Name: Luis Felber aka Attawalpa
Nationality: Peruvian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer  
Current Release: Attawalpa's new Always the Girls (Unplugged) EP is out now.
Recommendation for London, UK: Dash the Henge music store.
Topic I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: Playing Footbal. It’s like therapy. Oh and also therapy.  

If you enjoyed this Attawalpa interview and would like to find out more about the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and Soundcloud.

For a deeper dive, read our feature about Attawalpa recommending albums he loves for their sound.



There can be many different kinds of emotions in art – soft, harsh, healing, aggressive, uplifting and many more. Which do you tend to feel drawn to most?

It really depends on my mood. I have been listening to a lot of Chicha music from Peru recently. Bands like Los Destellos, Traffic Sounds, Zulu, Los Shapis.

Vibes me up.



I guess I use music a lot to energise me or navigate my mood into a creative place. Like emotional fuel. In the right context any music can be healing depending on the mood and/or person.

Like I said I love Korn, Slipknot, Deftones in moments of dissociation or driving to the studio.  These are some of my go to heavy moments. I think it has a lot to do with my youth and what I was into then.

Also recently a lot of Eliot Smith's XO has been inspiring me. It's so interesting how music is felt in and around different modes of being.



I have had a hard time explaining that listening to death metal calms me down. When you listen to a song or composition, does it tend to fill you with the same emotions – or are there “paradoxical” effects?

As I said above, yes I concur as I would listen to this sort of music as a kid so I have nostalgic connections to it.

HOWEVER I have never got into Megadeath, Metallica even Pantera. I need a strong groove in all my music. I think, in order of importance for me,  it goes groove, melody and tone.

With our songs we really tend to work on the groove the most. Bass lines make you dance, lyrics help you think and melodies help us feel.

In as far as it plays a role for the music you like listening to or making, what role do words and the voice of a vocalist play for the transmission of emotions?

For me the melody of the words comes first. That's the emotion. Then, what I’m trying to say seeps out with the melody and the words are a puzzle for putting that emotion into play within the song.

I’m getting into more upbeat songs these days. My songs tend to come out slow in demo mode but people (mainly Mr Allchin, my co writer / producer / bassist in Attawalpa ) help me find the right tempo.

When it comes to experiencing emotions as as a creator, how would you describe the physical sensation of experiencing them? [Where do you feel them, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or a build-up of tension etc …]

I have moments of realisation of what I want to say where I feel whole and everything in the world/  universe / within me feels right and as it should be. Some times I feel totally lost in the wilderness.

Writing music can be hard and feel painful at times. I usually do it with one other person and I tend to want to give up when I’m getting close to ‘The Juice.’ So for me it's good to have another person catalysing me not to give up.

Obstacles will appear but once they are gone I feel whole, full and almost god-like. A creator, a communicator, an electrician of emotional currents which live within me and beyond. Connection is always the key and in my opinion collaboration is another key to great art. Finishing a song, being able to perform it, and having people enjoy it only accentuates this feeling. I feel it in my heart.

Visuals also really help. We went to town with the 5 single videos for ‘Experience’.

Always the girls - directed by Emma Chitty (who also creative directed the whole album campaign - see artwork / photos by Greta Ilieva)
Hilarious in love - directed by Lou H3artsshaker
Anyway - directed by Emma Chitty
True love trajectory - directed by Lena Dunham
You are you - directed by Esme

Videos help the song to live in a new space. I love collaborating on these.

When it comes to composing / songwriting, are you finding that spontaneity and just a few takes tend to capture emotions best? Or does honing a piece bring you closer to that goal?

Great question! It really depends on the song. Generally speaking the more I do it, the trick and the way forward tends to be spontaneity but in the past I would hone in, magnify into details more. Maybe it's a confidence thing.

Spending 100 hours on a guitar sound or high hat pattern isn’t efficient or flow worthy and I just want to get to the best song really so these honing techniques tend to just end up being more procrastinating really.

