In Spain they are, at the moment, quite unknown, but not outside our borders.
In just one year, The Sand has been able to captivate the American, British and even South Korean audiences with its rhythms between alternative rock, grunge and punk-pop.
Even the filmmaker David Lynch himself has surrendered to the music
of this young band based in Murcia.
Created in 2019 by Miguel Ángel González Gálvez (Miguel Sand for friends), The Sand has managed to place three songs from their only (and self-released) album
Melancholic Universe
in three finals of the most important composition competitions in the world, two in the US and one in London.
The key?
(or at least one of them), "sing in English", according to the vocalist, guitarist, pianist and leader of the group.
While the fateful 2020 was disastrous for a large part of the music industry, for the Murcian band, complete with bassist Roberto Illán, guitarist Joaquín Gómez and drummer Emilio Martínez, it could not be better, and 2021 does not look bad either.
Successes
On September 9, his song
California
was one of the winners in the international composition competition Unsigned Only Music Competition in the USA, which aims to discover artists without a record contract, regardless of age or musical style.
The
jury, made up of people from the category of Black Francis (Pixies), Ryan Adams, Robert Smith (The Cure) or Derek Brown (The Flaming Lips)
, awarded the group one of eight "honorable mentions" among the more than 7,000 participants in the rock category.
Another of his singles,
Believe
, is already in the final with seven others (out of 10,000 submitted) from one of the most popular songwriting competitions in the UK and the world, UK Songwriting Contest, and has been
rated 5 stars ( as much as possible)
by music industry experts from the same country.
In addition, the melancholic ballad will be distributed exclusively in South Korea by the Sound Republica label, with which The Sand has just signed an agreement.
The consequences of these recognitions have not been long in coming.
The three videos released (
California
,
Believe
and
Artificial
) of the album
Melancholic Universe
already have more than three million views on YouTube.
Their music, with
a style reminiscent of Wilco, Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters
, has also won over the film producer David Lynch, to the point of posting two songs from the group (
Believe
and
27 Years
) with images from their series
on their social networks
most famous.
Why does The Sand still not have the recognition in Spain that it does in other places?
According to Miguel Sand, it is something that he does not understand and that creates some pain for him as a Spaniard.
"The Spanish music industry is divided into different groups, and these do not include one that makes songs in English and, at the same time, screams and has slow piano songs.
We do not do reggaeton or Spanish indie, but music that goes from Nirvana to Coldplay,
we have anger and melancholy that we must transmit. With effort, perhaps someone will realize that music has to change in Spain, we are Spanish and we sing in English, something that sooner or later will triumph here, "he adds.
How did you achieve something so important in such a difficult year? It has been a very hard year.
The release of our first two singles suddenly coincided with the appearance of the damn virus, so we have not been able to play live or present our album.
We rehearsed when the regulations allowed us to do so, the key to success is to make good songs, with a lot of effort, taking time away from everything else other than music, with what that entails, and surrounding yourself with better people. than you.
Personally, I take the records to newspapers, radios ... and I hand them over.
The result is that they don't listen to you most of the time, there are others that do, and they even listen to the songs, and then they like them! Why do you think it costs so much to succeed in Spain?
I believe that our style, our language when singing closes the doors for us in a world that is already difficult for everyone.
Most of the media does not listen to you, even if you give them the disc open so they don't have to remove the plastic, the same happens if you send it in digital format.
If you don't have friends or contacts, they don't usually listen to you.
A shame but that is what I am living.
In competitions in Spain to which 400 songs were submitted, we did not pass a single phase, while in the US and the United Kingdom, with 10,000 songs we have already been caught three times in finals with judges such as Robert Smith from The Cure, Pixies, editors from Rolling Stone magazine ... Let each one judge for himself where the error is. What immediate career plans do you have?
Will there be concerts in Spain? The first album,
Melancholic Universe
, was officially released four months ago, but now it seems that it is having an impact.
We are relaunching the singles that we had already released, since no one knew us before, to promote them.
Next month, we will publish a new video clip and, a little later, we will release the first single from what will be our next album.
I think it will be fantastic. Regarding the concerts, obviously, as soon as the health situation leaves us, we will start playing, if the people in Spain want it.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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