José Gonzáles

José Gonzáles makes quiet music full of loud ideas. I sat down with him in person to trace his journey from playing in hardcore punk bands to the intimate arpeggios that turned Veneer and Heartbeats into global touchstones. Jose opens up about writing “humble accusations,” using minimal sound to deliver maximal ideas, and how a scientist’s method—shaped by his biochemistry background—helps him build tension, release, and meaning inside quiet music.

It all gets a bit Dawkins: Jose unpacks meme complexes, the cultural building blocks that replicate from brain to brain, and shows how his work recombines influences from Latin America, Sweden, and shelves of philosophy and science audiobooks. We explore the thread that runs from early relationship sketches to pointed critiques of dogma, moral relativism, and “doomsday dudes,” all while keeping the songs spacious enough to live at dinner tables and in headphones after midnight.

We talk about how on his new album –  Against the Dying Light, José connects Enlightenment values—reason, empiricism, individual liberty—to today’s urgent questions around AI, engineered risks, and human flourishing. He celebrates breakthroughs like AlphaFold while calling for alignment, transparency, and calm public reasoning. The result is a rare balance: optimism without naivety, warning without hysteria, and art that invites you to think without telling you what to think.

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José Gonzáles on Instagram:

www.instagram.com/jose.gonz.music

José Gonzáles on Bandcamp:

https://josgonzlez.bandcamp.com/album/against-the-dying-of-the-light

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Transcript

Setting The Stage In Berlin

Paul 0:04

Jose Gonzalez's parents fled military dictatorship in Argentina before he was born. Settling in Gothenburg in Sweden, Jose would grow up to become a biochemist, all the while playing in hardcore punk bands. This is all before switching to an acoustic guitar and releasing his million-selling album, Veneer. Several decades, a bunch of albums and over a billion streams on. Jose makes quietly political music that asks deep questions and challenges dogma and dogmatic people. He's also a really lovely bloke. And we had a chat. Hello, yes, it's Lost and Sound, the show that goes deep with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. Let's do the music. So whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's great to have you along. And I'm speaking to you today from the side of a street in Berlin where it's kind of sunny, still a little bit jackety, but it's definitely spring. Spring is on the go. And next week, yeah, it is episode 200 of Lost and Sound. I'm really excited about that. I'm gonna tell you something, I don't even know for sure who the guest is yet. So let's just see. It's gonna be a surprise to me, and it'll be a surprise to you when it comes out next week. So, this week, a lot of guests on the show, a lot of, not all of, operate in some way from a loose perspective of what could be described as underground culture. Today's guest is not exactly what we think of as underground. I mean, this is a guy with over a billion streams across his catalogue. The guest I'm talking about is Jose Gonzalez. So you might be thinking, why Jose Gonzalez as a guest for Lost and Sound? And I think, as you hear in interviews, a fucking amazing guest. Well, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about why I think so. For a start, I think the success of his Heartbeats cover, which became a sort of ubiquitous benchmark for acoustic cover versions that get advert placements. And at that point in time, which is 2003, the album that it came from, Veneer, which came out in 2003, went on to sell well over a million copies worldwide. And I think because of that initial opening success, it kind of blurs away what is a little below the lid the kind of interesting artist Jose Gonzalez really is. Within limitations, he has these two things he limits himself to, voice and acoustic guitar. He takes on really interesting, deep themes, exploring big questions about human nature, evolution, and belief. And as you'll hear in the conversation, a frequent topic of questioning in his lyrics is dogmatism, dogmatic leaders, dogmatic thought, dogmatic religion. These are, as we know, really scary times. And I think framing and having this conversation with Jose about his lyrics, it's really interesting how political love what he does is. And then there's the music as well. Sonically, his music is super deep, it's woody, atmospheric, it's unvarnished, it's acoustic music made by someone who's come from a hardcore punk background and who cites influences like Lowe. And you can hear that on his forthcoming album Against the Dying Light, which is out in March. And yeah, so we we met up in person. This was an actual in-person interview, which I always fucking love, at the Michelberger Hotel in Berlin. He was here for a couple of days doing a press junket. I was the last interviewee that he spoke with. So he did this recording right just before he went to get the plane. And I think it's like a partly a testament to what kind of a person he is. That I got I got the impression I got of him that he was just really, really, really fucking lovely. I think a lot of people in that kind of situation, after a couple of days, are just like, ah, for fact's sake, just get it done. But he was really, really nice. But before we get going, Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica. For over 60 years, this family-run company have been making the kind of gear that helps artists, DJs, and listeners alike really hear the detail. Headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Studio quality, beautifully engineered and designed and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnica.com to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, so. This is me talking with Jose Gonzalez. We had this conversation on March the 5th, 2026, in a little room upstairs in the Michelberger Hotel in Berlin. And this is what happened. Jose, thank you so much for being on Lost and Sounds. Yeah, happy to be here. So you've just been you've spent a couple of days in Berlin uh doing a bit of a press packet. How how's that been going? I mean, because it's there's all these different stages to like an album, isn't it? The album is just one part of it. That might be the creative reason for doing it. But 20 years in plus, how do you cope with this sort of stage of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Um better and better. I think one reason is that I know what to expect. And also I've written albums that are sort of made for these type of encounters. So I made my life a bit easier. So it's not only the music nowadays, it's also all the ideas that go into the lyrics, and then all of a sudden you you don't end up talking about chord progressions or uh type of strings you use, but uh but also like the ideas behind it, and there's so much to say. So all of a sudden, I it's it's really enjoyable, actually.

