Vallejo Interview: SXSW 2010

For the Vallejo brothers, Latin infused rock and roll is a family affair. The siblings, who make up three-fifths of their eponymous group Vallejo, hail from El Campo, Texas where their love for rock and roll was preceded by a rich Mexican and Guatemalan upbringing and a history of high school trumpet playing. The band has toured extensively around the U.S. and Mexico, sharing the stage with acts like

It has always been like a rock band with a little bit of a Latin twist; we are not like a salsa merengue band. I don't want to say 70s rock, but it kind of is but with congas and timbales. It's kind of like 70s rock Carlos Santana. My mom is from Guatemala City and my dad is from Mexico City, so we said let's mix Led Zeppelin and mix Fuentes and Santana, so it became our sound.

How and when did your band form?

From the womb. We started coming out of high school, there were three of us, three brothers and we were pretty much band geeks in the marching band. Then we started getting into Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith and other rock and roll. We had started out playing trumpet in high school but we transitioned to bass, drums and guitar – the more rock instruments. We basically taught ourselves how to play those instruments. We probably started 15-20 yrs ago and have been playing music all our life.

What are your musical influences?

Santana, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Tito Puente, Herb Albert. Herb Albert started A&M records - a lot of brass – my dad was a big Herb Albert fan so when he bought the three trumpets I think that's what he wanted us to do – then we went rock and grew long hair and he hated it. But now he's our biggest fan.

It's a family band – we have just been doing it for so long – now we have our own studio, production label, publicity, manufacturing and distribution on our own. It's great.

How did you come up with your band name?

Vallejo is our last name – it's Mexican American so pronounced Va-ye-ho. Most radios anglicize it to Va-le-ho. But yeah it's a family band so our name reflects that.

Have you been to SXSW before? What was it like? And what's in your festival survival kit?

Well, we moved to Austin in 1995, so we've played at every single SXSW. I think we were at the first one? It's great because signed or not signed, it doesn't matter – you want to play there because the world gathers there once a year.

In the beginning it was a lot more Austin bands, started out more local and a lot of punk bands from Houston and Dallas, now its so big – bands from Japan and punk bands from Iceland – the band playing before us this year is from the Netherlands. It's cool because a lot of great bands still play, and a lot of them I've never heard of. You get a wristband and get to see so many bands you've never heard of so its good to hear new music.

For a survival kit – we make sure we carry cash – it is mayhem – so cash and a good attitude because you're up with so many bands. We have so much gear, 5 drum sets, etc, so we try to help out other bands as much as we can. It's karma. If you can help some other bands from out of town – just trying to help other bands out and make connections, it'll come back to you.

Who was your first celeb crush?

Joan Collins – I'm an 80s kid. Now, it's Ellen Degeneres.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Dance music – my wife is a big hip-hop fan and I kind of silently dig it. She likes Duran Duran too and I guess it's not cool to say that. I like Run DMC and NWA. I like the funky shit – we are rock guys and people think that is all we listen to – but its funny because I like the funky stuff. I think it comes from playing drums – I like the funky shit.

Beatles or Stones?

I like the Stones better, but – if you had to ask me if I like John Lennon or Paul McCartney, I'd say Paul McCartney. But in general – I like the Stones better.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

I guess the weirdest thing – we had to follow INXS and it was like a crazy show. It was when they were as big as they could possibly be, so they kind of screwed us. It was one of those things in like a parking lot and it went from 20,000 people literally to 5,000 as soon as they were done. It also happened to start raining right before we were supposed to go on, so we watched like a thousand people walk away as we started to play. It went to 5,000 people, but that was still the most people we had played in front of at the time.

Who are you most excited to see play or which band are you hoping you'll have a chance encounter with at SXSW this year?

I think Be-real from Cypress Hill is playing a set – he's hip hop too, so I'll be getting my hip hop craze on. He's the only one I know. Also Ozomatli.

Summar Ghias is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.