José González Trivia

• Was born in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1978, two years after his psychology academic father, mother and older sister, then an infant, fled Argentina after a military junta seized power in March 1976 at the beginning of the “dirty war”.
• Grew up listening to Latin folk and pop music, and has named Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez as a favourite artist, though not Rodriguez’ “squeaky voice”.
• Played in Back Against the Wall, a Gothenburg hardcore punk band influenced by Black Flag, The Misfits and the Dead Kennedys. Later played bass guitar in another hardcore band, Renascence, between 1993–1998. 
• Between 1997 and 1998 José played guitar with rock band Only if You Call Me Jonathan.
• Describes the first concert he went to like this: “The Wailers. I got their autographs and everything. I was about 12 or so. At the time my favourite music was Bob Marley and Michael Jackson.
• Is also a member of Swedish band Junip, along with Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn.
• Studying for a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Gothenburg.
• He has covered songs acoustically such as “Heartbeats” by his fellow Swedes The Knife, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, “Born in the U.S.A.” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad” by Bruce Springsteen, “Hand on Your Heart” by Kylie Minogue, “Smalltown Boy” by Bronski Beat, “Teardrop” by Massive Attack and “Last Snowstorm of the Year” by Low.
• His lyrics has been influenced by his reading of books like The God Delusion by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Practical Ethics by ethicist Peter Singer. González is an atheist.
• His cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats” has been used many times. It featured in a Sony BRAVIA commercial featuring 250,000 coloured bouncing balls in San Francisco.