But yeah, it always comes back to the song.

How much of the emotions of your own music, would you say, are already part of the composition, how much is the result of the recording process?

Another great question! I would have to say, like in my last answer, the older I get, the more I do this, the emotions become part of the compositions rather than the recording process. The more I do this the more I realise it's all in the songwriting. Like you can’t make a good film with a bad script!

The same applies, however, in music: the recording process can support the composition and vice versa. It's a fragile dance and the more I do it the more I see what works and what doesn’t.

NB, I tend to not release what doesn’t!

For your current EP, what kind of emotions were you looking to get across?

With each song I want to be able to connect to myself on a newer level. Whether that's an emotion I have or what I am trying to say about something that made me feel strongly. Or just the state of the world. The emotions range from joy to depression to anger to humour to love to kindness to pining to grief.  

The way I see it is that if I can connect to myself, I have a better chance of connecting to you, the listener. Each song should allow me to understand myself more. When a band is involved, this also applies to everyone who has a say in the process. We are a family and it's important to make sure everyone feels seen and ok to be vulnerable .

On our album Experience, each song is its own world. They all have their own emotions, some more worldly than individuals. They are like children and should be treated as their own entities.



This is why I find singles so hard. They are all singles!

In reality they live on their own with the band production or / and also work as a solo work on a guitar or accompanied by a piano.

How do you capture the emotions you want to get across in the studio?

Studios are for capturing lightning. I have to demo the song at least 3 times before I can make use of the studio well.

My first demo is generally me on my own. Then I take that to my co-writer / producer - on this album it was Matt Allchin who also plays bass on the record. We iron the melody, groove and words out together. Make what I'm saying clearer. Then the third demo will generally be with the band.

Once we have that, we all can see the path of the song clearer and it's ready to take into the studio to record. For my first two EPs and first album this wasn’t my process. We have evolved into this process through limitations and just what works.

So when it's time to go to the studio you have these ideas set in. Like a map to get the emotions of what you wanna say out there and translate it to engineers, musicians, yourself etc. A clear emotive map.

The studio is a magical place. It has to feel right to be right. I burn a lot of paulo santo and turn my phone off. Make sure everyone is fed and feeling good and we go. Sometimes unprecedented, off the cuff things happen in the studio too. It’s just about being an antenna to the lightning and having a good team to help you catch them.

What role do factors like volume, effects like distortion, amplification, and production in general for in terms of creating the emotions, energies or impressions you want?

A huge role. Distortion, feedback, delays and reverbs create a space. It’s an expression.

They channel feelings and they can also squash them, so I just make sure I'm clear in what I'm saying and the need for effects seem obvious.

In terms of emotions, what changes when you're performing live on stage, with an audience present, compared to the recording stage?

I think I do everything I do to be able to play live. That is the pay off. That is where we get to eat our cake.

The space, the room, the audience dictates how we feel and we conduct how they can feel but you have to win them over like any interaction. It's good to not get too into one's head or overthink.

Performance is a beautiful human thing. It changes with the seasons and with the situations. Everything is potent on that stage. The songs, like spells lead us and we give ourselves to the great unknown and let them guide us to a sort of higher meditative zone.

How does the presence of the audience and your interaction with it change the emotional impact of the music and how would you describe the creative interaction with listeners during a gig?

In the UK the more up North you go, the better the interaction with the audience / band seems to be. London and I guess most big cities are spoiled for choice so it makes sense that the audience tend to be more crossed arms and waiting to be impressed. It's not good to generalise but I feel this from past experiences.

It’s kind of like forming a circle with the electricity they give and we give back. The songs channel this like spells and we navigate our energies on stage to project what we do onto the crowd

The emotions that music is able to generate can be extremely powerful. How, do you think, can artists make use of this power to bring about change in the world?

I think live music is the ultimate experience. It’s powerful.

If people keep doing this in a good way there is always hope.