Reflections on revisiting the debut album for its 30th anniversary tour

Transmission 265: Interview with Spain

• 30 Years of Slowcore: Josh Haden is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the seminal album The Blue Moods of Spain with a 2025 vinyl reissue and a full-album performance tour in Europe.
• From Punk to Slowcore: Haden’s sound evolved as a reaction against the 1980s LA punk scene; he sought to create music that demanded the audience’s full attention rather than inciting chaos.
• The “Spiritual” Legacy: Despite Haden being an atheist, his song “Spiritual” became a gospel-blues landmark, earning a legendary cover by Johnny Cash on his American Recordings.

Josh Haden is an American musician and the central figure of the band Spain. In his music, he has consistently addressed feelings of melancholy, emotional uncertainty, love, and desolation. Emerging from the aggressive Los Angeles punk scene of the 1980s, Haden rejected its chaotic energy in favor of a radically different approach. He constructed compositions built on sparse arrangements, deliberate pacing, and extended atmospheric passages, creating a sound that required close attention from the listener.

Title: The Blue Moods of Spain
Artist: Spain
Genres: Avant-garde, Blues Rock, Experimental Music, Indie Rock, Jazz Rock, Post-rock
Label: Rhino Records
Description: Josh Haden discusses Spain's The Blue Moods of Spain on its 30th anniversary reissue by Rhino Records. An interview covering his musical journey.

His 1995 debut album, The Blue Moods of Spain, positioned his project within the slowcore movement and established his musical signature. The album produced ‘Spiritual’, a song later recorded by Johnny Cash for his American Recordings series, securing Haden’s place in a wider musical conversation. Thirty years after its release, Rhino Records is reissuing The Blue Moods of Spain on vinyl, and Haden will tour Europe performing the album in its entirety.

Spain’s official site

What were you doing musically before the band formed? What artistic and musical idea were you exploring that led you to the formation of a band?

Josh Haden: I grew up in a musical household, surrounded by a lot of jazz, classical, rock, and pop. The first record I truly fell in love with was the soundtrack to Mission: Impossible, the American TV show. The first album I bought was a low-budget compilation called Get It Together, which had Jefferson Airplane, the Guess Who, The Who, 1910 Fruitgum Company, and Iron Butterfly. Those were the foundational bands for me when I was five years old. That was in New York where I was born, and then we moved to Los Angeles. Southern California radio played stuff like Boston, “Dust in the Wind,” Styx, and Fleetwood Mac.

“Love is Like Oxygen” by Sweet, and that other song, “Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain”… Those songs really haunt me today, but back when I was nine years old, that’s what I listened to because that’s what was on the radio. “Dust in the Wind,” “Stairway to Heaven.” Then, as I hit puberty, I became a really angry teenager and started listening to AC/DC, more Led Zeppelin, and I was really into Black Sabbath. I loved Peter Frampton. Cheap Trick was one of my favorite bands.

I was obsessed with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Then, in seventh grade, when I was about 12, a friend of mine came to school with a boombox and said, “You need to listen to this.” It was Black Flag’s Jealous Again, which he had recorded off the Rodney on the Rock radio show. Overnight, I went from being a hard rock guy who listened to Van Halen to throwing all that stuff out and just buying Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, Social Distortion, Channel 3, and Minutemen. The soundtrack to The Decline of Western Civilization. I would just listen to that music and sneak out to go to punk rock shows. I used to see bands like Fear, The Minutemen, Social Distortion, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, TSOL—really angry music.

Some of it was political. But because I came from such a musical background, I really listened to the music, and I found that a lot of my peers didn’t; they were just there for the social aspect. Then I noticed it was going beyond the social; a lot of kids, even angrier than me, were just going to get into fights and get drunk. I was at a Descendents show, and I looked around and no one was listening to the music. Everyone’s attention was diverted by people fighting in the audience.