Paul 7:28

That's very interesting, actually, because I think a lot of artists are very much like my song is like the it's the song itself, it's the art itself, it's like whatever meaning you want to project into it. But do you have like a differ slightly different take on a more like discussion pieces though?

From Enigmas To Conversation Starters

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Definitely more discussion pieces. Uh and and I used to write songs and have lyrics that uh I felt like oh I want to keep it uh enigmatic and it's it actually destroys a bit of the feeling when you start talking and like over-interpreting too much. But nowadays uh I when when I've been writing the the last album, Local Valley, and this one, I've uh actually uh incorporated my my hobby of of uh listening to books and listening to interviews with knowledgeable people, and and then all of a sudden I'm also like I just happen to write lyrics that relate to many of those things, and and then there's so much to talk about. So so so yeah, definitely like conversation starters more than uh anything else.

Paul 8:33

I like you say conversation starters, so for you is it more about questions rather than answers?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Um so so it used to be more questions and and then like rhetorical questions and now like exclamation marks, yeah, uh like accusations. So but but uh but um it depends on the song, and and um so there are some like stuff that I'm trying to push onto people, yeah. But I'm also like having some question marks here and there, and and um I guess like the the ones that are a bit more humble are the ones that are gonna land best with my audience. Uh uh the the so so the sort of soft question marks and and uh humble accusations.

Paul 9:22

Oh okay. Why why do you think it's the humble ones that land the best?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Uh because of the style of music that and and the style the songs that people like the most, and and um there's uh so I I still feel like the the best way to play live is by not looking straight out into the crowd, but looking like a bit uh towards my guitar and a bit down. So there's something about the introvert side of me that that um works better than like looking straight into someone and like saying something very uh with an accusive tone. So so um the the sound of my voice, the sound of the guitar is is uh like a mellow type of thing that uh if I'm pushing it too hard, then people will probably just like, no, this is not what I asked for, and choose uh another soft singer.

Delivering “Humble Accusations”

Paul 10:16

Yeah, I mean because you started off um more in hardcore bands and and punk bands a long time before, and obviously the the mode of message is a lot more direct. Yeah. Um what was the for you like the biggest turning point in in switching from that sound to the acoustic sound? Because they're like a key moment.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

I think there was uh um like doing stuff in parallel uh and um and having my my hardcore band uh Sweet Little Sinister, but then like starting to do Junip. Yeah. And that was like mellow acoustic guitar and very soft drums and some organ and uh and the switch like for my audience was like not being known to all of a sudden getting known. So didn't most people didn't know anything and they hear uh heartbeats or crosses. But but for me, there was a a couple of years with like doing stuff parallel. Like I had learned some classical guitar, I would sing in a choir, but then also playing uh in this hardcore band and and screaming.

Paul 11:24

Do you ever um miss those days, the hardcore days?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

No, not not not completely. I um I did have some nostalgic moments the other month uh when uh we went to US to do a tour, and and we had a day off, and there was uh this hardcore festival like 10 minutes away from the hotel, and we were like, let's go. And we went there and there was all these like hardcore bands. Um and and the so there seems to be a revival, and and of course, when hearing the sounds and seeing the people doing the mosh pit, and like people like standing on the stage, like uh knowing all the lyrics and and you have all the like cameras. Uh so this uh this whole like scene gave me like very nostalgic feelings, and and but I don't feel like I need to be part of it, it's just fun, fun to watch.

From Hardcore To Acoustic

Paul 12:10

Yeah, I mean I guess there's different things that we go through, different and different needs we have at different points in our life. Yeah, like maybe like I think I don't know if particularly for me, because I used to be in bands, like that level of energy is definitely something for I mean and it you do get like old hardcore bands or older hardcore bands, but maybe do you think it was more something that was a particular point in your life that you were going through?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

I mean, there was a period of my life where where it was all about the people you were hanging out with and and uh the the styles. Uh so on one hand uh I was skateboarding and and listening to skate punk and then later like playing bass and and uh writing the riffs and listening to 108 and and uh stick of it all and just like um trying to find your own style within the different styles of hardcore and uh and and then like writing the lyrics where it's you're you have that voice uh and you just want to fill that with something that means something and and that search was uh a bit awkward sometimes living in Sweden and like oh we have uh welfare system and uh we we might have stuff to to scream about, but uh I wasn't wasn't really feeling it in that sense. So some some of those lyrics um ended up being sort of uh inner struggle type of lyrics, and not so yeah.

Paul 13:35

Yes, it's interesting though, isn't it? I think I think definitely in kind of more affluent societies, there is this sort of ennui that comes out in music that can come out in like quite heavy or dark music, surprisingly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes in in in cultures where there's more struggle, there's perhaps more of a sense to find a more of a joyous kind of music.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, no, it's so striking, like uh music from Congo so joyous and happy, and and uh maybe Ghana or the high life music or uh um and compared to uh Norway and uh death metal and uh and black metal, yeah. Where it's like it's too nice with the fjords and and the wood and churches, let's burn a church and kill a cat. Just put it in a jar.

