Five years ago she might have had a Monday morning to herself. Maybe she could pick up some groceries, balance her checkbook or set up a lunch trading gossip with a classmate. But nowadays, Ellen Campesinos! can't even make a trip to the post office without her phone ringing.
""I'm really sorry, I'm just a little distracted. Just a second,"" she said.
Through muffled sounds of a pocket, purse or jacket sleeve (it was 3,855 miles away, how could I be sure?) I overheard an exchange of postage and currency. Some ten seconds later she was back—her personal banalities complete—and ready to spend half an hour on the phone with someone who had to dial 15 digits just to interrupt her errands.
But that is just how her band, the bubbly Welsh septet Los Campesinos!, operate. Their fan outreach is unsurpassed, especially in their hyperactive Internet presence. They have organized ""garage sales"" of their old/unwanted clothing and held contests for collections of their favorite records. Not only do they manage their blog and Twitter feed themselves, but they hawk the comments sections and respond to feedback personally. When songs from their newest release, January's Romance is Boring, were leaked to the Internet, lead singer and dominant web presence Gareth Campesinos! apologized that his fans could not have heard them directly from the band first. Because in some cases, fans are just friends you haven't met yet.
""It's really, really nice sometimes because you can build up a rapport with some people, or somebody will comment on your post and you start chatting to them through the blog,"" Ellen said. ""Sometimes people get to know things about you, so they'll make you vegan cookies, or I've had comic books given to me.""
But LC! never pictured themselves being thrust into the kind of position that would give them friends across the globe or vegan cookies, needless to say one in which banal activities like a trip to the post office get mentioned in a newspaper article.
""Back in the old days, it was just, like, ‘Hey, let's practice every week, once a week and go out to the student night afterwards,'"" Ellen said.
And it showed. Their debut, 2007's Sticking Fingers into Sockets EP, sweated with as much lo-fi production value as it did fervent experimentation. They were too young to know which buttons to press, but too antsy, too carefree not to press them all anyway. But on Romance is Boring, LC! seem more fixated on their own buttons. And as Ellen says, they feel more honed in on their craft.
""I guess to begin with it was almost like there was a sense of naivete and like, ‘We're just doing this for fun,'"" she added. ""What it really reflects is it's not something we thought would be anything, and now it's almost like, ‘Well, I'm invested in this and I can say more of how I actually feel.'""
And that newfound confidence runs deep. ""We kind of feel like we've become proper musicians,"" Ellen conceded, adding that their extra, eighth member, Rob, affords their live show the same bold liberties they took in adopting a new direction on their latest release.
But the sonic departure isn't a withdrawal from the band's central tenets. Legions of fans liked the group's raucous introduction for its energy and twee enthusiasm, but even more fell in love with the confessional intimacy and snug familiarity with which the band conducted themselves. And as heavy as the subject matter might be, Ellen insists that the band will not lose our favor anytime soon.
""We're still fun... We're really fun.""
Thursday night, a rapt Majestic Theatre will get to experience that fun first-hand, none of it lost in the distortion of a 3,855-mile telephone wire.
