family feel. You know people have your back, and you have theirs. I’ve never been a big part of a music scene outside of Albuquerque, so I can’t speak for other cities, but I imagine that’s not seen everywhere. Everyone is so supportive of each other, it’s not this competitive. We’ve had some friends from here that have moved and have shared just how much harder it is to get into the scene. Part of that might be just population in and of itself, but I think Albuquerque’s really special in that way. How supportive everybody is. Also, just how eclectic the scene is. It’s awesome—it keeps things interesting.


M: I’ve been in two music scenes. Houston, and this one. Probably 15 years in Houston, and then playing here probably close to 15 years. In Houston you didn’t know anybody—it’s such a huge sprawl of a city. You could play four shows in a week and it’s almost like touring. You could drive two hours to a club in Houston from your house—hour and a half. Here, you can get from one side to the other of Albuquerque within a half an hour. And you’re just always running into everybody! And that is like, so cool, that you’re always running into musician friends, acquaintances—you’re just always running into people in your circle.


ABQGR: Well, I know Albuquerque is happy to have you guys. So, did I miss anything? Anything you’d like to add?


K: We’re just incredibly grateful.


M: Just, thank you, to the ABQ scene and all the venues and all the bands.


K: They keep it going.


M: We always feel so much love from all the bands. Everybody has mad respect for each other, the bands out here. I feel like there’s just respect for each other. So, we’d like to say thank you.

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