Paul 14:30

Just gonna burn a church. I mean, so I wanted to go back to like the start actually, because you were born in Gothenburg, uh, but I read that your parents fled Argentina and the military dictatorship there. I was wondering for you like when you were growing up, like having politically active parents, how did that like fuse into your early like childhood experiences of culture and your surroundings?

Nostalgia And Scene Revivals

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Um, I mean, I grew up in this household with some music, with uh listening to radio. My father used to turn on the radio so he could hear the the news from Latin America and and uh and it's basically like hearing stories from uh their youth and and uh also political ideas and political concerns about the world and injustices and at the same time me just like walking around and being like interested in um in football and skateboard and and then guitar and bass and basically being a pretty much uh apolitical uh guy for for most my uh younger days, and then with with the hardcore scene, uh it I got in in touch with like the animal rights movements and and uh but then also all these like there were different flavors to different uh subgenres. So you had the punks that uh were anarchists, and then there were the the hardcore versions, like some were like Krishna hardcore, some were like straight edge, and some were left-leaning, anti-multinational uh companies type of uh hardcore bands, and then and then you had um the more intellectual hardcore bands that would uh read uh I don't know, uh political intellectuals.

Paul 16:24

The manifesto brigade.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

And and in my for me, I was always like, you know, not not really into any particulars leaning, uh, but I did uh read uh Peter Singer's uh Animal Liberation and I I was convinced uh by by many of the arguments and I did it that was like one of the main the main routes to to sort of um look at the world through that ethics uh lens and uh moral philosophy lens. Uh and since then I it's become more and more uh um a part of my habits to to try to figure out what's what's uh life well lived, what's uh how can you think about um creating more um uh flourishing than suffering and uh yeah.

Paul 17:12

For you when you're writing songs, what is the process like for you for I mean I guess it's different for different songs maybe, but is there like a general sort of process that you go through when you're asking these questions?

Politics At Home, Ethics In Lyrics

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Uh yeah, so so when uh when I when I have my riffs, I have my demos with like um beginnings to melodies, and I start writing lyrics. I I usually just like try different sentences or words and and all of a sudden it clicks. And on this album, I allow myself to be very blunt.

Paul 17:44

So you're talking about Against the Dying of the Light.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

So now now we're talking Yeah, yeah. Uh maybe you were asking about the previous one. Please go from go from go from where it goes. Yeah, in a way, I'm gonna tie it up with all. Yeah, no, no, I'll I'll uh because uh already with the second album, I was like, I've been writing these um sort of relationship songs uh that aren't necessarily about me, uh and but I want to write about something else. And and on that second album, I I I wrote uh Abram, uh which was uh uh basically in a visualization of the Abrahamic religions as some sort of uh zombie that's uh sleepwalking. So basically um thinking about this meme complex, uh uh these uh idea bundles uh that they're around just because they can be around. They happen to uh go from brain to brain.

Paul 18:46

Well, can you tell me a little bit more what you mean about this complex?

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yes, uh so So the term meme complexes comes from uh the the term meme, which uh was uh basically Richard Dawkins writing about genes. But then when he was wrote the books The Selfish Gene, he was talking about how the genes are basically copying themselves uh uh in a way that um uh in uh citation marks is a selfish way, like the the the genes don't care about their vessel for copying, which is us, yeah, us humans. So basically uh who was mentioning the we are vessels for the copying of genes, we are the bodies that are disposable in in the genes I view.

Paul 19:35

Right, okay. So the gene's purpose is to survive and evolve.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

So so those genes, they whatever gets copied and gets copied more than their uh the the other versions of a gene, they make it to the next round and and so on forever and ever. And and all of a sudden you you get more and more complex uh systems, but what gets copied is the gene, it's not the the actual we we copy the bodies, yeah, but it's the gene that's the the unit that has a sort of selfish interest in in surviving. Uh it doesn't so that's uh uh a way of a way to talk about what what uh matters in in the evolution in every sense. Yeah. And when he wrote that book, The Selfish Gene, he acknowledged that we have another replicator. We have cultural transmitted units. We don't know exactly what they are. We believe they're uh information packages that get transmitted from brain to brain through language, through gestures, through um uh books, uh uh and nowadays also computers and and uh and podcasts and and uh movies. Uh and um so that would be the second replicator, the meme.

Paul 20:59

The meme, right?

Memes, Meme Complexes, And Songs

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah, so so we used the the the term from uh memory or also from mimicry, like imitating, because much much of the copying goes by imitating each other. So one unit would be uh a single meme, but if you gather memes in a bundle, all of a sudden you have a meme structure, a meme complex. Yeah and you can have small complexes, which could be uh a song. So blackbird by the beatles, it uh it has some chord progressions, it has some words, and uh if you do these uh chord progressions and you sing those words, you have a meme Blackbird by the Beatles, and that's uh its own little meme bundle. But then you have meme complexes, which could be uh a whole ideology. So um that would be in the term if you think about straight edge hardcore, it would be like an X on your hand, which relates to you. You're you're not drinking alcohol, you you show that uh if you were underage you had to wear the X, but if you uh wanted to not drink alcohol, you could do the X anyway, and just uh to say that I'm I'm drug free. And and but then there's other memes uh coming together with that straight uh culture, which would be loud guitars, it would it would be uh screaming, it would be uh stage dive. So so that's where you get the meme complex. And so uh let's see where we started. We started uh on uh yeah, Abrahamic Religions on the second album. I wrote the song Abraham, and and that was basically uh when I started doing songs that had uh outward-looking uh ambition and and also like bringing in a bit of criticism into very soothing sounds.

