Interview – Mariachi El Bronx
on December 1st, 2011Mariachi El Bronx are returning to Australia as part of the Big Day Out next year, while hear, they’ll also head up a couple of their own sideshows. All in support of their recently released second album ‘II‘. Adam Collins caught up with Jorma from the band for a chat about all things Mariachi El Bronx. Tickets for both the Big Day Out and the bands sideshows are on sale now, and ‘II‘ is in stores via Shock if you are yet to pick it up. See below for the interview.
Hey Jorma, it’s Adam from Bombshellzine here. How’s things?
Hey man! Not bad, enjoying a day off before shit gets crazy again! How are you?
Doing great man, I like the fact that the conference call centre even had some Mariachi tunes as their hold music, very appropriate for today! You’re coming out here for Big Day Out early next year. What’s the best thing about touring as part of a festival, and is there anyone on the lineup you’re keen to see or hang out with?
I think we’re all just huge music fans, first and foremost in this band. Me and Matt just went to Austin for the Fun Fun Fun Fest just to hang out and see bands. So we love going to festivals and being a part of one is awesome too. As far as bands we’re looking forward to, I mean me and Matt just went and saw Soundgarden a couple of months ago and they were fucking awesome. That’s one band, like I grew up in Seattle so I never got a chance to see when I was young, so it was just super cool and nostalgic for me.
Between Bronx and Mariachi tours, you guys have been out here a whole lot over the past few years. What do you look forward to most when you’ve got another Australian tour?
Man, we get treated so well down there. The shows are so much fun and the people are so into it. Some of our best shows have been down there, so it’s always a treat coming back there – it feels like vacation. Like you come down there, the people are awesome, the place is gorgeous, the shows fucking go off – it’s just a blast, so I mean I wish we could come back more often actually.
I think we all wish you could as well! The idea of Mariachi came from doing an unplugged version of Dirty Leaves, didn’t it? It’s a brilliant concept, what made you guys decide to make a real go of Mariachi as a legitimate side project?
You know, it was just kinda that. We did that ‘Dirty Leaves’ thing and we just kinda randomly picked up the instruments and actually learning how to play them and all the rhythms and history behind them. We just had so much fun doing it, it just snowballed. When we were writing the first record it happened super quick, whereas in The Bronx when we’re writing the punk stuff it’s a lot more labour-intensive whereas the Mariachi stuff just seemed to happen and just come out of us which was fucking awesome. Oh shit, I think this phone is about to die on me!
(at this point Jorma’s phone dies and the conference call operator begins freaking out because he didn’t get an alternate number to get him on, 20 minutes later I receive a return call)
Good to have you back on the line dude!
Sorry about that man, I had to find a charger then drive down the street so I could get reception on my goddamn cellphone! (laughs)
No dramas dude, appreciate you calling back! Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the popularity of Mariachi skyrocket to the point that you guys are opening shows for massive stadium bands. Why do you think it’s something that’s become as popular as it has?
I think it’s because it’s something new that people kinda latch onto. In my opinion, it’s done well – it’s not like we’re making a mockery out of it – we’re really serious about it and really passionate about it. You know, it’s something new and refreshing – I can’t think of another band that’s doing Mariachi with English lyrics, you know? And I think people like the look of it because it looks cool with us all dressed up and it’s different, it’s fun. Like The Bronx, the feeling is a little lower as to the amount of people that it’s going to appeal to, because there’s only so many people into aggressive music. Whereas with Mariachi, I feel it can speak to a much broader audience.
You’re spot on with that one, I actually showed my mother the first Mariachi record and she was loving it, then I put on some Bronx and she didn’t even believe it was the same band! (laughs)
I know, right? We have those people coming to our shows now and when Mariachi opens for The Bronx, they’ll come out and see Mariachi and when they see The Bronx, they’re like ‘What the fuck is this?’ (laughs)
I know you guys have been supporting on some interesting bills and I guess you’ve probably had your share of strange crowds? What’s the weirdest crowd you’ve played to?
There’s some weird ones. The weird thing is, it goes down really well in places that have no Mexican culture, which was totally fucking bizarre to us. There’s been a couple of weird ones in Germany (laughs). We just got off tour with the Foo Fighters, like all the shows went super well and the crowds were way better than we thought they’d be, but there was one show where we had a heckler – we finished the first song and he yells out ‘Go the fuck back to Mexico!’ (laughs) – it was pretty awesome.
As a drummer myself, I’m interested in how you go adapting between the two markedly different drumming styles and well as drum kit set ups between The Bronx and Mariachi. Is it something that took a lot of time to do and did you have experience playing all those Latin grooves before Mariachi?
