By Peter Quincy Ng
In 2007, Chilean singer-songwriter Francisca Valenzuela debuted with her first album “Muérdete la Lengua” (which translates roughly to “Bite Your Tongue”) to much success in her native Chile. The album was an instant success and received critical acclaim and even won her the title of the “Chilean Princess of Rock” as one of the newest musical revelations that the country has seen in quite some time. What many may not have realized was that this “instant success”, the now 22-year-old Francisca Valenzuela has had one rather prestigious and decorated past. Enrolling in music and art programs all over her hometown San Francisco since childhood, Francisca wrote and published her first poetry compilation at twelve, studied at the world-renowned Berkley College School of Music and even had the backing of internationally-acclaimed writer Isabel Allende to accompany the promotion of her poetry. There are many words to describe Francisca Valenzuela as an artist, but talented (or if not extremely so) is the only word in my mind sufficient enough to describe her. After few stints and promotional gigs in Colombia and Mexico, we got the chance to talk to the talented, charming and extremely articulate Francisca Valenzuela back home in her native Santiago.
Peter: So you’ve been pretty busy lately. A couple new songs surfaced on the net lately can we expect a new album headed this way?
Francisca: Well we’re working on the pre-production of the new album so we’re kinda working on that and it will come hopefully this year and (that) everything goes correctly with the producers, engineers and the studio time. So hopefully yeah, the songs are ready and I have to build it up with the whole band and you know the new songs and all the new equipment ready.
P: Recently you’ve been asked to contribute for the tribute album for 31 minutos, a popular Chilean children’s show. How did that come about?
F: It came about because of the organizer of the tribute in being put together in Mexico and it was actually put together by one of the Café Tacuba musicians and the musicians from a band Los Liquits called who are huge fans of the Chilean TV show. The music of the show is crazy it’s really, really good, funny and smart and it’s all over Latin America now on Nickelodeon international-wise.
The guys who organized it in Mexico actually heard my album and saw me perform last year in Mexico and really liked what I was doing and came up and invited me to perform on the album. It was actually pretty last minute because the album was almost closed and put together so they emailed me on a Thursday and told me they need it by Tuesday ready and done. I was like “Oh God!”. So chose the song and that, and just recorded it in the studio with just one days work, it was live recording of piano and drums and a very distorted bass, altogether in like one take you know “live”? All live (as in) pretty noisy and garage-rock sounding and I did that and I participated in this amazing album which is now #2 in sales in Mexico. It’s coming up in Latin America during the year and it’s probably going to follow with a concert from Ximena Sariñana to Pedro Piedra or Los Bunkers, Café Tacuba, Natalia Lafourcade some of these people who I admire a lot and it’s nice to be in an album with them.
P: Do you find it a bit odd they thought of you when they needed someone to sing a song called “Doggy Style”?
F: I actually had to choose a song and there were only two songs left and “Doggy Style” I just loved it. It’s such a funny song and you know its kinda travieso (naughty) I guess you can say a little bit. But the song itself is pretty funny it’s about this dog character who gets left in a house and it’s so funny and had such a good time recording it. Like 31 Minutos is a “cult-thing” over here in Chile and the people here love it.
P: You’ve recently been asked by DJ Bitman to appear on not one but two of his tracks on his album “Colours”. Both these tracks being in English. Your debut album was mostly in Spanish with the exception of Queen? How do you decide what songs come to you in English or Spanish. Do you find your artistic voice lyrically or vocally in English or Spanish?
F: Well mostly I say responding to your second question I think Spanish is the most accessible thing just because I’m in “Spanish” circumstances.
P: You mean immersion right?
F: Right! Where I develop my day-to-day life its all in Spanish so general to be able to communicate with what you want to say and understand it directly and communicate in a more clever way that’s more ingenious, poetic and accessible. So I guess in that sense Spanish comes first.
But at the same time when I grew up in the States however English would always come first and would only write in English. When I got to Chile (however) there was no one around (that spoke English). I would only perform in English practicing very difficult jazz-type, Tori Amos-type of songs and everyone’s like you should give Spanish pop/rock a try! (Groaning) And I was like no I wanted to do something more complex, more jazzy and then it naturally it came to me where I wanted to sing in Spanish. Like the lyrics and messages are important! Here it’s much more valuable to contribute in Spanish since the mainstream society doesn’t have the most exquisite English so in that way I would say Spanish.