Paul 22:56

I love the contrast of being able to do that. Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting what you were saying about about the memes and the meme complexes and having a single complex, because I guess just like on what you're saying, like one thing that interests me is like I think, and this is more of a question rather than a challenge, it's just a question because I I know that you know about this, and is like even when you boil down to a single, like I mean, like say Blackbird, there's still like a set of complexes that go into that. Like, for example, the core progressions, there's a little bit of I don't know, bark maybe music. So there's a couple there. There's like Paul McCartney's history and like maybe where he was taught music or received music coming in on the boats from Liverpool. So I'm wondering if even in like I wanna I was just a question to you, I was wondering like is there ever just like a one meme complex or is it always like uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

So so so when we think about evolution, yeah, yeah. So genetic evolution is like for it goes from it's mainly uh like a uh generational thing. But if you talk about meme memetic evolution, then it's a very like uh chaotic back and forth, and you get all these variations. Um same with genes, you get the variations in genes, and then whatever works gets uh to the next round, and what doesn't work like gets uh pulled out of the gene pool. That's how we're talking. And and and you can say the same with memes. You have a meme pool, so in in some sense it's uh enormous, but it's also limited. Like uh you you could uh have the meme pool for a certain language, yeah. And that changes with time, depending on how we humans like talk, and and so so yeah, there's uh and that's part of it, the the the variation, and and then so I when I'm writing, I'm aware that I'm part of that like um tradition of uh I have my heritage, yeah, but I'm also like shaping new combinations of memes, and uh not necessarily like uh making new ones that are completely unique, but it's just uh a unique combination of memes.

Paul 25:15

Right, yeah. This is being digested through you and coming out the other end, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And it's a mixture of memes from Latin America, from uh from Sweden, from uh all over the place, and and uh and lately in my hobby of listening to books, that's become an input too. Yeah, and that's where uh uh uh it becomes uh easier to to have interviews because all of a sudden I have so much to really like I'm basically just name-dropping here and there concepts that uh I could expand and like mention my book where there and you have someone who wrote about this and who's a way more smarter p uh person than me, and uh and I can just like ride behind uh stand on the shoulders of giants.

Paul 25:57

Yeah, but they're nested on the shoulders of other giants and vice versa. Uh that's interesting because I mean you studied biochemistry. Yep. Um, so I mean hearing you talk now, there's there's this sort of philosophical and scientific slant that goes into things. Did you finish studying uh biochemistry?

Method, Science, And Songcraft

SPEAKER_01 26:14

So I did um molecular biology uh four years, yeah. And then I went straight into uh research program, right? Okay, and uh and we were studying viruses and uh copying of DNA and and uh molecular machinery that cops the d and copies the DNA uh and these proteins. Uh I was trying to figure out uh the 3D structure of uh two particular proteins.

Paul 26:39

Uh d is there a connection that you see between any of your scientific learnings and summarizing?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Uh yeah, I mean uh I've been very methodical with with the last two albums, um mainly those two, uh, in a way that I used to be methodical with my research. And also, of course, there there's a connection of like thinking about uh what what we're doing, like what what uh what's the copying mechanism that's going on uh where when you do a uh a hit single? So it's more like um having fun with the connections. It's I wouldn't uh take that too far.

Paul 27:18

Right, okay. So you're not in a lab making music.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

No, no, no. I'm trying it out in my own head, uh and um sort of uh my my trial and error can be systematic in a way that I'm not sure all musicians are. Yeah, yeah, but but uh but yeah.

Veneer, Heartbeats, And A Moment

Paul 27:35

Yeah, because I I remember when when veneer came out, uh was it 2003? Yeah, supposedly. I was I was working in a Virgin Records shop and and I'm I just remember it flying out continually. Yeah, um, and I it was a really interesting point in time, I think, because there was this kind of resurgence of very strict back acoustic music going on, like a lot of people were rediscovering Nick Drake or discover or Nick Drake was actually being sort of just discovered by a lot of people. There was like artists like Devandra Banha, but did you feel a sense of connection to that lineage, or was we do you feel like you were coming from somewhere completely different?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Uh no, I felt like there was a I mean I I came from um uh from listening to uh Songs of Haya and uh Low, and um so there was this like artists that had in some way a connection to louder music, but uh but there was like a counter movement of people like so that you had uh from hardcore to emo hardcore to very soft music and very moody music, yeah. So I came from from that combined with my heritage from from home and from just playing singing songwriting music, and I did feel a connection to to um uh Kings of Govinians that were doing the Bossa Nova thing uh at the Vanderbann Hart. It was also like uh sort of alternative folk, yeah. And there were some like uh attempts to tie me to the sort of freak folk scene, and I was like, that's not me. And uh but yeah, I thought I saw that there were uh interesting connections, and and uh having met Devandra afterwards, uh that we we we share a lot of like common interest in in different styles of music.

