Two years after their sparkling debut album, Los Bitchos are back with more luscious guitar textures and feel-good vibes with its followup, Talkie Talkie . For guitarist Serra Petale, that meant pushing their funk disco pomp to quirky new dimensions – and never turning her chorus pedal off. What were your go-to electric guitars for the new album? “Most of it was on my Italia Maranello Speedster.
It’s my number one, but I also used a Lag which has the most fabulous rounded but tinny sound – I just want to eat it! I also used our prouder Oli Barton Wood’s ‘Smokers Tele ’. Loads of cigarette smoke has stuck to it from people chain-smoking around it, but it has the most wonderful tone. “Then we split their signals into a Fender silverface and a Roland, which is my favourite amp in the world.
The blend worked really well.” Was the album’s ’80s aesthetic intentional? “Many of our influences come from ’80s records. I mean, who doesn’t love Duran Duran’s bass sound, or the way on Simple Minds’ New Gold Dream , the guitars are so far back that they just become a texture? That’s very inspiring to us.
But what I really enjoyed was that we had all of this new gear, so we were able to come up with bastardised versions of the ’80s sound.” What was the standout modern gear, then? “I used lots of EarthQuaker Devices pedals. They’re incredible vehicles for giving each song their own dimension.
In Hi! , there’s a really weird, watery effect on the le.