If you’re a rock fan in any capacity, then The Warning is an absolute must-listen, especially now that they’ve released Keep Me Fed! Sisters Daniela, Paulina, and Alejandra are some of the most bad*ss women on the music scene and this album is the ultimate proof of their prowess. Keep Me Fed takes The Warning from rock royalty to rock legends with stunning melodies, spine-chilling guitar and bass riffs, powerful drums, and their sharpest lyrics to date. Daniela might sing “it’s the hope that kills you” on ‘Escapism,’ but we’ll forever be hoping that The Warning get ‘MORE’ and more recognition.
Ahead of the release of Keep Me Fed, we were lucky enough to attend a virtual press conference with none other than Daniela and Paulina of The Warning! But sharing is caring, so we’re recapping some of our favorite moments with you, honeybees. Press play on the album and keep reading for insight from the band members themselves!
The Early Days Of The Warning
Sisters Daniela (lead singer and guitarist), Paulina (drummer), and Alejandra (bassist) Villarreal came together as a band in 2013 and started posting covers on YouTube. Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, allowed them to pursue their passions from a young age – “Mexico has a passionate culture for, like, everything,” as Paulina puts it, but especially for music.
We were very fortunate to live in a city where there is just such a big, booming music scene!
Paulina Villarreal
During the press conference, Daniela and Paulina reflected on their first memories of playing music together. “I remember what I was wearing. I had a neon shirt with a star with sequins, and silver boots,” Paulina mused, even remembering that Daniela’s guitar was out of tune the whole time. “We were really young, and we dreamed about what we’re doing now. It’s really crazy to think that we’re literally living out our dreams. And I know that technically we’ve been a band for ten years, and we’ve been working for ten years, but I still feel very weird that everything I aspired to do with my life is happening. Right now. That is a really crazy thing, to realize that you’re living. That’s amazing.”
Their Keep Me Fed Album
Of course, one of the main topics of conversation during the group’s press conference was their new album, Keep Me Fed! We got to learn more about our fave singles, the creative process behind the record, and more, as well as hearing an exclusive preview of ‘Six Feet Deep.’ And a fun fact: since The Warning was so busy touring while making the album, Paulina recorded drums for all the songs in a day and a half!
“Keep Me Fed speaks about this need that we all have to keep being fed, whether it be entertainment through social media… just everything we consume and how we participate in this cycle as well,” Paulina explained about the album title. “How we feed certain things to our fans, to people who follow us, and how we feed on what other people do. It’s just a little never-ending cycle that we’re in.”
The band notably started working with co-writers for this album, which had a big impact on their creative process. Daniela told us, “It was very new, because, like, writing with a complete stranger and having to nail a song that day, it’s a very interesting experience. And English is not our first language. We are very used to working creatively between ourselves in Spanish. Going to work with someone who you don’t know, and then they don’t speak Spanish, which is what you’re comfortable working in, and just kind of figuring out, oh! It was very different!”
“But it forces you to be very clear with what you wanna do,” Paulina added. “You have to be confident in your ideas. And obviously open to what other people are bringing to the table, but at the end of the day, it is a Warning song. So what do we want The Warning to sound like on this album? We had to have that very clear since the beginning.”
Daniela shared, “We grew a lot in the past two years. We started touring, we got to experience a lot of different things and meet a lot of different people. And the last album that we had was, like, a pandemic album! We had all the time in the world to be creative, to nitpick. And this new album is the complete opposite, in between tours, a very chaotic schedule, writing with other people. We put everything that we hadn’t done in our whole careers in a single album and challenged ourselves musically.”
Paulina elaborated, “When we were doing Error, since it was the pandemic, it was kind of like this little echochamber. It was always our opinions, and this team that had listened to this music all the time. But for this album, we were working with new people every single day. We were meeting new people who had different experiences, different tastes, different cultures. And to have that, it just really opened up so many possibilities of what we could do with our sound. I feel like you hear it in every song, that different influence that each person had and how we turned that into ourselves. It still sounds like The Warning, but it is just something new. And I feel like that’s what music is about. It’s about evolving and exploring new things.”
At another point in the conference, Pau explained that this is part of why the group is inspired by K-Pop, which embraces evolution!
We love what it represents for us, this new era of The Warning. And this new sound that we discovered within ourselves to have each song feel like us and still offer different things in a very wide area.
Daniela Villarreal
With how excited we were to hear the album, we had to ask which songs the band is most excited for fans to hear! Daniela answered, “I’m psyched for people to hear ‘Apologize!’ We already released a tiny snippet and it feels like people are drawn to it as well.”
“I’m excited for them to hear ‘Sharks,’” Paulina said. “I feel like some people are like, ‘ooh, they went a little bit too pop on this one.’ They’re gonna hear ‘Sharks’ and it’s gonna be like, ‘oop, well, I’m wrong!’ So I’m excited to see that.”
