The Warning in Kerrang magazine. Transcription of the interview below the cut
The Warning blew up last year with their fourth album, Keep Me Fed. Since then, they've toured relentlessly. Gearing up to take on Latin America and Europe, it's clear the Villarreal Vélez sisters are on the brink of international superstardom...
WORDS: ALIYA CHAUDHRY PHOTOS: GUSTAVO KURI, ZEUS LOPEZ
The day after The Warning played the MTV Europe Music Awards, held in Manchester in November, the Villarreal Vélez sisters got on a plane to Miami to perform at the Latin GRAMMYs.
"That week, the way that we lived It it was just so crazy," drummer Pau laughs today. "Very chaotic," adds bassist Ale.
"It was a lot" lead vocalist and guitarist Dany agrees.
At the EMAs, they were up for Best Push, an award that highlights breakthrough artists. The band played Automatic Sun, taken from fourth album Keep Me Fed, washed in red light and punctuated by bursts of flames.
Speaking to Kerrang! from their homebase in Monterrey, Mexico, several months on from the back-to-back performances, the three sisters talk excitedly, finishing each other's sentences, or with overlapping answers.
"It was just so hectic and full of adrenaline," Pau enthuses. don't think we'll ever forget that whole week.
At the Latin GRAMMYs, The Warning performed Qué Más Quieres - up for Best Rock Song - in metallic outfits as strobe lights pierced the air. The band are native Spanish speakers but mostly write and sing in English, making a point to include one Spanish track on each album, which, on Keep Me Fed, was the nominated track.
"We toured a lot in North America and in Europe, even Asia," Pau recounts of the past year's whirlwind. "But we hadn't been to South America in a while not even in Mexico. So to have been recognised in the Latin American community by our peers, especially our rock'n'roll peers, and to be representing Mexican rock, we feel very honoured."
To call it all a busy time would be an understatement. After releasing Keep Me Fed last summer, The Warning's fame has sky-rocketed, landing them on international stages including awards shows, TV screens and even New York's iconic Times Square. It's all the more impressive when you take into consideration the fact that Dany, Pau and Ale are only 25, 23 and 20 years of age, respectively. And, as Pau reveals, they've been so all over the place that they even know some of their on-the-road locales.
"Touring North America, we know what it is, we've done it for a while," Pau says. "So we know our stops, we know our Walmarts, we know our Targets. We know where to go."
"The only thing was the cold in Canada..." Ale adds.
The first leg of that tour was a run of the United States, including festivals and headline shows, followed by support slots with Halestorm and Evanescence in Canada - the former being a band The Warning had toured with in the past. "It was just like reuniting with old friends," Pau smiles.
By the time Kerrang! catches up with the trio, they're nearing the end of a break from travelling - a much needed pause before the whole machine kicks back off again.
"We've been here in Monterrey for a while, and again, we're about to leave, but I feel that leaving and touring just makes me really appreciate my home, my city," smiles Pau.
At home, their stardom is undeniable and frankly unavoidable. It's Warning-mania.
"Every time we leave our house, we get asked for a picture or an autograph," Pau says. "It's not jarring, because I know that it's there. I'm aware that when I go out that will happen, but sometimes I am caught off-guard."
One time, the drummer was approached by a fan at a restaurant, right when she was in the middle of paying the bill.
"There's the other part, where you assume people are coming to you because they recognise you and they want to tell you something." Dany starts.
"But then they're like, Hey, is your car the grey one that's parked behind? and I'm like, "Oh! I got ahead of myself." Pau laughs.
The band's 2024 tours were just the first phase of the Keep Me Fed cycle - this year, they're continuing to play heavily across continents.
"We're super excited about getting this album to the places that haven't heard it completely." Dany says
On the day we catch-up, they're just a week away from some genuinely mega home-country shows, including three nights at Mexico City's 10,000-cap Auditorio Nacional. This tour, along with a special local date at the 8,000-seat Auditorio Citibanamex, is completely sold out. Not that it's sunk in yet.
"We're going to be living these shows that we've been planning for a whole year." Pau says. "It's this weird anticipation and anxiety - we've been living with the concept for such a long time, rehearsing for them, planning them, working with so many people to make them happen, and now they're going to happen!"
After Mexico, The Warning are touring South America in March, before heading to the UK and Europe in April, including a stop at London's 02 Academy Brixton.
