Cigarettes after sex Greg Gonzalez: ‘I’m not bitter. I don’t write from that place’

In 2017, after quietly grafting for the better part of a decade, cigarettes after sex suddenly, stealthily went viral. The Texan band’s “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” bypassed mainstream radio but conquered YouTube, fueling Randall Miller’s low-trembling bass and frontman Greg Gonzalez’s androgynous tenor — as well as the track’s unique monochrome song-like video spread. helped

They trade in sensual, shoegaze indie-pop followed by cigarette sex – they’re a mainstay on bedroom playlists – meaning you wouldn’t necessarily think of them as a stadium band. Yet the numbers don’t lie. A bona fide streaming phenomenon, they achieve the same eye-watering numbers on Spotify as the likes of Taylor Swift and Drake. “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” and other early releases, such as “Sweet” and “Falling in Love,” have nearly half a billion Spotify streams. “Apocalypse,” with its echoing guitars, lovelorn lyrics and gentle strokes of percussion, has 1.3 billion.

And that stadium? Well, they are filling them. This year, they headline New York’s Madison Square Garden and play two nights at London’s 20,000-capacity O2. Much of their chemistry owes to the Gen-Z revival of bleak, reverb-laden indie from Nineties bands such as Lo, Mazzy Starr and the Cocteau Twins. Clip-sharing platform TikTok has created a space where angsty teenagers can become protagonists in their favorite songs, sharing DIY music videos to heartbreak on camera. Meanwhile, Cigarette’s songs — often laced with Easter-egg-style references only the writer understands — inspire a level of fan devotion not dissimilar to Swift’s (Gonzalez recently told fans had joked about changing their friendship bracelets).

Those fans will be happy to know that Cigarette’s latest album, X’s, is their best yet. Released this Friday, it’s inspired by Gonzalez’s breakup with her longtime partner and was recorded last year in the home they once shared. It’s the epitome of that brooding, romantic sound: abstract lyrics (“Waisted so high in shorts/ The girl in the arcade/ Said she was the youngest she’d ever been”) float in a deep pool of waves of lush guitar and percussion. . Memories of a long-lost romance glimmering like a mirage in the desert, clouded by childhood memories. Gonzalez’s whispered delivery on “Silver Sable” is tearful: “Stay with me now, I don’t wanna be alone.”

“It was probably the worst time to record emotionally,” says the 41-year-old frontman. “When I did the vocals, everything was really going to happen. over, which sounds so melodramatic, but I knew it was over – there was no coming back. I knew I had to sing or the emotion would be lost; There was a feeling I would lose if I waited any longer.

We are talking on video call; Gonzalez’s astonishing baritone voice emanates from a black screen. He mutters low but hurriedly, stumbling out the words as he follows his train of thought.

Growing up in El Paso, Texas, he fell for the old-school charm of the Everly Brothers, Marvin Gaye and Chet Baker. Later, he found himself replaced by Julie Cruise, whose 1989 single “Falling” served as the theme for the David Lynch series. Twin Peaks. It’s no surprise to learn that Lynch is a fan of cigarettes after sex.

Gonzalez’s own film background seems to drive the sprawling, cinematic nature of Cigarette’s music. His father was involved in film distribution, and Gonzalez himself once worked as a manager at a cinema in Manhattan. On Instagram, the band’s feed is filled with clips pretty Woman, Virgin Suicide, Some like it hot And Cruel intentions. Every song on X’s Written like a scene that creates a bigger picture when you listen to the whole album.

“Those songs are memories, but sometimes we can’t remember something very well—the details are blurry—so it becomes something of a fantasy,” says Gonzalez. “Any of our songs should feel like a little movie in your head.” Before and after the breakup, she found herself reaching back to collect those scraps of memories, preserving them in amber.

“Writing songs is a form of therapy,” he adds. “It’s the way I capture the good and the bad, the beautiful moments you spent together and the painful ones.” He wrote about the beginning of the relationship on the band’s second album, 2019 to cry; “Falling in Love” recalls how he and his partner saw the same movie at the cinema while living in different states. “Hentai”, named after an erotic subgenre of Japanese manga, finds him fantasizing about his untimely death in a plane crash. As the song attests, she was not impressed.

“I guess it’s a stupid idea, but [her reaction] Snapped me out of my little rut,” he says. “And yes, most of this record is about him.” Why did they break up? “There were jealousies, and some co-dependent things going on, which I wasn’t used to,” he says. His tendency toward introversion also became a problem. He writes about it on new song “Dark Wake,” an ironically named track about fighting in paradise.

“Vacations are the worst time to argue with someone…this little disagreement can derail the whole experience.” But, he agrees, it’s not a bitter breakup album: “Our relationship taught me a lot, and I’m very grateful for that,” he says. “I’m not bitter. I don’t write from that place, although I love it when other people do. I love a good ‘f*** you’ song.”

There were jealousies, and some co-dependent things were happening, which I wasn’t used to

She suffered a different kind of heartbreak when she heard of the death of French pop singer and model Francois Hardy. One of the leading figures of Europe’s yé-yé movement in the sixties, she was a well-known fan of cigarette songs; His own single, “Voila”, is played at the end of each of the band’s live shows.

Gonzalez is grateful that he met him in person, more than once. “Probably the most cosmic thing that ever happened was meeting him in Paris for the first time,” he says. “She knew all my songs. You have to understand, I was wearing a shirt with his picture on it around my hometown as a kid; I was obsessed with his music. He is in many ways the greatest influence on cigarettes.

He and Hardy were, in many ways, kindred spirits. Once described as “the most glamorous wallflower in France”, Hardy was frustrated about the nature of celebrity and the criticism of his early releases. Gonzalez, too, once referred to dismissal to cry as a “minor task”. “The first record was [the result of] Five years of songwriting, and to cry was natural,” he explains now. “So I guess that’s what I mean by that. Time will tell if that’s actually true.”

Lyrically, Gonzalez has to fight the tendency to “not overshare,” he says. “It’s another instinct that tells me to face it, and that’s what feels powerful. You are facing your feelings.” It means singing from a place of weakness. “And I like things to feel soft, especially if it’s dark music. I’m singing that quiet because that’s how you would talk to someone if you were hugging them, holding them as close as possible, talking in these really quiet tones. It’s like a love letter.”

Does he ever sing his songs to his debaters? The black square goes silent for a moment. “I have a rule where I tell them I’m writing it, but I don’t want them to hear it until it’s finished,” he finally says. “It’s mostly because I want them to hear the full version, the way I wanted the song to be.” He recalls the woman who called him after hearing his song “K” on the radio. “She was crying,” he says. “He said it was really beautiful to hear this song. So it still felt sweet between us, even though time had passed. “

‘X’ is out this Friday