Mariachi El Bronx

“Great” we thought “a new Bronx album”.

But instead of car crash guitars and throat hurtling screams we find… mariachi. Lots and lots of mariachi. Putting aside the initial shock and allowing the songs to seep in ‘Mariachi El Bronx’ emerges as a passionate and vital piece of songwriting, every bit as committed to its ideals as The Bronx records are. Expanding any definition of The Bronx to breaking point, ‘Mariachi El Bronx’ allows the band’s punk values, and above all their love for Los Angeles, to seep through as rarely before.

ClashMusic caught up with lead singer Matt Caughthran to talk about one of the year’s most unusual projects…

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Where did the idea come from to do a Mariachi style album?
It all just kind of stems from a TV performance we did for the second record, which inspired us to do things differently. We got asked to do a lot of acoustic stuff, and we’re not that type of band - like a singer / songwriter, hard rock gone soft type of thing. We didn’t really want to do that. So for the TV performance we decided to get a couple of friends in and do a little Mariachi style thing. It ended up being really fun, and really cool, really creative so we decided to do a whole record like that.

Is it something that you then continued to do in your spare time?
No not at all. That whole thing just kind of triggered whole thing. We just started writing, bringing an acoustic guitar on tour. The record was pretty much written on the road, I would day 70 – 80% of it was written on the road.

Did it become a fun way to relax on the road?
Completely. A total break away from everything - I was super inspired, the most inspired by I’ve probably been in my whole life. It’s so completely out of body, just that feeling you love when you create things. When you’re a musician, an artist you just crave that type of energy and excitement so it was definitely awesome to have.

How familiar were you with that type of music? Is it quite widespread in Los Angeles?
Yeah it’s definitely everywhere in LA. I was evry familiar with it by ear, but I hadn’t really delved into the logistics of it, the musicality of it. It was something that I hadn’t personally explored, and that none of us had personally explored. That was the hardest part for us, making sure that we did right by the music. We didn’t want to give a bad representation of Mariachi music, we knew that a lot of people would be looking at this record, analysing it, really going over it – probably more than necessary. We wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing. You know the guys worked their asses off to make sure they had the right rhythms, the right feel for every song. The lyrics to the songs came real natural to me, so it’s worked out the best it could.

How did you manage to make the music authentic?
It was just a mixture of our take on things.. a lot of it had to do with the rhythm, just making sure that the rhythm was right. Those guys studied all the rhythms for Mariachi music, they really made sure they knew what they were doing. That was the important part, that’s what was going to make it authentic. I think in the music itself, lyrically there was an element of storytelling and a side of myself that I was able to get into with this record that I haven’t been able to get into with The Bronx. I think that type of story-telling, and that type of music go real well together. So that’s the other side of what makes it authentic, is just the relationship between the music and the lyrics.

Was there an element of playing a role when writing the lyrics?
Not really. What was really cool for me is that I’ve had so many good things happen to me in my life that I’ve always been too scared to sing about. For whatever reason Bronx just doesn’t bring that side out in me, it brings out a much darker type of thing I think in all of us. This felt very much like a gift, like a very eye opening experience. To reflect back on your life and to feel thankful for what you have. It was odd for me to kind of do that. I think everyone in a way went through that whole situation when we made the record. It was a very joyous experience, which was a different one for us as Bronx is a very intense thing. The joy that we get out of that is very different.

Did you record the songs live in the studio?
For the most part yeah. The vocals were done after, but the drums were all done together. It wasn’t done completely live like the Bronx records are. Just because there are strings involved and it’s kind of a piece by piece thing. Everything was written. The cool thing about this record is that looking back on it we have so many different recordings of every song, and it’s so cool because the song first starts with Jody and my self writing it. Then we have the demo, with the band playing it, then we have live recordings before we went into the studio. Each one of them, the spirit is there on each and every one of them, and the songs were always there. It was the coolest thing in the world to be a part of, because it’s really rare to make a record where all the songs feel right. Usually there are songs that come automatically, there are songs that take a while, or what everyone hates.. but with this record every song just felt right. It was very spontaneous, it just felt complete. It was a good experience all the way around – writing and recording.

Vincent Hidalgo came on board to bring the material together, how did this happen?
I’ve known Vince since he was 13. Me and his older brother went to High School – Vince, David and I were in a school band together and we’ve been friends ever since. Vince also plays in a band with Jody and myself called The Drift, so we’ve known each other forever. We needed a good guiron player, and Vince he didn’t even know how to play it he just picked it up for the record. But he’s such a good musician, growing up seeing Los Lobos and hanging around with that family was a huge inspiration for me and for the record. It was great having Vince there, and any time I can make music with that dude I’ll definitely do it. He’s a great friend and an amazing musician.