Paul 29:34

So yeah, he was on my show on the show last year and he was a really really fascinating fun guy to chat with. Yeah, I mean I I feel like maybe the connection I see between maybe you and Devandra, maybe it's on and Devendra, but it's maybe it's unfair to make a connection in this sense, but just in terms of like I think a lot of acoustic music that's popular is sort of like what I'm let me phrase it. I think what you're doing and always done and what like Devendra's always done, uh compared to a lot of like the idea of acoustic music, um, is very different. Like there's this idea of like sort of very affected Starbucks-y kind of gentle music, and I think what you're doing, yeah, I can hear more of the low influence. Yeah, there is a sort of there's a sort of a deepness to the there's almost like it could be doom metal sometimes, but it's played acoustic in a in a folk format, you know.

The Art Of Choosing Covers

SPEAKER_01 30:34

No, no, I'm I mean I always struggled with uh like I'm doing very calm and soothing music. How can I get a bit of um fire in there? Like I uh like using the the the elements like yeah, water, air, earth, and and uh fire. And and and so many times I I'm I write a song and I feel like oh this this uh song doesn't have the fire yet. I need to so so there's uh there's always been that like try to find the friction somewhere and and that comes from the musical taste. So aesthetically, like how does it sound? And I I usually try to find uh somewhere in the songs, but uh usually around the the last third. Yeah. So the the golden uh rule uh not what's it called? The golden ratio. Try to find a place where like you do two similar things, then a third needs to stand out a bit, and then you go back.

Paul 31:28

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

And you can do that on a small scale, and you can do that on a larger scale. And and many times uh if you look at my recordings, uh I have a peak somewhere over there in the last uh quarter or last third.

Paul 31:41

Of the albums.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Of the albums, but no, mainly the songs, actually. Okay, so so uh on Heartbeats, there is uh one time when uh my voc voice distorts, like I'm I think a bit too loud for the tube amplifier, and and there's other songs that have that like structure, and and it is to to create friction and then like tension and release, tension and release. And in many ways, it's uh it's using like subtle ways to to to reach that, and and lately it's been um lyrically like finding ways to to create tension, and and that's where I use uh the languages to sort of um so so I have uh two songs on the new album, Rol Slöja and Jim Nastan, where um I'm singing in Swedish. So I for for most people they will uh listen and they won't understand a word. They might read the title and then like uh okay, what's role got to do with this? Uh which role, by the way. Yeah, yeah. And um, but yeah, if if they read the translation, they will see that this is um you know, terrible stories, the four verses with the terrible uh historical events, and then a fifth verse where you have uh someone who's who's uh moral relativist, someone who's uh basically saying that uh who are we to judge uh uh what other cultures do or what what other villages do? And that person starts to try to figure out why each event is okay and does some uh advanced mental gymnastics to to reach that conclusion. And uh eventually in the other song, uh there's a sequence of uh gymnastics leading up to flying away on a tiger.

Sound Consistency And Friction

Paul 33:31

Right. Could you imagine because this feels almost quite you you mentioned like you're listening to a lot of books at the moment, um, and like these lyrical themes and the constructions of them do sound quite novelistic. Is there a book in you that is dying to them?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

I think I think now there is substance. Right. Maybe five years ago I uh I was like I mean for Local Valley there was substance. We made the movie, this uh documentary that was scripted, so like uh it's part documentary, part like uh fictive. Um and by now I think there is uh there is substance for for some some type of book. But uh but uh but yeah, it's uh I think um the the need to do that. I I don't feel the need because I'm able to talk about it with uh through interviews and I and I recently started uh writing a bit more uh along like uh commentaries to to the to the song. So so there is material already there that I don't need to like it's enough with uh like uh one one page for each song.

Paul 34:44

So that there's a sort of uh I I'm picking up a theme of like I think this is the same for most people that like make some form of art of something of just like what you know it always fascinates me what is it that thing that we have to communicate to people, yeah. Like uh rather than just being content to just stay silent or maybe like play a little bit of guitar in your room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for you, what do you think that thing is?

Swedish Lyrics, Moral Gymnastics

Against The Dying Light Explained

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Uh to to reach people you need. I think for most uh of my audience it's about sounds, it's uh it's about just like hearing the guitar and hearing my voice. And it's not so much uh like um the message behind the song. I so I think uh most of my audience is is more about the sounds and and uh using the the the sounds for um background music for dinners or for soothing a child that's uh needs to go to sleep. But I think uh it's fun to give keys to the lyrics nowadays, yeah. And I think um so now I'm sort of revealing some stuff only because I'm a bit impatient. I I I I have too much to say, so I'm impatient with people waiting to figure it out. Uh impatient in a couple of ways. One is uh the urgency of some uh some topics, yeah. So so to be blunt, uh yeah, exactly. So the title Against the Dying of the Light relates to um on one hand, uh enlightenment ideals and how we're sort of like drifting away from them in some parts of the world, or like uh in some part of the world, like being too slow to find these ideals that uh aren't necessarily just Western, they're basically like you can find them anywhere, and these are ideals that are worth fighting for. And uh what like what can you give me an example? Um individual liberty, it's uh using reason and science to uh to uh promote and create prosperity. It's about um trying to use empirism and and uh reason instead of um only traditions or blind faith. Um so these are stuff that um that people started uh to think about in in the is it 17th century or 18th century, but but yeah, like uh the age of reason, uh yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and of course there were slaves uh around that time, so it wasn't like they they found all the answers. Uh but it is a tradition that uh it's it's evolving, and we can sort of point towards uh these type of uh ideas that are in line with human flourishing, and we can talk about ideas that only deal with an in-group or only deal with uh uh like making sure men are having a good time and not the women. Yeah. So so um so that's one part of the title. The other part of the title is even more urgent. Yeah. Avoiding extinction of humanity. So very, very dramatic. And and that's where I'm um like um uh usually pointing towards uh researchers that try to figure out the the most pressing problems in the world and and looking at which type of um solutions do we have to different problems. And and then you get uh a book like The Precipice by Toby Ord, where uh Oxford philosopher who in 2020 released this book and and basically had uh questionnaires for different sector experts and uh coming up with um estimations, so natural uh natural risk estimations and and uh the sum on the natural risk side is uh one in ten thousand that will make it through the next hundred years. So so it's one in ten thousand, it's not um that bad. It's like we think we could um we can manage that. Uh oh, I see I was thinking the other way around for a second, yeah. Yeah, okay. So so one in thousand, yeah. The risks in on that level are stuff that you can live with and never die basically like uh driving in um in traffic in uh Calcutta, or something like that. And you you could do that for your whole life and you didn't die.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

