I was radicalized one night in 2001 as I stayed up late watching MTV2 music videos as a teenager. Black and white visuals of newspapers about slain women and b-footage of factories and landscapes across Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas fill the screen as courier-typed captions explain the devastation of 570 women who were found murdered and sexually abused in this area. My eyes are transfixed on the screen, the spoon for my cereal balances between my mouth and the bowl. The volume is low to avoid waking up my sleeping parents, but it’s loud enough to hear the somber guitar riffs amongst vocals of anguish and frustration. Pictures of graves and women’s shoes in dirt cross the screen and the somber instrumentals halt and the reverb of the line “dancing on the corpse’s ashes” echoes right before a heavy breakdown blasts through the speakers. It is loud, it is cathartic, it is the coda to the best song At the Drive-In has ever written.
Up until this point in my life, these were the “One Armed Scissor” guys, but watching and listening to the music video for “Invalid Litter Dept.” moved me. This was more than a socio-political song of angst and frustration, this was about something relatively close to home. This song is about my people and this band is not only made up of my people, but they write music exclusively about our people. I had never felt so seen by a band and I had never really seen folks that look like me and my friends making the type of alternative music that I was so drawn to on a national platform.
We’re knee deep into National Hispanic Heritage Month and it’s only appropriate to talk about the impact that Hispanic folks have had on the world of alternative music. As someone who previously struggled with the identifier of Hispanic (descended from ancestors of a Spanish-speaking country) and leaned more towards Latino (descended from ancestors of a Latin America Country) and more specifically Chicano (American with ancestry tracing back to Mexico), At the Drive-In was crucial to my identity politics as a teenager bridging the gap between my culture and the music I loved.
I discovered At the Drive-In right as they broke up and worked backwards from their final album Relationship of Command. While they were playing shows in bowling alleys and VFW halls, my Hispanic identity was clamoring at the thought that the singer/bassist of one of my favorite bands shared Mexican culture. Mike Herrera, of MxPx, was probably the first person in a band in the punk world that I clocked as Hispanic. Representation truly matters. As a kid who grew up on King Biscuit Flower Hour because of the car rides with my boomer dad, I thought that the extent of Hispanic culture in rock music stopped and started with Carlos Santana. Herrera and MxPx were one of my gateway bands into the punk world where I quickly learned that there were tons of artists of Hispanic descent.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Alice Bag of the LA band The Bags who was instrumental in the early LA punk scene notably featured in the iconic “The Decline of Western Civilization” documentary. Bag was a key figure in the punk feminist movement of the 1970s and continues to raise awareness for Chicano causes in California. The California scene birthed some of the most prevalent punk bands of the 70s and 80s and had a strong influence on the local Latin culture. In a world before Black Flag had a revolving door of vocalists, Puerto Rican Ron Reyes took the mantle upon Keith Morris’ departure for about a year. Mike Muir, or Cyco Miko, of Suicidal Tendencies embodied Chicano culture with the cholo wear and imagery in their stage presence and music videos from his Latino background. On the opposite coast, Agnostic Front vocalist Roger Miret and his half-brother Freddy Cricen of Madball are of Cuban-descent.
The late 80s to early 90s skate punk “Epi-Fat” era featured a barrage of Hispanic representation in some of the most iconic bands. Fat Mike used to introduce NOFX guitarist/trumpeter El Hefe as the guy who played Miguel in The Bad News Bears. I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t believe it and I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t help spread the false rumor as a fun fact in a time before you could confirm these types of things on your phone. Despite the false rumor and despite being appointed the Spanish nickname misspelled by Fat Mike, El Hefe (real name Aaron Abeyta) is of Mexican descent and a core member of the band since 1991. Contemporaries The Vandals’ first consistent member Joe Escalante was born to a Mexican father and was a driving force in the band from 1981 to the present and along with bandmate Warren Fitzgerald co-founded Kung Fu Records. Voodoo Glow Skulls is headlined by three Chicano brothers - Frank, Eddie and Jorge Casillas - are stalwarts of the skacore scene often intertwining Mexican imagery and Latin-influenced sounds into their brand of ska punk.
There was also strong representation in the alt world in the early 90s as hip hop began to influence the evolution of modern rock at the turn of the decade. Rage Against the Machine’s Zach de la Rocha and Deftones’ Chino Moreno both come from Mexican backgrounds and were pioneers as rock music transcended genre. A precursor to the nü-metal boom of the early aughts, both bands remain iconic and influential 30 years later all the while wearing their heritage proudly on their sleeve.