Was he able to bring an extra knowledge of Mexican music?
Oh completely! It was cool for him because while he knows about all that stuff he hasn’t made a record like that, so he was definitely excited about it. He definitely helped bring another element of authenticity, of expertise – he was able to say ‘let’s try it this way, let’s do it in this time’. It ended up being the right one, or just felt better. Some of that automatic gut instinct really helped out, so he definitely helped shape the record.

You mention staying true to Mariachi traditions, did you then worry about feeling constrained by those same traditions?
We wanted to make a traditional record. We knew that just being who we are as artists would make it sound different and unique. So we weren’t worried about having to feel confined within the rules of that music, it was actually kind of nice. We wanted to do that. That’s exactly what we wanted to make, it felt good to make a traditional record, to have that guidelines.

Have you had much feedback from the Mariachi community?
Yeah so far people are digging it! The only kind of hate mail we’ve gotten is that every now and then they’ll be a Bronx fan who just want us to play punk and hardcore, but outside of that the response from critics and from our peers and from the Mariachi community has been all positive.

It was an extreme minority of fans who objected, surely?
It really was. The majority of Bronx fans love the record, they love us for being the weirdoes that we are. I think they like the fact that they never know what they are going to get next from us!

You mention that mariachi is very common in Los Angeles, is there much crossover in your mind between the two styles?
I think that punk has never.. you can’t deny that there is a genre of ‘punk music’ but to me outside of that genre the bigger scheme of things, the bigger lesson is the idea of punk. Doing whatever you want, being a creative person even if it means being poor you have your own space in which to live. The ideas ethically are the same. It’s just a different type of music. It’s very much a part of Los Angeles. Looking at Los Lobos, the Slash Records stuff – in the early days it was Germs, X and Los Lobos on Slash records. That’s a complete mish mash of music, but it’s the idea of going forward, of doing something different in order to be creative in music. I think that in that way that’s where the Bronx fits in. That’s where The Bronx fits in mariachi, and that’s where the Bronx fits in punk. It’s not necessarily the sound that we bring, it’s the idea.

Will Mariachi El Bronx continue beyond this album?
I don’t know. As of now I want it to be ongoing, I probably have enough material to put out a second record right now. I want to play it and I want to tour on it, I want to see what happens. I don’t like making plans too far into the future. I know we’re definitely going to do The Bronx album next and we’ll see where that goes from there and we’ll see what happens.

With the material being written on tour did it then become a means of keeping in touch with your home?
Yeah there was. There’s an element of that and there’s also a strong outside influence too, being written in places like that. I think that a lot of the times The Bronx can be very much inspired by Los Angeles and with this record the idea was definitely born in LA, and the spirit is from LA. I think lyrically, and if I would dare to say spiritually, the record is very free flowing. It’s kind of written with an attitude of going wherever it takes you. I think that in that aspect there is a huge soul in this record that I’m not used to in a record. I’m used to records being like an explosion of sound, a giant testimony of time. That’s what punk is to me, like an immediate outburst of aggression but with this record for the first time we really captured a soulful type of feeling on a record. I think that has to do with the wandering mindset you have when you travel and visit places for the first time. You get truly inspired to write and create stuff.

It’s John Avila who produces the record, is that right?
Yeah! He had a little but of everything. No one else could have recorded this record, we struggled with people kind of pretending that they got it but you don’t really know what will happen when you take someone to record something like this. The record felt so special and we knew when we met John that he was the right dude. Not only is he a great, great songwriter but he’s loves music. He loves this record. So from the get go you could see how passionate he was about this. We knew all the right things that we wanted to do, he wanted to do too. It was one of those things that we knew when we found the right guy to record the album and it was definitely him, he was able to add little nuances here and there that really completed the song. He’s a great songsmith that way, a very, very talented dude and the partnership was perfect.

Have you found that writing mariachi material has helped you write in new ways with The Bronx?
I don’t know, I don’t know – we haven’t figured that out yet. I think if anything we’re going to stray as far away from that as possible, I think if anything it’s going to affect The Bronx in an opposite kind of way. With the next Bronx record we’re going to try to go as aggressive as we can, and as anti-melodic as possible. We’ll see what happens. I never know what’s going to happen going into a Bronx record, we always go into recording with a way we want it to go but it never works out that way in the end the music kind of takes over and dictates the way the record goes. So the influence El Bronx will have on Bronx remains to be seen.

On your current tour you will be playing mariachi material to people who in the main will not be familiar with this type of music. How have they reacted to it?
Really well. It’s crazy, I was kind of nervous about that you know playing mariachi to people who haven’t heard that type of music. I think that in today’s society people aren’t really stubborn about new music. I think that people want to hear something new and unexpected, especially from someone like us. I think that people are stoked on the fact that we’ve made a mariachi record. So far the shows that we’ve played and the reaction we’ve received have all been positive.