That would be the natural risks, but then there's um man-made risks. Um and that that's when you get uh um nuclear bombs uh or nuclear war uh with nuclear winter, you have um man-made pandemics uh designing very bad bioweapons, uh, you have uh artificial intelligence that we can't control that uh uh and and the sum of those is one in six in in his estimation. And when they do questionnaires for AI experts, uh they the mean uh lands on one in ten.

Paul 39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

So it's way too much risk for for me to to not write about. Right, okay. And you are you a father?

Paul 39:47

Yes. Yeah, so I mean, with with these things going on, like how do you how does that make you feel at the moment? Like, I mean, I'm not a father. Um, so I'm wondering, like, you know, if that added connection to life and future life, you know, this must how does that urgency play in?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah, I mean, I I I mean it plays in a lot because they they are my children, but but it plays in a lot because I have friends and family and friends of friends. So I'm concerned not only because I have kids, so I would like to live um a long and prosperous life, and um and uh I would like us to uh ride through this uh this narrow uh path.

Paul 40:35

Yeah, which feels like I mean, I feel like the two elements you're talking about here very feel very interconnected.

Existential Risk And AI

SPEAKER_01 40:41

They are in in some ways, and and and and it's interesting for me to to have spent uh two decades, like I mean, uh from In Our Nature 2007 uh until recently. I was thinking more about the dogmatic ideologies, and just recently, like from Local Valley, I had the song Visions that related to these types of topics. The the topic of okay, we're we're looking into the future, we're looking at what type of vision do we have of society where where we can flourish as individuals, but but uh we're not like um ignoring the suffering of sentient beings in cages, and uh we're basically not uh releasing all kinds of new technologies without making sure we can control them. So so that uh realization, uh I mean I've been part of uh the effective altruism community where they've had uh uh lots of talks uh for for many years, and I've been uh sitting at home watching YouTube uh videos of those conferences and felt like I was you know understanding the uh sort of slight urgency, but that urgency has become more and more yeah uh sort of apparent. So so it felt right to to switch towards um lyrics uh then like a perfect storm and losing game. And um yeah, in a way, because I think there's uh there's a point of uh creating a public awareness that that's nuanced. So it's um on one hand like saying yes, uh one in six, uh Russian roulette, let's let's do something about this. Uh but on the other hand, also like pointing towards uh amazing possibilities with with um technologies. So for example, uh my my research project trying to figure out the 3D structure of a protein, spending months and months without any proper results, and then on comes uh AlphaFold, this AI that solves 250 million protein structures in one go.

Paul 42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

And that's uh just mind-blowing how um useful some sorts of AI. They're already done some amazing work, yeah, and there's more coming. How can we make sure we have um AI tools that that are for for human flourishing and uh are not for like uh making us um obsolete, basically?

Paul 43:09

Basically, yeah, yeah. Uh do you worry about that from the perspective of like being an artist in terms of things like generative music?

SPEAKER_01 43:18

So uh on the ladder of concerns, yeah.

Paul 43:20

I mean I mean it's not you can't compare it to like global destruction.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah, I was gonna say so so on the level of concerns that that is so uh low down that I I'm I'm not gonna so as uh so you have extension existential risk, yeah. Like basically on Maslow, yeah.

Paul 43:37

Uh Maslow like on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like the basic sort of fundamental principles of people and not be dead. Maybe like AI Spotify playlists are on like self actualization. No, I guess they they are connected to Wincom, uh you know, it is yeah, yeah.