‘Qué Más Quieres’
The Warning’s music video for ‘Qué Más Quieres’ has remained one of our favorites of 2024, giving us a thrilling fusion between a murder mystery and a glittering wedding party. But it’s no surprise that the video is a creative masterpiece when Paulina was a co-director. When asked about the music video, Dany instantly jumped to give Pau credit and you could tell how proud she was of her sister!
“It’s very exciting to say that I co-directed this video!” Paulina exclaimed. “It was like my little brainchild. It was my first time doing something like this, and I’m very happy that you liked it because I love it. You can tell that it was my idea because everything is so pink and fun, and just, like, over the top. And that is just so me! But it was very fun making this music video, from planning it from the beginning and being in all the directive art meetings, and production meetings, and doing the scouting. Being part of all of that was amazing. But also, recording the video and directing my sisters on how to act and stuff like that, it was very fun! It was something that we hadn’t done before, like that acting aspect and having such a strong story.”
“You’re very good at saying ‘ACTION’ and just speaking really loudly,” Daniela laughed.
‘Automatic Sun’
Another pre-release single from Keep Me Fed that we absolutely love is the alluring ‘Automatic Sun.’ And we’re so happy that The Warning love it as much as we do! The song is about a magnetic pull you might feel from someone, and Paulina gave us some insight into the creative process behind the track.
“‘Automatic Sun’ was the last song that we wrote for the record, and it was a really crazy process,” Paulina told us. “We were really tired and we had no idea what we wanted to write about or sing about. But it grew into this thing where we had the phrase ‘Automatic Sun’ and we wrote the whole song around that. ‘Automatic Sun’ is about missing somebody and really craving the energy that they emit, and just being drawn to that gravitational pull this person has on you. It’s a really fun song, it’s personally my favorite song on the album.”
Amazing choice!
‘Burnout’
We attended the press conference shortly after The Warning released ‘Burnout,’ so we asked about the song specifically! We pointed out one of our favorite lyrics, “you lost all your ambitions in a flood of bad decisions,” and wondered if there’s a certain lyric the girls especially love.
“Ooh, that is one of my favorites, the pre-choruses!” Paulina exclaimed. “[I’m also proud of] ‘you plan your demolition with a list of self-afflictions.’ That’s good wording, it’s just so nice. When those type of things just fit, and they happen, it’s very satisfying.”
“It hits great!” Daniela insisted.
‘MORE’
We also got some insight into the album track ‘MORE,’ which the girls said was the most memorable song on the album to make. Daniela shared, “When we were writing ‘MORE,’ we were stuck with the lyrics. We really wanted to make something impactful, but we were, like, completely dry on ideas. And we all went to the parking lot of the studio and sang Shakira songs! We kind of just sang in the parking lot and then we went back, and then boom! The song came out.”
“Thank you, Shakira!” Paulina added.
Their Connection As A Group
One of the biggest things that stands out about The Warning is that they’re a trio of sisters who have played together from such a young age! So naturally, their sisterly dynamic and the importance of family were big topics during certain parts of the conference.
“It’s very important,” Daniela explained. “I think that that is mainly what encapsules how we are as a band. The family aspect is so important, not only with us that we are family as sisters, but within our whole team, we really wanna, like…”
As Daniela trailed off, Paulina jumped right in to prove just how connected they are! “I know what you’re trying to say in Spanish,” she said as Dany laughed. “[We want to] really have that environment be like a family environment all the time. Because we work together as sisters, but our parents also work with us and they travel with us. So everyone that gets added to our team really becomes like a big family. It really dictates everything that we do. How we work creatively, we work creatively as sisters. I feel like if we were in a band and we were not sisters, we would sugarcoat things a lot more.”
We could only imagine spending that much time with our siblings and working together, so props to the girls for figuring out the perfect balance! Their dedication to not only their shared dream, but each other really shines through as they talk about their dynamic as a band.
“Relationships at the end of the day take work and understanding, so I feel like we’ve really put in the work for us to be able to grow from this instead of falling apart,” Paulina shared. “Especially now that there’s just so many things happening all the time, it’d be very easy to kind of isolate yourself. But we actively try and, like, huddle up, and just make sure that these experiences are being lived together, because no one will understand the three of us better than the three of us will.”
Daniela added, “And even if that entails, you know, also taking care of each other when we need space as well. So it’s like, ‘hey, we just came back from this tour, let’s not see each other for, like, three days.’ So we can keep that building of our relationships, you know, sane!”
I feel that more than anything, the band has really helped us be really aware of each other and take care of each other, because nobody has got our backs more than the three of us do for each other.
