Started back in 2008 as both a side project and creative experiment for the members of Los Angeles-based punk rock outfit The Bronx, Mariachi El Bronx — Matt Caughthran (vocals), Joby J. Ford (guitar, vihuela, accordion), Jared Shavelson (drums), Keith Douglas (trumpet), Ray Suen (violin), Brad Magers (trumpet), Ken Horne (jarana), and Vincent Hidalgo (guitarrón)– have long been deeply rooted in their deep connection to the Hispanic music and culture of their hometown. Although seemingly different, the band doesn’t see punk and mariachi as mutually exclusive. Instead, they view both genres as spiritually entwined forces anchored in resilient storytelling. “Punk rock and mariachi music are very similar in soul,” The Bronx’s and Mariachi El Bronx’s Matt Caughthran says. “It’s working class music. It’s real music.”
Despite almost two decades of success, that has included sharing stages with Foo Fighters and The Killers; sets across the global festival circuit, including Coachella and Glastonbury; performances on Late Show with David Letterman to NPR’s Tiny Desk; and theme songs for shows like Weeds and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the members of Mariachi El Bronx still consider themselves lifelong students of the art form. That reverence carries over to their charro suits, which often attract as much attention as the music itself. The band has long turned to Boyle Heights-based Casa del Mariachi, a historic Los Angeles area landmark, where Jorge “Mr. George” Tello has been handcrafting the traditional suits for over 50 years. “This band has always been about learning and exchanging culture through music and art,” says Caughthran. “That’s what it’s all about! Everything we do comes from the heart and soul.”
Mariachi El Bronx’s long-awaited fourth album, the John Avila-produced Mariachi El Bronx IV is slated for a Friday release through ATO Records. The album, which is the first album from the project in a decade, sees the trailblazing alter-egos of The Bronx continuing to embody the same ethos that sparked their creation — honoring the rich Hispanic music and culture that has always surrounded them in their hometown, while pushing creative boundaries.
Clashing emotions of profound loss and overwhelming love shaped the album’s themes. The songwriting “started as a battle between love and death but became a way to process all the chaos of the world,” Caughthtran explains. Throughout the run of the album’s 12-tracks, the band documents the stories of gamblers, former playboys, warriors and lovers — characters that became vessels for the specific pressures of modern life.
Returning after a decade away felt “joyous and familiar from the jump,” the band’s Joby J. Ford says. But the album’s recording process proved to be much more complex than expected. Within the year that he began writing the album’s lyrics, Caughthran contended with the deaths of several loved ones. And as they tracked the album’s material at producer John Avila’s San Gabriel Valley studio, the Eaton Canyon wildfires blazed across East L.A. “We came out of the studio one night, the entire side of the hill was just on fire,” Ford recalls.
While dealing with grief in his personal life and within Los Angeles, Caughthran also got married in the same year. All of these very profoundly human experiences and feelings have informed what may arguably be Mariachi El Bronx’s most emotionally resonate work to date.
Mariachi El Bronx IV will feature the previously singles “Forgive or Forget,” and “RIP Romeo,” both wich, feature acclaimed violinist Ray Suen, “Bandoleros,” a Norteño-charged tune that the band describes as the album’s “battle cry,” and the album’s last pre-release single “Songbird.”
“Songbird” is hard-charging bit of mariachi that tackles a familiar frustration that many writers and artists face at some point: writers block. The song captures the frustration of looking at a blank page or at a blinking cursor for hours with nothing able to come to mind. This is followed by pressure induced desperation. If you know, you know.
Mariachi El Bronx’s Matt Caughtran was deep in a period of creative exhaustion, when longtime collaborator and friend Vincent Hildago, the son of Los Lobos‘ David Hildago, hit on a pulse-quickening guitar line in the studio.
Caughtran’s connection with the Hildago family goes back decades. He first met Vincent and his brother David Jr. in high school, where the three began playing music together, laying the foundation for a creative relationship that’s spanned more than 30 years. After decades of collaboration, the spark was instant and to Caughthran, Vincent’s riff sounded like a hummingbird flapping its wings – the same bird he’d been watching outside his writing window as he stared down a blank page. The block faded instantly as lyrics poured out of his brain: “I was staring at another empty page / Feeling every single second of my age.”
Directed by Blaise Cepis, the accompanying video for “Songbird,” is a surreal, almost Lynchian-like visual that features the members of the band performing the song in front of a collection of oddballs and freaks, who are wildly talented.
Cepis says “whenever I direct a music video, I’m just trying to make something 11-year-old me would’ve stayed up late hoping to catch on 120 Minutes or Headbangers Ball. Thankfully I found 8 kindred spirits in mariachi el Bronx, who were the most incredible collaborators and were down for anything. I had such a great time with the band and the insanely talented gorgeous cast, I think 11-year-old me would approve.”