Jobs, Deepfakes, And Value

SPEAKER_01 43:56

So so uh so it has in on a pretty high up and not for me. Personally, yeah. So so so uh extinction risk, yeah. Uh be uh like one scenario could be uh AI that um needs more compute and tiles the earth with solar panels by using robots and and uh and creating economies for for more compute where uh all of a sudden we're not uh able to to find a nice place to be and and maybe it doesn't need the atmosphere and so so all of a sudden we don't have air. That's like one scenario that's been proposed. That's it's difficult to sort of uh um so imagine the types of uh doom scenarios, but that would be one way. Uh so another bit lower lower down is the concern of uh people losing jobs, like becoming obsolete in an economic sense, like how or useless classes. You all know how Harari talks about people losing jobs in a rate that's way faster than the rate that we're creating jobs, yeah. And uh and if we don't solve a way to redistribute uh money, then uh what what does maybe we get social unrest and and uh more wars or whatever. Yeah, so that would be like a bit lower down on the risk level, and then you get uh the level of um like f uh false information, uh defakes, uh and then you have the like oh no, someone took my voice and made us like thousands of Jose Gonzalez songs. So that's uh in my mind, um that that is possible, yeah and it's gonna it's going to become more and more possible, and um maybe we'll figure out a way for for me to get uh compensated in some way similar to when they play music on the radio, yeah. And and I'm be okay like having my coffee in the morning and by the by the lake, and it's all fine. Um then but then there's like this um when when you try to think about the future where where you've solved many of our concerns, uh like you you don't have bullshit jobs, you don't have uh boring jobs, you just you only have people that are having projects and maybe having like a work week, but they do it because they're like going for one of their pet projects.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

And that's a future I would like to go to. And and in that future, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be room for uh singing songwriters sitting in a corner in a nice hotel uh with a drink.

Paul 46:41

Well answered, yeah. Um, so I guess like the fundamental obligatory every interview you do question about heartbeats is gonna come up. Yeah. Um like that song was like such a sort of epoch moment. Was there like a in terms of like how how you were seen obviously changed a lot in terms of like exposure, but like was there a a moment or was there like a general feeling that you got like after that came out, after the impact of it, like after it kind of synced on adverts that um you know left you in a different state, very different state from the Jose Gonzalez before. If so, what was that?

Tech As Dual-Use, Human Flourishing

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Yeah, I mean that journey was pretty special at the at the time. Uh and at the time that was only Sweden, actually, but that but yeah, it uh released uh Cross Your CP in May 2003, and then came the album in in the autumn, and it went to second place in the charts, and uh Heartbeats was already uh hit by the knife in Sweden, and then uh my version came and and that was another hit. And it changed my life forever, and and uh and then but but it was only for Sweden at first, and then I started uh traveling to London and and then when they used it for the advert it it got so big in in um Europe and Australia and uh and all of a sudden I I I could live even longer with with less work in a way, like uh so so yeah, there was definitely like tumultuous uh times and and uh changing uh a life from being in the lab to to tour the world with with my guitar.

Paul 48:28

Yeah, and because you you've you've approached various covers at different points in your career. Like, do you have like any kind of golden rules about how to approach a cover? Like things that you know for sure are a good or a bad thing when it comes to doing covers?

Doomsday Dudes And Nuance

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Um and uh and covers have been um I mean they were very important for me for a while. Um during the the years with Junip, uh when we were like putting together shows and didn't have enough songs. And for me, when I started releasing my my album and then EPs and and the labels were asking for B-sides, and I was like, I don't have any more songs. Okay, so I made a cover. And and it was important to to feel like I I'm doing something interesting, yeah. So it was important to not choose a summoner uh uh Paul Simon song or or Nick Drake. It was important to try to find something dissimilar, and that's uh how I ended up uh doing Level Terror with with Junip at first and then on my own and and um The Knife and then Teardrop and Kylie Minogue. Um and uh and then later I just uh stopped trying that much, but I did uh do the version of um and Stuntpojuden by Lale on on Local Valley. So so then it was about finding for I had the the album almost finished, and I felt important to to have a song that dealt with uh death in in a poetic and beautiful way, and I felt like I couldn't write it, especially not compared to what other people have written, and and and felt right to do a version of her songs which uh her version is is pretty upbeat and it's got the orchestration and and mine is more solemn. So I actually played it a couple of times in a couple of um funerals and and uh and uh so and now on my on this album I don't have a cover. Uh and um feels like uh um a full like maturation. It's like I I this time I actually wrote too many demos and too many songs, and I actually like took away to to leave for for a next uh next time. Previously had you had there not been too many songs? Yeah, I was always like grasping for I need just need one more or two more. It was always like headache and also stressed out because I already said that I almost had the album, and then they start making plans for tours and stuff, and all of a sudden you're stressed out forcing uh uh uh uh a new song. But but this time um I didn't, so so it felt felt right not to uh have a cover.

Paul 51:20

That's really great because I think that can be sometimes the worst thing for creative environments is is the pressure. I'm just gonna close the window. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Shall I tell it? Um what do you feel I'm like when when you look back on the career, you know, with the release of the new album coming out, what do you think are the things that have remained like maybe thematically the most consistent for you?

SPEAKER_01 51:53

No. If if it's from the second album and on, yeah. It's uh I mean from the first album to now, it's the music, it's a sound, it's uh guitar and the vocals, and and I actually went back to using tube amplifier to to have that like original sound that I for silly reasons I I didn't do on on some other recordings, yeah. Uh because I was thinking I could do that later, but it uh it actually is like it sounds better when when I do it up front. Yeah. Like use the tube to get that like distortion when I play loud. So so sound wise, that's the most consistent, I would say. And and some arpeggios I reuse, like I sometimes I do uh an arpeggio, and I haven't done a song in that style for for two records, so I do another version. So I've done like variations of my own songs for a while. So so that that would be the most consistent, but lyrically, there's a consistency from the second album up until now. That's uh in Spanish, uh you have an expression here uh starting to sound like a broken record, yeah, which like skips and plays the same thing over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

I we have the same oh yeah, yeah. Sorry.

