00:00Thank you for listening.
00:45Yeah, we played a song called 72 Monte Carlo from our record.
00:51We released our debut record in August, self-titled.
00:56It's the Los Angeles League of Musicians.
00:58We put it out through Verve Records.
01:00Yeah, and that's a track from there.
01:05You got anything to say about that?
01:06Yeah, we co-wrote it with our producer on that song, a gentleman named Elliot Bergman.
01:12And he helped us really evolve the sound on the record to what it came to.
01:17He really brought his vision.
01:20And we worked really hard together to get to the point where we got to on the record.
01:24I'm very happy with that.
01:27I mean, it's such an interesting sound and there's a lot to sort of unpack there, I think.
01:32You know, just especially for European audiences as well.
01:36So tell me a little bit about how you got together and what kind of musical traditions feed into your
01:42sound.
01:42Yeah, so we got together just from, you know, needing to gig all around town and I got a gig
01:51for us and I needed a band really.
01:54They'd be like, hey, put a night together.
01:56And I was like, oh shit, who should I call?
01:57And so I hit up Drake and then Zach and I have been working together since we were teenagers.
02:02So, you know, we were looking for a way to keep it small, a trio at best.
02:09And so we needed a melodist.
02:11And the best guy I knew was Zach.
02:25Me and Jake kind of, we've been playing a lot of, like, since we were about 16 or 17,
02:30playing a lot of, like, rockabilly and more kind of stuff that was leaning towards, like, country music and bluegrass
02:37and that kind of thing.
02:38Playing a lot of different groups that did that kind of stuff together.
02:41But, yeah, when we started playing with Nick, his background's more in, like, Afro-Cuban percussion stuff.
02:47And we just kind of started out by, like, finding repertoire that worked well together.
02:53A lot of the first music we played was just, like, kind of classic, like, Latin music from the 30s,
02:58mostly, like, Mexican boleros and stuff like that.
03:02A lot of Cuban stuff as well.
03:03Yeah, a lot of Cuban music too.
03:05There was a group called the Lecuona Cuban Boys that we really all really liked
03:10and we were learning a bunch of their tunes.
03:12Actually, the second song we played, Ghost of Gardena, was kind of built around the inspiration.
03:19We were inspired, I think, a lot by Lecuona Cuban Boys.
03:21Yeah, it definitely has that kind of sound.
03:24But, yeah, we started, we kind of, we went from playing more background music kind of gigs
03:29to playing bars and playing in front of people and playing for dancers a lot.
03:33And that's when we started bringing in more cumbia and working out our arrangements of covers
03:38and writing stuff and, yeah, kind of took off from there.
03:59How do you like to write together?
04:00Because, I mean, there's so many different ways one can approach this kind of music in terms of...
04:04Yeah, I mean, I think the best, a lot of the best stuff that we play, the original songs,
04:13it's stuff that kind of just came up from playing in front of dancers
04:15and we try to keep stuff really kind of like spur of the moment, you know,
04:21like really improvisational when we play.
04:25And sometimes, like, I'll be playing a solo or something
04:28and it'll turn into some little melody that I'll remember and I'll play next time, you know.
04:34Or sometimes live, he'll find a riff that he likes
04:37and because it's just the three of us, he can say, hey, do those chords again.
04:40Or give me, you know, we've been playing together for so long
04:42that on a good night I can follow where he wants the melody to go.
04:45I mean, what's, this is a question for Nick, actually.
04:49Tell me about the sort of foundational rhythms that kind of populate your music, if you like.
04:54Because, you know, as you said, you've lent on some Cuban traditions,
04:58some African traditions and so on.
05:00What kind of, what are the main kind of grooves that you're exploring?
05:05Yeah, I mean, you know, the first one I learned is a rhythm called tumbao,
05:12but you can add a lot of it, especially for what we're doing.
05:15That's like the basic beat.
05:17But then I would say that there's three beats I kind of take from the most
05:21and that's tumbao, Mozambique, and hua huangco.
05:26And they're all, like, kind of three foundational rhythms
05:28of a lot of different Afro-Cuban music.
05:31And then, of course, the clave, which just, like, pulls everything together.
05:34So I'm always, within our music, there's definitely a clave in my head
05:39going throughout the whole song.
05:42And that depends.
05:43Sometimes it's a rumba clave, sometimes it's a 3-2 clave.
05:46It just kind of depends on the song.
05:47And then with a lot of kumbia, though, it's kind of interesting
05:49because it's like there's sometimes like these reverse moments but yeah I would
05:57say which is there when it goes from a 3-2 to a 2-3 so yeah it's all
06:01different types of claves and those three foundational
06:18I mean you brought a really lovely guitar with you today let's hear a little bit about that and
06:22then maybe about some of your yeah it's a it's a national Valpro 82 I think made in 82 is
06:33not the
06:33year that's just the model number I think it's from like around 1960 or between 60 and 62 Valpro was
06:43made by Valco I guess Valco is the like parent company that had national Supro and the other
06:51one an airline yeah and yeah it's like a fiberglass guitar it's like two hollow in the middle and it
06:59has all these knobs on it that we're supposed to do something at some point but they don't work
07:04anymore so I just have a volume knob and yeah it had a capacitor that would darken the tone to
07:12pretend
07:12like you had different pickups but we just shorted all of that yeah there was a whole thing with that
07:18wasn't there like when the telecaster came out it had that rhythm circuit which was basically just like
07:22a really dark muddy yeah yeah this guitar is pretty dark and muddy sounding usually like when I play
07:28through the twin or deluxe which are pretty bright amps I'll put the treble like all the way up or
07:35close to it so that could yeah and that's kind of what makes the guitar sound bright enough because
07:39it's pretty dark I mean some of your more recent videos or at least the videos I've personally seen
07:45more recently I've seen you like play a Jaguar I think like a block yeah I've got a Jaguar as
07:50well
07:50I'll play sometimes I like using I like the tremolo bar on that and then I play this one that's
07:55a K from
07:57around the same time like 1960 K style leader and that's my second favorite guitar yeah it's it's
08:06rewarding to see people so engaged with instrumental music I think one of the things that we're bringing
08:13that the other groups maybe are less focused on is we bring sort of a dance concert whereas
08:20a lot of the other instrumental bands which is fantastically more of a groove and a vibe and
08:25people can move to it but because we're so much of our sound is originated in the Kumbi and Chicha
08:32stuff
08:32that it's it's it's a dance party that we were
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