I realized then that I didn’t really like this music anymore because nobody seemed to care about it. What is this audience doing to appreciate the bands who are putting so much care and craft into their music? Nothing. They’re not even listening to the bands they’re paying $8 to see. To me, Black Flag’s guitarist Greg Ginn was completely revolutionary. He was playing guitar like John Lee Hooker, but in a punk band. His concept was to take blues and speed it up. That’s what I immediately noticed when I heard Black Flag, because I was familiar with John Lee Hooker from my father’s record collection.

By the end of my teenage years, around age 20, I was really disappointed in punk rock, not the bands, but the lifestyle. Right then, I was working at a radio station called KCRW in Santa Monica. This was around 1988. A record came in by the Cowboy Junkies called The Trinity Session. When I heard that record, my boss gave me the album to take home, and I listened to it a lot. I thought, if these guys are making music like this and people are buying it, and this sound is something I’ve been thinking about—if they can find an audience, so can I.

I gradually slowed down my punk rock career and transitioned to something that more resembled the 1950s blues I had been listening to. In those early days, another band that really opened my mind was Cocteau Twins. And Spacemen 3 was another one. I remember their Perfect Prescription album. Back then, that was another slow, quiet album that made me think, “Wow, there’s an audience for this kind of music.” All my friends were buying Spacemen 3 albums, sitting in their bedrooms and actually listening to them. I went to see Sonic Boom, and nobody was fighting in the audience. This was music that people go to listen to. They don’t go to laugh and punch people.

I was at a Descendents show, and I looked around and no one was listening to the music. I realized then that I didn’t really like this anymore because nobody seemed to care about it.

Where did the name Spain come from?

In 1988, when I was 20, I went to UC Irvine. I was an English major. My first year, I lived on campus and couldn’t choose my roommates. In the questionnaire, I think I put that I played bass, so the school roomed me with a guy who must have written that he played guitar. They saw I played bass, saw this random guy played guitar, and put us in the same room. That was Ken Boudakian. The first thing he said to me was, “Do you smoke weed? Because I can get weed.”

That started the whole Spain journey. We started recording on his four-track Tascam cassette recorder, just for fun. Eventually, it became more serious. I decided I wasn’t going to be a writer like Michael Chabon and make a million dollars off my first novel. This English degree was great, but I was going to continue with music. So I started writing more structured songs, and Ken would record them and play guitar.

We graduated and continued making songs. Soon I had about 50 songs and knew I had to put a band together. I met our bassist Merlo through one of my sisters. For a drummer, I thought of Evan, who I went to high school with.

Then I needed a band name. It was driving me crazy. We had a gig coming up and I didn’t have a name. One night, I had a dream that someone told me the name of the band should be Spain. I woke up and decided that was it. It’s a good name. Back then, this was before the internet. I don’t know if I would have named it Spain knowing how difficult it is to find in a Google search. The Facebook Spain page has 11,000 followers, but half of them think they’re following the country, not the band.

But I think it’s a good name that fits the music. It comes from a dream, and the music is very dreamy and works on a subconscious level. So I told my bandmates, “The name of our band is Spain,” and that was it.

I knew I couldn’t make music like Nirvana because no one would listen to me. I had to do something completely opposite to be heard.

What challenges did you face starting out in LA in the early ’90s?

With no money and no budget, you’re asking friends for favors. It’s challenging because there are a lot of bands. Music is probably a billion-dollar industry. A lot of people buy musical instruments, and all those people are trying to start bands and send their music out. It’s even worse now with the internet. Anyone can put their music out on Bandcamp, but who’s going to listen to it? How do you reach people? Those were the same challenges I was facing.

I decided to make music influenced by what I love: John Lee Hooker, Bessie Smith, and Cowboy Junkies. My plan was to put those three elements together and get very extreme by slowing it down even more. This was around 1991, when Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came out. I loved it, but I knew I couldn’t make music like that because no one would listen to me. I had to do something completely opposite to be heard. And that’s what I did. I took the concept of slow music and decided to make it even slower. People heard us and thought, “What is this? This is incredible. They’re doing something no one else is doing.” So that was my response to the struggle.

