Q&A: Slow Joy's Esteban Flores on new album, feeling like a 'real artist' and more

For Esteban Flores, who performs as Slow Joy, his first time in Pittsburgh last year made quite an impression.

“I loved it. This is kind of ridiculous, but I’m a big ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ fan. When I saw the two yellow bridges, I got really excited,” he said with a laugh.

The self-described “Southwest emo” musician said he’s looking forward to escaping the Texas heat — and making a return trip to the area — when he hits the road as support for Texas Is the Reason and Ted Leo. The tour hits Preserving in New Kensington on Sept. 16. (Slow Joy had played alongside Real Friends, Can’t Swim and Carly Cosgrove in November, also at Preserving.)

Although Slow Joy’s debut album — “A Joy So Slow At Times I Don’t Think It’s Coming” — dropped in May, he hasn’t had a chance to test out a lot of these songs live, until now.

“People have been really, really kind about it,” he said. “It was weird. I was on tour before the album and then when the album came out, I’ve kind of just been home, so outside of people on the internet, I haven’t really gotten to feel the vibes on the album and stuff. So this tour is really exciting for me because it’s my first time actually going on the road since the album came out.”

In a call from Dallas, Flores spoke with TribLive about the new album, music as an outlet and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.

You’d done some singles and some EPs. How did you know this was the time for the album?

I knew I wanted to release more music, and I felt like people kept wanting an album out of me. I’d never done one, and it just felt like the time to try that. I don’t know if I could release singles and EPs my whole life.

That’s the way that the music business is sort of going right now.

Yeah, you’d be surprised. It’s honestly just like, people want lots of stuff. So if you could do a couple albums a year, that’s honestly I think that’s what they would like too. It’s just the math of which you release the music.

I’m not sure a couple albums a year is realistic for anybody.

(laughs) So true.

Do you feel like you achieved what you wanted to with this album?

That’s a good question. I think for the album itself, yes, but I instantly wanted to just get back in there and try it again. It was such a behemoth – albums are huge, like they are a lot of effort. I’ve never done one before, so I was really scared. There were some things that when I left, I was like, oh, I could do that better. It excites me for the future of making these things. I feel like I unlocked a whole new art form.

So is it the songs you thought, oh, I wish I would have done this differently…

I would say just random stuff. I really love the songs that made it to the album, and I really think that the album is a fantastic debut. But I chased writing a bunch of songs in preparation for it, and maybe I could have picked the songs beforehand so that I could flesh them out, not in the studio, where the stress is high and all of that stuff, or I could just get them all the way there at home, and then go even further in the studio, which I used to do in the past, but this time I was just like, I got to write as many songs as possible. (laughs) That kind of shot me in the foot slightly for what I would like to do. But like I said, it’s more so just having the mental space to be able to make decisions that you’re not stressed out about.

I guess this will help shape future albums, this learning experience.

Absolutely. I’m already writing for another one. I’m so excited.

Related

• Q&A: Kiss the Tiger singer Meghan Kreidler on 'Infinite Love' and more
• Q&A: Molly Tuttle on moving beyond bluegrass, cold starts and her new era
• 2025 Pittsburgh area concert calendar

How much did processing your emotions factor into the writing of this one?

That’s the majority of what my music is, just going down and thinking through what actually makes me feel things. It played a really large role in that writing. I think it will just continue to play a large role for me in life.

Do you find music to be a valuable outlet for those feelings? Is there anything close to that for you besides music?

I think music is probably the only thing I can do personally. I’ve drawn in the past, and that was a pretty decent outlet. Music is really great about taking older emotions and kind of working through those for maybe some of the stuff that’s stuck in there that you didn’t even know was in there. There’s more physical activities that I enjoy that I think are good for keeping the baseline. I got into boxing and MMA in the last few years. That’s always been great for my day-to-day regulation, but I think art is just so good about going into the psyche and finding those things.

From the album, what’s been your favorite song to play from it live so far?

Oh, it’s “Wound.” It was “Wound” when I had the album written. I was so excited to have that song out. We did “Do I Wear You Out” recently and that was really fun too, but I think “Wound” is still just my favorite song.

Do you mind sharing the story behind “Te Amo”? To me, that was one of the standout tracks.

Oh, that song was really fun live, too. We just started playing that one. I wanted to incorporate some more Spanish just into my music, but I wanted to do it in a way that (was respectful), because it’s not a language that I speak very well. So I just wanted to make sure I found a way that was honoring my family and honoring just what I believe I wanted to do. … I just wanted to write a love song, and I thought that would be fun. I like the duality of aggressive and love, you know what I mean? It’s like a somber subject matter but a heavy sound. And I just thought that would be a fun takeaway.

A good contrast, the heavy and the love, right?

That’s my stuff. Yeah, I like it when it’s like, if it’s gonna sound heavy, make the lyrics pretty somber. If it’s gonna sound somber, make the lyrics pretty heavy. I think that’s my favorite thing.

If you look at 2025 as a whole, how would you describe what’s happened in your musical career this year?

Obviously, the album came out. I did my first headlining tour, which is really cool. And then now I’m going into some really cool support tours that are always super fun. I actually really enjoy support tours because you don’t have to stress out about anything. (laughs) You just kind of show up when they want you to show up and you play your songs and that’s super fun. So I think this year was just the first year I felt like a real artist. Usually I was just some guy making songs and now I feel like I’m an actual mainstay artist.