When José González was working on the songs that would comprise his first album, he found himself falling asleep over his nylon-stringed guitar.
“I used to sit with the guitar for a whole hour just playing. It’s not so much that I was seeking something, but that I’d have found a riff that I liked playing and I would play it and play it in different ways and continue playing until I fell asleep.”
His songs didn’t have the classic structure of verse followed by refrain; they were practices in elaborate finger-picking repetition, deft and complicated stylings that repeated with subtle compelling variations. González was searching for that one riff that could drive a whole song, accented only by his softly evocative voice.
Judging by the success of 2003-released “Veneer” and 2007’s “In Our Nature,” he found quite a few of them. One, an exceptionally beautiful cover of The Knife’s song “Heartbeats,” was picked up by Sony in 2005 for a commercial. It propelled González to the forefront of music in Europe, but his ascent has been slower in the United States.
In support of “In Our Nature,” he has embarked on a tour across the country and will be performing this Wednesday at the El Rey Theatre.
González was born in Sweden to Argentine parents who had fled a military coup in 1976. He picked up a guitar when he was 14. His family was academic, not musical, but his father encouraged González to practice by introducing him to the Beatles and Bossa Nova. Mostly, though, it was the chance to sing old Argentine folk songs to the accompaniment of González’s guitar that seemed the real basis for his father’s support.
“I got the feeling that he was really nostalgic and wanted to sing those songs with me,” González said.
It was only in 2001, when González’s self-released 7-inch record was picked up by a label, that the then graduate student in biochemistry decided to become a full-time musician. Accustomed to practicing his guitar while his parents were taking a siesta, González had developed a literate and melancholic songwriting style.
While his music is for solo acoustic guitar, González wasn’t listening to Paul Simon or the Red House Painters, to whom he has often been compared. Instead, he drew his inspiration from house, electronica and post-rock bands like Tortoise and Do Make Say Think. He focused on repeating melodies that build over the course of the song, and his music is not focused on the danceable beat nor the catchy chorus, but on the gradual development of mood.
“I just had this idea that I didn’t want to be a typical singer-songwriter. I wanted to focus more on repetition. I had been listening to music where you didn’t have the verse refrain structure and it still sounds good. That was it: to do strong songs that weren’t typically structured,” González said.
The songs he has chosen to cover ““ The Knife’s “Heartbeats,” Massive Attack’s “Teardrop,” and Kylie Minogue’s “Hand on Your Heart” ““ reflect his attitudes. They are either upbeat pop songs or atmospheric electronic songs that seem, if anything, adverse to the renderings of a classically trained guitarist. González was inspired to cover Minogue’s song because he felt the lyrical content, about a lover sending mixed signals, wasn’t aligned with the presentation in the music video, in which Minogue dances in a bright blue dress. González therefore decided to align them himself, crafting a pensive love song.
“What I’m trying to do is keep the sense and make it my own. It’s not saying it’s so bad I need to change it. It’s more acknowledging that it’s a really good song, and that it can be changed and still keep the harmony and lyrics, and still be a good song,” González said.
In the years since González put out his first album, “Veneer,” not much about his songwriting has changed, nor does he feel restricted by the niche he has found. On “In Our Nature,” the songs could be considered more impassioned and the lyrics more political, but the atmosphere of general wistfulness that his songs possess has not changed substantially. “High Low,” a song about becoming accustomed to not seeing the consequences of your actions, could be applied to both national leaders and teenagers.
Instead, González sticks to wooing his audience, and in one instance, letting the audience members woo each other. As part of a documentary project, González invited fans to send in videos that had something to do with González and his music. In one, at a Boston show, a fan proposed to his girlfriend and the girlfriend accepted.
“Yeah, I heard that there is some funny stuff in there,” González said. He lets his songs speak for themselves, and it seems those songs help his fans do the same.