As you might have read earlier in my Good Morning Monday post, this week I decided to focus on the younger kids of the desert who have a lot of steelo and swagger. By staying in tune with what the younger generations are up to and into you can always have a pretty good grasp on the future.
The future looks fun, if you ask me. And the future looks fun, if you listen to them. The next group to keep an eye on is Los Mumblers!. Los Mumblers! are a group of five friends who, from a young age, all decided to stick together and make their impact on the music and fashion scene of the desert. They represent the East side of the Coachella Valley. Their personal styles are bold, daring, and a collage of all that they have been influenced by. Their music style is fun, young, psychobilly, and kinda silly (in a good way).
When looking to start the blog off in 2009 with a fun, fresh and varied selection of sights and sounds, Los Mumblerz! were one of the first bands that came to mind.
So, without further ado, the young, the bold, the restless…. Los Mumblers!….
Name of Band?
Los Mumblers!
Name of Members, their astrological sign, and their role in the band?
!Jorge! / Pisces / Guitar, keyboard, mumbling
Tony / Aries / Mumbles uncontrollably
Angel / Aries / Bangs on things and yells in the back
Abe / Virgo / Upright bass and back-up mumbling
Adrian / Leo / Fill in drums and screams and yells
How did Los Mumblers! come together and why the name?
Our quest to save the princess and beat Shao Kahn and stop his reign of terror began in 2003 when we were in 7th grade. Tony, Angel and !Jorge! had known each other since elementary school and we just wanted a chance to make our own music and give back to the music scene. We gave up on the project for a good while to focus on high school but the Mumblers Assembled late 2007 again. We got the chance to play with Tabaltix for our first show back and we found X-Mumbler members Wilber(Keyboard) and James(Bass) and also newest additions Abe and Adrian from the Peabrains. You may hear all of them on our new demo which we just finished recording recently. For all those reading and don’t have a demo! Hit us up and we’ll get you one!As for the name, Middle school was full of silly little kid drama. We usually had random people talk bad about us. We’re not sure what was ever really said. It usually just sounded like people mumbling. So we called them Mumblers. We added Los because we’re all mexican and the ‘The’ didn’t sound right to us. So it stuck and it’s been that since.
I am interested to know who are some of your biggest musical influences?
!Jorge! – The Meteors, The Cramps, Devo, The Tabaltix, Brand New, Bright Eyes, Blood Brothers and a lot of 90’s music.
Tony – Violent Femmes, Ice Cube, The Cure, Kind of Like Spitting, Pixies, Koji Kondo, Kraftwerk & Prince.
Angel – Stevie Ray Vaugh, Jeff Beck, Stray Cats, Bob Marley, Kings of Leon, Pantera, Cypress Hill and The Who.
Abe – Manu Chao, Cafe Tacvba, Leo Dan, Lost Souls, The Sharks,.
Adrian – Lost Souls, Griswalds, Batmobile, Cafe Tacvba, Manu Chao, The Sharks and Klingonz.
How would you describe the Los Mumblers sound?
We’re upbeat with an upright. We’re nerdy but we’re dirty… Really we were just trying to sound like every other band out in psychobilly/rockabilly scene. We tried but our sound is ours. We experimented enough and we’re proud to have our own style of Psychobilly/Geek Rock. We want to be Nerd Pop at it’s best
What inspires you to make music?
Video Game music, a lot of SNES music. 8 Bit can be magical. Star Wars and Lucha Libre also inspire us. Mexico in general. The growing music scene of the Coachella Valley has also inspired us. It’s always changing and we’d love to play with every band from the area. There’s soo much talent here.
I understand you guys have been around since ’03. How have, or have not, seen the music scene in the desert change? Do you think it is for the better? Or for the worse?
We remember going to shows all the time. We remember when the members of Forest Carter and The Monopoly were in Jane Eyre and when post-hardcore music reigned supreme. We went from seeing fun punk shows with The Disclosed, traveling bands like Plague of Dandelions and Organic Junk Fude to seeing nothing but hardcore bands playing for a good while. Venue spots came and went and they’re still coming and going but the scene is always changing and growing. It’s a love/hate thing sometimes. It’s gotten better in our opinion. I mean, it could be worse.
Do you remember your first show? What was the feeling that night? Where was it at? And give me a brief scenerio of what went on that night?
It was an all day show at Vietnam Veteran’s Park in Coachella, CA. Probably around February or April of 2004. Right off Fourth St. and behind the City Hall. Hah we made a few people mad that day… Name calling on stage, don’t do it… Ok nevermind. Do it!
Tell me a bit about your last show.
It was in a garage in Ontario, CA. For our friend Ronnie’s birthday. We played with The Daffys from the San Fernando Valley and our other band The Peabrains. The crowd was small but in a garage it seemed like a really decent turn out. Especially when all the guys started dancing and punching eachother haha. The ‘pit’ got a little br00tal. The guys in it managed to unplug my guitar amp and almost knocked over two of our other amps. Good times.
Can you tell me a little bit of each band members personal music history? For example, are you from a family of musicians? Went to school for music? Anything like that?
!Jorge! was taught guitar by his father. He gave up guitar quickly and picked up the upright bass. He played for a few bands that friends wanted to start up to play gigs. Nothing ever really worked out. He played bass for a local rock en espanol band called Zinema from Oct. 07′ until June 08′. Tony is more into spinning and collecting records if anything, his father taught him right! Angel was actually our original guitarist but since we never found a drummer, he decided to pick up the sticks. He’s a pretty quick learner and pretty damn talented… compared to us hah. Abe had played rhythm guitar for a hardcore punk band out of Long Beach called Cut The Line(CTL) and he played upright bass for his old psychobilly band La Mentira that included members from The Riff-Raffs. He started up his band The Peabrains with his brother Adrian(Fill-in Drummer) which I joined a couple months ago, we’re focusing on a clean old-school 80’s sound of psychobilly, by mixing a lot of rockabilly influences and even rock en espanol as well.
How do you think the desert influences your music?
Practicing in 100+ degree weather… and in a garage makes you see the world in a different way. We’ve had the chance to play outside of the desert though and you know what??… Coachella is where it’s at.
What would you like people to get from your music, live shows?
We want people to have a good time. We don’t like going to shows and seeing people just standing around looking dead. When people come to our shows we want people to feel like fools… and be okay with it!
Any upcoming show we should know about?
Fanboys release date! Whenever that is we’re probably going to try and play inside a theater. Hah joking! But yeah we might have a few coming up soon. We’ve always wanted to play a Date Farmers Studio Party (Hint, hint). But to whoever reads this: “BOOK US!”!WE’RE SOO DOWN, WE HAVE DOWN SYNDROME!
What can we expect to see from Los Mumblers! in the future?
Hopefully new music, better music, we hope to put out them catchy tunes. More shows, more recordings, more everything would be nice! More mumbling for you and more mumbling for me. Maybe a world tour hah. We also have our other band we’ve been working with ‘The Peabrains’. Also a few X-Mumblers are working on a new music project. So keep your ears opened wide and them eyes concentrated on listening.
To check out more on Los Mumblers!, please visit them at www.myspace.com/losmumblerz