But…I think it depends on the song! I think Queen was inherently in English it’s a jazz song and because you know jazz and Spanish really doesn’t work in general, unless it’s Bossa-Nova or something folklore. Jazz is in English you know? So the thing with Bitman it also happens because reggae and dub influences are more rico, you know like delicious in English and also because his album was an international album. He was excited to have a person who could naturally speak English without a big (heavy) accent, so he said: “I would love for you to be on the album, blah blah blah…”. So he gave me the grounds, the foundations of the music and began to work with that and came really naturally with the “Help Me” hook and I love having the possibility to sing in English and another style and sing all over the place. We were invited to a bunch of international festivals this year and to have kind of another area where my music may not have music may not taken me to like on TV shows or like little concerts or clubs as where as my music was more like bigger rock concerts. So it was a really good combination and good opportunity or exercise with my “English” ability to write lyrics and stuff.
P: You were born in San Francisco to Chilean parents other than giving you that bilingual edge how has that shaped you culturally now that you’ve returned to Chile?
F: It totally influenced me and shaped me when I was growing up in the States. You know San Francisco is like one of the most diverse and tolerant places ever (laughs)? And I had a lot of family that lives there but I think it was a great to live in a place that was so naturally diverse, so naturally tolerant, civil and respectful where as the arts and the creative processes were more like hippie communities (they) were very well accepted and pushed. Everyone wanted me to write short stories, debate, and paint, take art classes, dance, piano and blah, blah, blah… all these extracurricular activities and I think all of that made me kind of naturally inspired me to explore the arts and write much, much more precociously.
If I were living here (Chile), which is very traditional and Catholic: tie, nine hours with no art, no music, no anything. So I think in that way it gave me a first hand opportunity to explore freely and very richly being exposed to a community that was so tolerant, so respectful, and so diverse. Then when I came over to Chile I was like I couldn’t believe what was happening here, (that) I couldn’t believe it was such a homogeneous community that was so conservative and people would speak poorly being very racist, totally xenophobic and totally intolerant especially the conservative older people and the very ignorant poor and uneducated were not very tolerant of gays, lesbians and alternative lifestyles and could not believe it (exclaiming)! And what I think I’ve been doing with my kind of personal experiences is being able to contribute to the more public kind of thing.
I know I’m Chilena (Chilean) but at the same time I did have this opportunity and had these valuable civil community values that need to be integrated into society and have had the opportunity to speak for pro-gay movements, pro-women with female reproductive rights such as the fact abortion, morning-after pill is still prohibited and the inclusion of immigrants. These things in San Francisco are over (and done). So that’s what’s been going on.
P: Now what most people don’t know is that you’re an accomplished writer and you’ve starting writing at such a young age too. You’ve wrote your first poetry compilation Defenseless Waters at what age 12? What inspired you and why did you decide that you wanted to publish your material?
F: I guess I was always writing obsessively (laughs) since I was very little and began to kind of participate in a lot of contests just like the in the back of magazines and sending my writings to different publications to when I was about twelve or thirteen living in the states still.
What happened was and fortunately my parents have been totally supportive of everything I’ve been doing and very involved and got to the point where I was taking poetry classes during summer break and Haiku workshops and all those ridiculous things. My parents were like: “What are we going to do with this girl! What are we going to do she’s already taking all these summer classes? She’s already participating in these festivals these community cultural open houses.” So (my parents) they knew within the Latin American community this Argentinean woman who was a literary critic from Stanford.
We sent her my stuff and we emailed her questions what should we do where should go to study can you recommend a good workshop or a good teacher and what can I do with this writing ability and writing obsession I have. So she wrote back and I think these are good enough to publish and like my parents went like: “This kid is like twelve-years-old. Don’t be ridiculous!” We sent her then a hundred poems and some short stories as well and she’s like “Ok give me a week I want to see what I can do because I’m very excited about this new material.” So the week passes and on the on other hand I sent my poetry to a very cultural Latin magazine called “El Andar”. “El Andar” published the poems in the magazine and got in touch with this critic and they actually said you know we’re going inaugurate a new editorial and publish this editorial and have her design it. I did all the illustrations in the book and then asked my mom how to divide the pages with the colors and everything.
So it actually happened and it got to the bookstore to Isabel Allende and of course being Chilean everyone knows each other. So she actually read my poetry and invited me to her house and I was like twelve or thirteen and she wrote on the back flap of my book which is a huge deal! She’s one of the most important literary references in the world outside of Chile. She kinda helped me out and became my godmother and she got me into touch with her huge Spanish editorial and they published huge editorial with a collection of short stories and poetry. The critique came out in El ABC and El País in Spain and was thirteen and fourteen and how amazing was that! But it was super comfortable, spontaneous and natural and got the amazing opportunity to perform on the tour with my keyboard and guitar. Basically with braces I’d be reading my poetry and be like “I’m ready for my chocolate milk now!”. I would just write about anything and they would be often very social about observations in society, injustice and women; stories all in my head. There were be like poetry about women killing their husband defending their children or beaten or that would have to work five jobs to keep their kids. Or there was poetry about the butterfly in the garden. It was a wide spectrum of vocabulary and topics and ideas.