"We're from the completely other side of the world." Pau explains. "so to have more than a thousand people buying tickets to see us at each show in countries that we've visited only once or twice, it's really crazy to us. It speaks to the power of music and the connection that music has with people, no matter the language, no matter where you're from"
The Warning have had plenty of experience playing venues big and small. These days, they hop from opening for the likes of Guns N' Roses and Muse, to their own gigs. adopting as needed, but always trying to make it as memorable-and massive as possible.
"Production-wise, it's like, 'Will that fourth screen fit on the stage? Probably not... So you just remove that type of thing" Pau explains.
"But for us, it's the same setlist, same energy. It doesn't matter if we're playing for 300 people or 3,000- it's the same concept for us. It's the same experience."
There's another layer to playing away from home, too. They essentially become ambassadors.
"When we have an appearance at a festival or someplace that rarely has Mexican guests, we do feel that we're representing our country as a whole," Pau nods.
"Even though, of course, we have just a tiny little bit of what Mexican music has to offer," adds Dany.
For many of The Warning's fans, the band could well be their introduction to Mexican rock music.
"We try to paint our country in the nicest light possible, because we come from such a beautiful country with such beautiful culture and history and music," Pau says. "Mexican rock is a very specific genre that I hope people from other places of the world start discovering, because it's such a rich genre with such rich history. For us to be able to participate in even a little tiny bit of it is great. Hopefully we get to open that door in people's minds, for them to be curious about what else Latin America has to offer."
In between all the touring and dropping an album, The Warning have also been jamming with other bands. At Aftershock Festival last year, Pau joined Dead Poet Society on their song Hurt. Her and Dany then did the same when they came to Mexico City.
Another Aftershock connection, The Warning also collaborated with Japanese outfit BAND-MAID, who they'd met at the festival in 2022 and toured with last year. In December 2023, the two bands began working on a song together over Zoom, with The Warning flying to Japan to finish it last May (they then released the single, entitled SHOW THEM, in August).
In the accompanying music video, each member faces off with their instrumental counterpart, as Dany and BAND-MAID singer Saiki Atsumi trade vocals that are entirely in English,
"It was very interesting to see how both of us were using a language that was not our native one," Pau explains, "They speak Japanese, we speak Spanish, So it was about finding a common ground in a different language and making it work musically, and communicating musically."
It did lead to challenges when it came to nailing the lyrics, though.
"We would choose a word, and they were like, 'That doesn't mean the same thing in Japanese English.' We're like, 'What? What do you mean?' It's that type of thing that translates so differently with other people's music."
A song about not only refusing to make yourself small, but trying to be as big as you can be, SHOW THEM proved to be an empowering listen, bolstered by its electrifying swagger. "Ultimately, music literally became the language," Dany says.
This collaboration, and The Warning's success overall, shows that fans are truly global in their tastes, looking outside of their home countries and languages.
"I feel that now, because of social media and the way that things are connected, we stop looking at music as this foreign export or import," Pau offers. "It's just this way to communicate, and music from different places in the world is just so different because the language is different, and the phonetics are different."
That mentality is especially important for a bilingual band.
"We can make music in English and we also make it in Spanish," Pau says. "For people to look at those two sides that we have, and for them to consume it in the same way, it's really cool for us."
It's a little early for The Warning to start thinking about their next album, but when asked, they do have some ideas in mind.
"I want to have more than one song in Spanish," Pau teases.
"Let's do that!" Ale agrees.
After the year they've had, the three sisters are still able to stay grounded. "We keep a very big balance of knowing where we are, knowing where we were, and..." "...where we can be," Dany completes Pau's thought.
Of course, having family around helps. Not just within the band, but their parents play integral roles as well - especially when it comes to touring. Pau describes their mother as "a professional mom", while their dad acts as a stage manager and audio engineer. And, of course, there's no-one who keeps your ego in check quite like a sibling.
"I feel that we keep each other humble," Pau says.
"We complement each other," Dany adds.
"When we rehearse, we know how to call each other out while also recognising the steps that we're taking," Pau continues. "We do that with everything within the band. I think we have a good balance."
And it's a balance that bodes very well indeed for the future. "I think we're going to be okay!"
The Warning play London's O2 Academy Brixton on April 17