Closing Thoughts And Credits

SPEAKER_01 53:10

So it's starting to sound like a broken record. Yeah, that's of course uh expression too. And and those are the themes that I've been talking about, the the sort of like trying to figure out ways to um yeah, uh accuse gently people are who are dogmatic and and there is always new ways to say it. And also I guess with each few years there's a new context of people that uh you want to accuse, perhaps, or a new lens to look at it that through Yeah, no, of course, there's stuff happening every year, and and uh but but it's interesting how little has changed in some contexts when you think about the well so so one theme that I've been having for a while uh is are the doomsday dudes, which uh in a way for me ties uh both sides of Against the Dying of the Light in a in a good way. So so you have the doomsday dudes, basically uh many times dudes and and not gals that have very specific ideas of how the world works and how it will end, and then they have the prescription like you should do this, you should do that, you should avoid this, you should avoid that.

Paul 54:26

Can you give me an example of a famous doomsday dude?

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Yeah, so so um you have like cult leaders, you have but you also have um Jesus, you have uh one that uh uh people don't think about as a doomsday dude is Buddha.

Paul 54:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

So he was a happy guy sitting uh meditating and and uh finding uh the other type of enlightenment. Yeah, yeah. And he also had these um uh ideas of how uh I I can't remember the details, but like five five thousand years from now, people will forget my teachings and uh and then there will be chaos and and uh and dystopia.

Paul 55:12

Right, oh my gosh. Right, okay. So they do you think it's like they remember the icon but they don't remember the teachings, or I think uh it's many of these dudes said many things.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

Yeah. And it's like you you you pick the stuff that you like and and uh and um but but yeah, it's just to say that this is a common topic in many cultures, and and I've seen it uh among friends that some are very uh like uh they they have this very specific idea how the future will be. It's an approach where they are very certain that this will be this way, right? And and the way it ties up to to me to come from circle is that I feel like I've become a bit like that, but my my response immediately is to say it's not me, it's uh this research community. It's basically uh lots of experts saying similar things, not 100% of them, but like enough of them to be alarmed. So so that's when you get the the the book The Precipice and you get the the different like um percentages uh and and uh one is like a Russian roulette and one is like driving in a crowded city on a bike for a couple of years. Yeah. And uh and and it um to me it's um uh uh it becomes like this meta comment on myself. Like I I I'm a doomsday dude, but but I have the response like it's not me, it's uh this is actually a research project. And it could be wrong, but that just means we need to do more and better research to try to figure out what what our hurdles are. And uh and um yeah.

Paul 57:04

There's nothing wrong in a warning, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

In the no, so so that's actually one of the parts that I uh look forward to to calibrate once you have the pendulum, yeah. You have a public that uh oh shit, I'm scared, what should I do? And and then they say, like no AI, no uh screens, um and and I I'm basically saying that uh there's usually a like a minimal necessary insufficient uh list of things you can do with with each uh like tool or or project to reach a certain goal. And the question mark is what what are those minimal necessary and sufficient things we need to do with AI at this point in time? Um and um and and also like uh what what can not only say like watch out for this, and also I want to point towards like look, these are amazing tools that can help us flourish as humans, we can solve many diseases, we can uh we be creative with them, and and we can uh we can uh learn a lot about uh ourselves and the world and uh have fun on the way.

Paul 58:18

I guess it's like any technology, isn't it? Like the you know, fire can be used to burn someone or it can be used to make a an amazing carbonara.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Yeah, exactly. It's a dual-use technology. Jose, thank you so much. Thank you, it was a pleasure. Thank you. That's fun.

Paul 58:37

Okay, so that was me, Paul Hamford, talking with Jose Gonzalez for the Lost and Sound podcast. And we had that conversation on March the 5th, 2026, at the Michelberger Hotel in Berlin. Thank you so much, Jose, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. I love that conversation. Um, the new Jose Gonzalez album, Against the Dying Light, is out on March the 27th on the Citlang label. Well worth checking out when it comes out. And before we finish, quick listening note on that conversation. One thing that really struck out to me whilst talking with Jose was how deep the themes of his music go. And I'm sure that's something that you picked up on as well when you were listening. Um, I think it goes into this kind of idea that connects with the conversation I had with Alexis Taylor last week about how influencers begin at one thing, like we hear or we absorb, we read, we whatever, whatever the influences is, whether it's music or literature or or like art or knowledge, they they're they're at one end and then they go into us and then they come out as something else. And it's always really, really fascinating, like that protest about how like artists or any of us like absorb our influences and how they can come out and transmit as something else afterwards. And I think with Jose Gonzalez, it's really fascinating how they come out in these songs that are on the surface, as he very self-deprecatingly put um music that sometimes people listen to, you know, in a soothing way, like at dinner parties. And but under the surface of that, there's this sort of very political questioning, very deeply thought-out questioning. So, yeah, against the dying of the light, the new album is out on March 27th on Cityslang. Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio Technica, the global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio quality, yet affordable products, because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnica.com to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every show, is by Tom Giddens, hyperlink in the podcast description. And so, yeah, that's it. Hope you enjoyed listening today, and I'll see you next week for episode 200.