P: You’re an avid reader in politics and you’ve even studied political science in university and then attended the renowned music academy Berkley. Tell me more about that? Was their ever a backup plan besides writing music?
F: Totally I actually study journalism now and I don’t what I’m doing this year. So I’m probably going to congelar (freeze or put on hold) for the year. But I think music kind of made its way being the first thing. I think when I began to perform in high school and do festivals, competitions, restaurants and jazz bars. I was always thinking I wasn’t going to do this for real. I did a course at UC Berkeley in International Studies during the summer then I went to Berkley School of Music and did another internship. But I wanted to study journalism, political science and law even and then it kind of just made its way to be the most important thing. I then began to performing with a band and everything began to work out just by itself, having good time and it was so exciting to be doing something I didn’t even know I was somehow good at. It began to work out and in a year I was all over Chile performing, then last year I’ve just been doing all these all alternate projects and learning how to produce and record. I come from a family where no is a musician and had no musician friends, so I was totally on the other side of engineers, scientists and plastic arts, but I’ve never done music and been involved with musicians. So I was kind of afraid of all whole musician horror with so much partying, the industry and the coolness and thought well I didn’t really belong in there. Things just kind of came through and love to compliment it with other activities, I still go to university still have read and to do other things, and its important to nourish yourself because I think the arts or acting for example can cause you to be very narcissistic you know?
P: There’s something rather strange about the Chilean popular music scene. As it always had an indie aspect to it and in many cases is reflective of Chile’s political turmoil especially since the days of Nueva Cancion. You’ve wrote several songs that were some what political in nature. Take Los Poderosos and Salvador for example. It may seem rather obvious but why do you think that Chile’s independently produced musicians inevitably get involved in politics?
F: I think it’s because in general the mainstream population is very political in the sense that all the big artists and the real artists were in exile. So there was always this idea and fantasy that all the true artists were in exile and thrown out of the country, suffered and many of them were killed. You know like Victor Jara? Like these (exiled) artists came back and had to be in touch with the idea that I left the country which I love in turmoil and now I’m back. Even the cultural activities we have always have this kind of feel. You know the very left wing get together the unions and the people get together which is such an exciting thing to be part of but it the same time it’s all very political.
The funny thing is since democracy came back in the 1990s with the all musicians back and everyone can speak freely again, the left has always been in power. So the left and their open values has always been associated with the music and put a lot of money into the music and they do itineraries and festivals all over the country. I think it is important it has to do with this colonial heritage and rejecting the aristocracy, there is still a notion or maybe in Peru, Bolivia or Mexico where there’s such a small group that has the power. Well in the States it’s the same, but it’s so much bigger that like there’s such a small aristocracy with the power and are very conservative and the church has so much influence. It’s also a reaction to that and that there are still many people who currently in Chile that supports the dictatorship.
So it’s also a reaction to that how in the 21st Century with this openness that these people are still supporting a dictator that offended human rights and killed off a good part of the population or what not and it has to do with that. I think it’s very exciting because people make music that’s with much more purpose and people take it very seriously. Just two weeks ago we performed the last government because Michelle Bachelet was in power for the last four years and they lost the first time to the year in ten years. So we were in this last event for the government and it was very political, as in we don’t want our country being sold to the right-wing, just because we don’t want our country going back to the 1970’s. Also because Chile I noticed when came back, the country still has such a level of poverty and underdevelopment that it blows your mind like real poverty. Not like in the States where poverty can mean with a television, a roof over your head and a car. You can have poverty with pee in the bushes, no roof, no school and no education. So it has to do with that and it makes the country kind of get to the point and get conscious to help the country with so much to do.
P: If there would be one message you want to particularly convey in your musical career either political or non-political what would it be?
F: I don’t know. I guess it would have be the right to speak your mind and be outspoken and the respect for others to be tolerated from the left and the right. I include myself in the left, more liberal but I think you start to be more intolerant with the right as well with the conservative and religious values becoming a cultural war (laughs). I would say to be respectful on one hand to be outspoken and be helpful and tolerant. But in general I think my major cause would be the integration of Chile of women, gender equality, the physically disabled because there’s so much unavailability for the handicapped, the integration of natives and the reproductive rights of women and civil rights. For example, there still hasn’t been an anti-discrimination law that can fire you for being gay, black, a woman and things like that.
P: So you can write, sing, play the piano and the guitar anything else we should know?
F: No and talk. Talk a lot and very fast (laughs).
P: Do you have any other super human abilities?
No. That’s about it.
P: Before I leave you off anything you want to say to your adoring male fans?
F: Ah….! No nothing (laughs).
P: No one ever answers that one. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today.
F: No thanks so much it was a great interview. They were good questions and it was really interesting.
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