Around the same time, pop punk exploded with the rise of bands like Green Dayand blink-182, record labels scrambled to sign bands in bulk, throwing them against the wall to see what would stick. It was reminiscent of the grunge breakthrough a few years prior as the subculture broke through to the mainstream. This caused a surge of new younger pop-punk bands from different backgrounds to get a chance to be featured in the flock of teen movie and MTV show soundtracks. One band in particular was introduced to me via the sound track for the problematic MTV made for TV movie Jailbait. The music video for “All My Fault” by Fenix Tx features Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus in a cameo trying to watch the aforementioned movie as the band performs next door. Mark gave the cosign for Fenix Tx and really elevated their presence. The band consisted of Mexican dudes (Damon DeLaPaz, Will Salazar, Donnie Reyes) from Houston, Texas and released two major label albums before breaking up. The latter album, Lechuza was named after the Tejano folk tale about an owl lady who carries her victims away in the dark. They quickly joined the ranks of my winamp playlists amongst fellow pop punk bands with Hispanic ties like MxPx and Blink-182 (Yes, it’s true! Blink’s Tom Delonge actually has a little Mexican in him and as much as that sounds like a euphemism he would probably say on stage, he actually is ¼ Mexican) and would eventually be joined by Audio Karate.
There are few bands from this era that affected me more than Audio Karate. I discovered their song “Nintendo 89” via its music video. The video opens up with a mom character speaking Spanish about the paleta girl. It’s a standard teenage love story wherein singer Arturo Barrios pursues the girl that works in the ice cream truck. These characters looked like me, not just the band members but everybody in the video. This looked like my neighborhood. The video made me feel the way I did the first time I watched The Sandlot and felt so represented by Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez. I even wrote about how this song made me feel a few years ago for Geeks of Color. Beyond that, the riffs slapped. Audio Karate’s first album Space Camp embodied the pop punk sensibilities of Blink and Fenix Tx and MxPx, but also had some intricate albeit not overly complex guitar work that was inspired by bands like No Knife. There was an edge to them that only expanded with their follow up Lady Melody. Their sound evolved and I evolved with it. There were still hooks, but they were embedded in faster guitar work and more syncopated drums. Audio Karate had such an impact on me musically and culturally, watching the video for “Nintendo 89” was a canon event.
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Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria brandishing the Puerto Rican flag. Photo by Erik Casarez
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is a pretty abbreviated list as I know there are a bunch I’ve missed. I’ve gone well over the initial word count I set for myself, but want to make sure to include a handful more bands that are going to be included in this playlist, speed round.
Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria is Puerto Rican
The band The Warning, consisting of the Villarreal Vélez sisters, is from Mexico
The lead singer of Foxtails, Blue Luno Solaz, is of Argentine and Afro-Columbian descent
Lead singer of Destroy Boys, Alexia Roditus, is of Argentinian descent
Girl in a Coma and side project Fea hail from my hometown of San Antonio, Texas and are puro Chicana (the latter of which received the cosign by Iggy Pop)
Piñata Protest is also from my hometown and they sound like what it would be if Dropkick Murphys were Chicano, trade Spicy Mchaggis’ bagpipe for a tejano accordion.
While we’re at it, here are some local band friends also from Central Texas with hispanic roots that I think you should check out
Lloronas - female punk band with gritty riffs and Selena-inspired vocals
HoneyBunny - indie band with punk influences, like early No Doubt meets Wavves/Best Coast
Ram Vela and the Easy Targets - powerpop band that sounds like Fountains of Wayne smoking a cigarette with The Replacements in the boys room.
Riley! is comprised of Hispanic members
As is Super Sometimes
Manic Hispanic is a band of Chicano members who parody classic punk songs with references to the culture
EZ Band is a norteño cover band that plays popular rock and pop songs in Spanish and English. Their covers of “Hey There Delilah” and “The Black Parade” are bops.
Los Blenders is a band from Mexico that rules!
Las Ligas Menores is a band from Argentina that also rules!
Hinds is a band from Spain that… you guessed it, rules!
Vocalist Walter Delgado of Rotting Out is of Mexican descent
Poison the Well’s vocalist Jeffrey Moreira was born in Cuba
Poison the Well’s Jeffrey Moreira attributed some of his onstage dance moves to his Cuban upbringing.
Photo by Erik Casarez
Finally, it would be a disservice to talk about Hispanic Culture in the alternative music world from a millennial perspective without mentioning Pierce the Veil, but I’ll be honest, I never really got into them. By the time they hit it big, I was in the trenches of college rock and indie sleaze. I was casually aware of them and was always intrigued by their set pieces adorning Mexican flags. Had they blown up five to seven years earlier, I probably would have been a fan in some capacity. They look like dudes I grew up with and played shows with, and they were showcasing our culture with a sense of pride. It didn’t feel like a gimmick and it didn’t feel like some kind of chicano minstrel show. Despite never really vibing with the music, it always made me happy to see them celebrated. I am rooting for them because I know they inspire other Hispanic kids like me to pick up instruments for the first time and start a band.
Representation will always matter and is always worth celebrating.