I started out playing Latin hand percussion when I was a kid and then I moved onto the drumset from there. Then when we started this, Mariachi music doesn’t usually have any drums, so it was kinda up to me to create what I thought would sound good with the music. So I had this background, all these rhythms that I knew from playing hand percussion and I adapted them to the drum kit. For the first record I used a full-size drum kit, so I’d take like a cowbell pattern and put it on my right hand, then I’d take the pattern that the guitarron is doing and I’d put that on my foot, then I’d kinda make polyrhythms with my left hand or try and keep time without making it like a backbeat so it didn’t feel like a rock song. This meant I came up with some pretty fucking wild grooves, and it turned out they worked. Then, aesthetically I thought it would look cool if we were all kinda standing up when we were playing. Using the full rock kit with all acoustic instruments was overkill, so I had the idea of doing it on the cocktail kit and it took awhile to master – I mean, not even master – it took awhile to fucking even work out how to play that thing at all! I definitely don’t have it mastered, but it’s fun as shit to play and I think it works out really well.
Definitely dude, I listen to some of the grooves that you came up with and it fits the music so well – you’ve definitely done really well with adapting those rhythms to suit.
It’s really fun because if you really get into the music and the rhythms in the music, it’s pretty deep – there’s some wild shit going on. So for me, it was really cool to be able to find something like a guitar pattern that wasn’t so apparent in the music and kind of work out a part around that or play around with polyrhythms, which is what they naturally do in traditional Mariachi music. Weird changes that don’t really make sense to us because we’re so used to listening to rock and roll or jazz or blues, and the format for Mariachi music is completely different.
I’m guessing when you guys started Mariachi you weren’t expecting it to become such a big thing. How do you go handling the demanding touring / writing schedules with both bands?
It’s interesting, it’s definitely twice as much work but twice as much payoff too – not like financially speaking, but it’s so much fun – we’re having a fucking blast with it. It’s opened up so many doors for us that maybe The Bronx wouldn’t have gotten to do. We played at a yoga festival this summer, we played a rock-climbing festival – it was the most bizarre thing. Never in a million years would we have thought we’d play a fucking yoga festival.
How is progression on the Bronx IV going? When can we expect to hear something?
It’s going really good. Joby’s kinda in a groove right now and he’s pieced together about ten songs. We have yet to start sitting down as a band and working on them, but I think we’re gonna start right before we come over for Big Day Out and hopefully get a good chunk of it done, if not the whole thing, we’ll see.
Awesome news! I saw the video you tweeted a few weeks back of ‘The Stripper Dart’ (laughs).
How amazing is that?! (laughs)
It really is! Aside from coming up with things like that, how else do you keep yourself amused in your downtime while you’re on the road?
(Laughs) It really depends! We always wanted to write music and stuff backstage, and this would’ve been the perfect tour, but it was just too – like on this Foo Fighters tour, we’re friends with everyone and it’s just such a party environment. It’s hard to say like ‘Okay, we’ve gotta fucking get down and write some music.’ On this last tour we were just partying and having a fucking blast with our friends. There has been tours though where we’ll just sit on the bus and write – I mean, that’s how we wrote the first Mariachi record. Some of it was written when we were down touring in New Zealand and Australia, some of it was written when we were just sitting on the bus in Europe, but it’s a little harder with the punk stuff because you don’t have an amplifier or a drum set to play on.
You guys played on Conan recently, how do you find the environment and format of playing on a live tv program after also playing on Leno a couple of months ago?
It was cool, man. With Leno, you just kinda show up in the morning and really laid back – a lot of chit chatting and bullshit. Then you do a quick soundcheck and rehearsal, then you do the actual show. It’s really laid back, really low key. I don’t know about the other guys though, but when the lady said ‘One minute,’ I just fucking froze. I got so nervous! Then the curtains open and you play a song and it’s all over so quick, just like that.
3 bands you’re listening to right now?
There’s a band called WU LYF from England, which I think stands for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation. They’re young kids, I’m pretty sure they’re just fresh out of high school. I caught them at The Echo, just by my house a couple of months ago and they were great. That band The Horrors, their latest record I fucking love. Oh shit, do you remember that band HUM from the 90s?
They were the guys that did that Stars song, weren’t they?
Yeah dude! Fuck, I just saw them over the weekend and they blew my fucking mind! They were awesome. This music festival that we went to in Austin a few weeks ago was great, there was the Murder City Devils and Hot Snakes, it was just incredible.
I’d love to see Hot Snakes, it’d be amazing!
Yeah dude, they were incredible!
Thanks for taking the time to talk with me today dude, all the best and see you guys in January!
Absolutely, great chatting with you today man! Sorry about the phone problems, take care bro!
————————————————–
CATCH MARIACHI EL BRONX PLAYING BIG DAY OUT 2012
Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne legs
————————————————–
ALSO PLAYING SIDESHOWS
Custom-Made Touring presents
MARIACHI EL BRONX
and special guests THE VASCO ERA
Tickets on sale Now
SYDNEY: METRO THEATRE – WEDNESDAY 25 JANUARY 2012
Tickets available from: www.bigdayout.com & www.metrotheatre.com.au
MELBOURNE: BILLBOARD THE VENUE – MONDAY 30 JANUARY 2012
Tickets available from: www.bigdayout.com & www.billboardthevenue.com
————————————————–
MARIACHI EL BRONX – II
Available now on CD and LP via Shock.
Order your copy online [Here] with free postage.
————————————————–
