Lost Valentinos

Album: Cities of Gold (released 9 September 2009)
Label: etcetc
Website: www.myspace.com/lostvalentinos

Golden times for Valentinos

“Children of the Sun, see your time has just begun, searching for your wares through adventures of the city of gold.”

These were the lyrics to an eighties, retro cartoon from our collective childhoods that one Sydney indie five-piece, Lost Valentinos have proverbially run away with, creating a whole new musical genre - Conquistadisco.

Their forthcoming debut album borrows part of the cult animation’s title: Cities of Gold from Mysterious Cities of Gold as according to Nik Yiannikas, front man for the band, the lead character Esteban’s exploration for lost treasure, together with his South American comrades is a somewhat fitting metaphor for his band, Lost Valentinos.

“It’s a good name for the album not just cause of the cartoon but because it suits it in a lot of ways, we’re definitely big fans of that cartoon and we were watching a lot of it at the time which kind of sort of inspired a lot of the songs that are on the album.

“So we thought it was an appropriate name.”

Now, Lost Valentinos, they began their career as The Valentinos almost ten years ago. Yiannikas a constant member since the band’s humble origins considers that their album debut is the culmination of things falling into line for the band and perhaps some long overdue strategic direction emerging.

“In the beginning there wasn’t a lot of continuity in the line-up and we had no goals when we first started cause we weren’t expecting anything to happen you know,” says Yiannikas.

“But now you know the songs that we just put out recently and the songs that are on the album are the result of a more focused effort I guess, over a long period time after we’ve learnt from our mistakes and that kind of thing,” he continues.

A recent tour of Europe and the UK under their belts enabled the lads (like their cartoon friends) to travel. Highlights according to Yiannikas so far have been playing to packed clubs in London and the two and half thousand fans that saw their set in renowned venue Razzamataz in Barcelona. Mistakes seem few and far between and as the European summer hits full tilt the band have the added luxury of being accepted by the punters overseas.

“They are starting to catch on our single came out there like two weeks ago (Midnights) and they’ve been playing it on BBC 1, umm we got a write up in The Guardian the other day as their new band of the day, yeah they’re finding it really good, which is good.”

Perhaps the UK fans are lapping up what’s currently being fed to them by Lost Valentinos because of the uncanny similarity Yiannikas vocals (demonstrated on Midnights) resemble to that of revered British music legend, Ian Brown of The Stone Roses.

“I don’t think it was intentional, he says indignantly.

“I mean I’m not surprised, I was listening to a lot of Stone Roses at the time, I guess I was influenced definitely, and there are people who would say they are one of my fave bands.”

He’s not unashamed of the comparison being drawn either.

“It’s funny you should say that, I read a review the other day, Stone Roses produced by Quincy Jones.

I’ll take that one,” he says laughing at the compliment.

Back on home turf, Nik discusses their upcoming Australian tour with a relaxed tone. He’s already admitted that he’s stopped listening to the album for fear it might get a bit annoying for him when he’s actually playing it live daily.

Does he see the prospect of splitting his time between Europe and Australia as a problem?

“I’m happy to go where the music takes me to tell the truth; just playing to people who want to hear our music, you know is an awesome privilege.”

As the boys prepare for a national tour which kicked off with a performance last month at Splendour in the Grass (Nik’s all-time favourite Australian music festival) like Esteban of the cartoon world, Mysterious Cities of Gold Nik has his sights set firmly on conquering the search for treasure, indicating a debut album as long as theirs in the making, is like having a baby.

“It’s not just a bunch of songs that we recorded it’s kind of like our whole life up to this point.”

Ruth Bailey

To see a clip for 'Serio' by Lost Valentinos, click the play button below

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