I made a demo, and people like Chris Douridas on KCRW started playing it. Then it all took off. I would get phone calls from record labels like Geffen Records wanting to sign us. An A&R guy at Geffen named Tony Berg called me into his office around 1994 and said, “Josh, what you’re doing is revolutionary. I want to sign you.” Then he added, “The only problem is I played your demo for David Geffen, and David says he won’t sign you because he wouldn’t know how to market you.” That showed me I was on the right track. I didn’t need Geffen Records; I just needed a little record label with some money to put behind us.

We signed to Restless Records. Their team promoted us like crazy, focusing on the oddball, unique, left-of-center, niche market that the music appealed to. The album did really well. They sent us to Europe, and when we came back, Cocteau Twins asked us to open for them on their final tour in the States, which opened up our audience a lot.

The challenge then became, how do I follow this up? What happened to us is what happens to a lot of bands on a label: the label wants to dictate what the band should do. I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me what to do. I had numerous record labels trying to control things, and I had to shut the band down for three years. Our second record didn’t come out until 1999. My advice to any artist now is don’t sign to a label. Especially now. Just develop your audience, save up your money, make your own product, and don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

An A&R guy at Geffen told me, “David Geffen says he won’t sign you because he wouldn’t know how to market you.” That showed me I was on the right track.

What has it been like to revisit Blue Moods of Spain for the anniversary release?

For this tour and the 30th anniversary, I’m going back to the roots of those songs and playing them more or less the way they are on the album. It has been really educational for me. I appreciate those songs, and I’m really happy to be able to play them. When the album came out in 1995, I was 26 and inexperienced. For example, I had this weird thing where I didn’t want to play the song “World of Blue.” People would ask for it, and I’d refuse because it was too long. That’s so crazy, because now “World of Blue” is my favorite song on the album.

I’m 57 now, 30 years older. With experience and age, I see those songs differently, and I’m really enjoying practicing them. My bandmates asked if we were going to do the improvised “freak out” versions or play them more like the album. I told them we’re going to play them more like the album. Emotionally, it’s difficult because I’m a different person now. The issues that went into the lyrics for Blue Moods aren’t the issues that affect me so immediately today. I’m married and have a teenage son, which are different issues from when you’re in your early 20s trying to figure out life. It’s an interesting journey for me.

My advice to any artist now is don’t sign to a label. Develop your audience, save your money, and don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

What story or feeling connects all the songs on Blue Moods of Spain?

People ask me this a lot, and I will never get specific about it because there’s a mystery to the album that needs to be preserved. When I was in my early 20s, I had experiences just like everyone has. You’re trying to figure out: What am I doing? What is a relationship? What is love? Those are the emotions that went into Blue Moods. Breaking up with a girlfriend back then was devastating. I’d be moping around, so depressed.

As for a song like “Spiritual,” people always ask if I’m religious. The answer is no. I’m an atheist; I always have been. I believe in the universe, in stars and planets and gravity. But I do believe in mysteries that are difficult to explain, in fate and destiny as well as randomness and chance. I wrote “Spiritual” because I was feeling very desperate and sad, so I decided to treat it like a school assignment. The assignment was: “write a very desperate, sad song that’s like gospel blues.” That’s how it came about.

I’m an atheist. I wrote the song ‘Spiritual’ because I was feeling very desperate and sad, and I treated it like a school assignment: write a gospel blues song.

Are you working on new material?

Yes, I am. But I have to tell you, the pandemic destroyed me. It temporarily destroyed my willingness to write music; it was like the anti-inspiration. Seeing the news footage from China, my life went from being all about music to forgetting music and just protecting my family. Like everyone else, I had my own reaction, and mine was that I couldn’t make music in that environment.

I have a lot of musical ideas recorded on my phone, but actually going into the studio to record them is something I’m just starting to do now. Hopefully, there will be a new Spain album next year. Even if there is another pandemic, God forbid, there will still be another Spain album. I will be writing new songs and bringing them to the fans.

Photos courtesy of Spain

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others