Paulina Villarreal
Tour Life
The Warning have a pretty busy year ahead of them, including Rocklahoma in August, a Canadian tour with Halestorm and Evanescence in October, and their own Keep Me Fed Tour this fall. And they put on an amazing show, so be sure to grab tickets if they’re coming to a city near you! With their tour schedule in mind, we got to learn more about what it’s like to be in a touring band.
Since their shows go so late at night, they usually sleep in until around 11am-12pm, missing breakfast and going straight for lunch. After lunch, there’s soundcheck and meet and greets. Then, Paulina told us, “You take a quick nap if you can, maybe you have interviews in that in-between, but you try to take a nap.”
After your nap (fingers crossed!), Daniela said, “You wake up, you do your makeup, show time, and then after-show meetings.” And Paulina finished it off, “You shower, you eat dinner, and then you go to sleep, and you do that for two months!”
Right before a show, the girls stretch a lot to prepare for how much they move around, and Daniela specifically mentioned stretching her neck to get ready for “all the head-banging.”
Paulina explained, “We have one ritual. We all just hold hands, my mom says a quick little prayer, and we put our intentions… We say what number of the show that we’re in, and we put it into the universe and feel grateful, and then we just go into the show.”
When asked what they’re most excited about for their North American tour this fall, Paulina jumped right in: “The gas stations!”
She elaborated, “We’ve been touring Europe a lot, and no offense to Europe, but those gas stations are not it. They don’t have good snacks, I don’t like it. When we’re in the US touring and we have a stop, I always get out of the bus, but in Europe, I never do it. It’s a waste of time. [In the US] they sell, like, bandanas, and hats, and ugly t-shirts, and stuff like that.”
“You’re so passionate about it!” Daniela laughed. “Apart from the gas stations, sharing our new music! The new album is coming out and we’re playing this new music for the first time in the US, so we’re psyched about that for sure.”
“Your answer was better, yes,” Paulina said.
But of course, we had to learn more about their fave gas station snacks before moving on! Paulina enthusiastically answered Zebra Cakes, especially the pink, heart-shaped versions they sell around Valentine’s Day. Immaculate taste – Pau, we’re available any time you wanna hang out with us and eat a ton of them!
Inspiring The Next Generation Of Female Rockers
Since their debut, The Warning have become some of the most celebrated women in rock, and they’re blazing a trail for the next generation! When that came up during the press conference, Paulina gushed, “It’s a nice concept, it’s really cute! When we have kids in our meet and greets or, like, in the shows come up to us and say, like, ‘hey! I started playing the drums because of you!’ or stuff like that, it’s like, ‘oh, my God!’ People are perceiving us, first of all, and they see what we’re doing and that motivates them to do what they wanna do… it’s very lovely to be a part of that cycle.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Daniela added, and we couldn’t agree more. Especially in an area of the music industry typically associated with men, it’s refreshing and empowering to see the three young women of The Warning totally crushing it.
“Slowly, things have gotten better,” Paulina noted about the growing diversity on the rock scene. “The women’s bathrooms used to be our private bathrooms every time we went to a festival! Now, it’s really… like, ‘aww, it’s not a private bathroom anymore,’ but it’s really nice to see there’s a line now. And we have to wait, which means that doors are being opened and more opportunities are being given. To be a part of that change, to open those doors as well, it’s just an honor that we get to do that with our music.”
Today’s rising rockers are so lucky to have The Warning to look up to, from their undeniable talent to how kind and caring the members are. So the final question of the press conference brought that full-circle: what advice would they offer to a young girl who wants to pursue her musical dreams?
“Confidence in yourself is key,” Paulina told us. “And I wouldn’t even put it in a little ‘music industry’ box. Like, with everything, sometimes we are conditioned to be scared to speak out on things that we know about. Sometimes I’m in soundchecks and I’m afraid to tell the engineer from the festival that I can’t hear myself in my in-ears. It’s like, why would I not do that? It’s literally part of my job and it’s part of their jobs. I can do that, nothing’s gonna happen. So it’s really just about, like, knowing where you are and being confident in what you know. Obviously, with the openness to learn and to grow, but also having the confidence and security to do things.”
She added, “Surround yourself with people who will take care of you. I feel like people can be really… ‘mean’ is a dumb way to put it, but people will try to take advantage of so many things, especially in the music industry. So we surrounded ourselves with people who are like family, and who take care of us as if we were their own children. They really do look out for us, and it’s important to have people around you who will push you as parents would push you, but also who would protect you as parents would protect you.”
“Preach!” Dany jumped in, clapping.
Thank you so much to The Warning and 1824 for having us at their insightful press conference! We had the best time speaking to Daniela and Paulina and we’re loving Keep Me Fed!
Now it’s our turn to speak to you, honeybees! What’s your favorite track on Keep Me Fed? Did you learn anything new from our recap of The Warning’s press conference? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!
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