Artist of the Week: José González

Hometown: Gothenburg, Sweden
Why You Should Listen: It’s under-produced, heartfelt and real. It’s self-engineered and worth it.
Fun Fact: Gonzalez recently quit his doctoral research in Biochemistry to start playing music full-time.
For Fans Of: Nick Drake, Geoff Farina, The Frames, Elliott Smith

A publicist might tell you José Gonzàlez is poised to take the world by storm. But if you ask the Swedish singer/songwriter, he’s more likely to take a thoughtful pause and say, “I like playing the guitar.” Someone who has played shows to captivated audiences and also traveled 13 hours through a Norwegian snowstorm to play for one man who was really just there for the coffee, the 27-year-old Gonzalez is getting used to riding the ups and downs of road life. The last few years have been a beta test for him—working out the kinks in a bigger project to figure out if it’s worth the trouble.

On his first full-length album, Veneer—which was released earlier this month in the U.S., after previously being available only in Sweden and the U.K.—Gonzalez simplifies and deconstructs traditional folk instrumentation, reducing the songs to their most basic elements. A classical-influenced guitar and two-part indie-folk harmonies keep it clean and understated.

Sung in English, Gonzàlez’s lyrics can be melancholy, and his voice can be both comforting and haunting, leading to Nick Drake comparisons. But it wasn’t until after these comparisons were made that Gonzàlez went back and listened to Drake’s music. After discovering Pink Moon he says he found inspiration in Drake’s picking style. His song “Stay in the Shade” was greatly influenced by Pink Moon’s signature sound, but Gonzàlez is quick to add, “I wouldn’t call myself a copycat.”

The soft-spoken Gonzàlez attributes his early steps toward success to his environment, saying that a lot of that Hives-ish Swedish garage-rock sound gets lumped together and ignored because it’s everywhere. But “playing folky music,” he says, “has been nothing but positive.”

Gonzàlez comes from an Argentinian family that “didn’t do music,” but supported his decision to pursue it. At 14, his first musical endeavors sprouted from two songbooks—a fat Beatles anthology and a compilation of bossa nova tunes. These influences are still evident today, most notably on “Remain,” the second track from Veneer. The Beatles manifest through harmonies and a call to action, which bounce atop the guitar’s rhythmic strum-and-drum pattern. The roots of his heritage and the memory of the songbooks transform what might’ve been straight classical guitar into something retro-modern and worldly.

Because his sound is based completely around one guitar and one voice, Gonzàlez says it was easy to record at home. “When I recorded this album, I didn’t know that much about recording. I just bought really cheap microphones and started recording on my computer.” He’s done all his albums this way, and for Veneer, had his friend Mikko Hellsing help with the mixing process.

The quality of Veneer is such that you’d assume either Gonzàlez had help or he’s a perfectionist, but neither is true. He insists that he prefers recording alone because of the “laidbackness” that studios and ensemble groups suck out of the artistic process. Each song starts out with hours and hours of playing around on the guitar, which he says he has the most fun doing. For Gonzalez, recording is nerve-wracking and performing is frustrating. When he creates music it’s a solitary experience—you could say he’s a loner. He writes, records and performs by himself. He admits to being a quiet guy. “I suppose I was kind of a sad young boy,” he proffers before suggesting that some people find his lyrics comforting. But of course, “other people hate it too. It just depends.”

Gonzàlez is grounded. He’s stuck in today, a bit uncertain of what his musical future will bring. He’s a little less on the cusp of stardom and a little more a 27-year-old kid with a chemistry set. But that’s what makes him appealing. The marriage of classical guitar and bossa nova can be unpredictable, and set to crisp, quiet lyrics the whole sound offers a sincerity many songwriters lack. Much like his attitude toward groups of people, audiences and studios alike, he wants to keep his music modest and restrained. “I like the idea of having just one guitar and nothing more. That’s how I’ve felt the most comfortable,” he says. “I think I will keep it that way.”