A Look Into New Cosmic Latin Collaborative—Ruidos Diablos

Despite the investment of time and emotion that goes into being in a band, change is nothing new for musicians. As bands disassemble, reunite or reinvent themselves, a few important factors keep artists’ gears turning: passion, authenticity and more often than not, boredom. At least those three factors are what helped contribute to the formation of Ruidos Diablos—a duo whose dissimilar music backgrounds complement one another.

Julio Mena experienced the retiring of his five-year band Alphabetter and in 2013 his band Sound on Sound faced the same situation. Not long after, Alberto Mota’s Kontra Golpe Noise Manifesto band mates’ visas were cancelled and they were told they could not return to the U.S. for five years. While this did not end the group, it posed a challenge for their El Paso fan base and also for Mota, who spends much of his time working in El Paso.

Although Mota and Mena continued to perform (the two occasionally play for Kontra Golpe and Mena plays bass for Mattox), boredom and the itch to try something new brought them together to form their new project. There’s a clear influence from Kontra Golpe—a band Mota describes as a punk polka power cumbia group—and Mena’s fusion of psychedelic elements that were found in indie band Sound on Sound, are also present.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call this a band,” Mena said. “It’s more of a collaborative project. We’re always open if people want to play with us.”

The connection Mota and Mena have with one another is evident in both their music process and their immediate friendship that formed in 2009.

“I got hired [at Guitar Center] and I was coming from jobs where I really didn’t need to speak English, so when I got there, it was really pretty hard for me,” Mota said. “At the first [staff] meeting, I couldn’t understand anything, and that day, this guy (referring to Julio) showed up wearing a jacket that said Mexico on it, and I was like, daaaamn, fuck yeah!”

Mota was born in El Paso and raised in Juarez while Mena was born in Orange County and grew up in El Paso, but both of them have family in Mexico—a land that will always be another home to them. Mena was instantly impressed with Kontra Golpe’s style and helped them book a show at O’Hagans Irish Pub, then later joined them.

“I’ve always loved playing Latin music, and I didn’t necessarily have the chance to do that in other projects because they didn’t really call for that type of style,” Mena said.

Mena’s opportunities to perform with Kontra Golpe in Juarez opened his eyes to the different ambiance El Paso’s neighboring city has at shows with the audience’s high energy and inclination to dance. “To this day, Juarez is my favorite place to play in because even if there’s going to be a small turnout, people who are there are really positive about your music and participate,” Mena said. “I’ve never sweat so much playing congas.”

Like the music in Kontra Golpe, the songs that Ruidos Diablos have created so far might prompt listeners to dance, which is Mota and Mena’s goal. With the occasional use of an accordion, ukulele, horns and a synthesizer, the two create sounds that are eclectic and sporadically ethereal. When the genre classification “Cosmic Latin” was suggested, they enthusiastically approved of the name.

For some of their performances, a few of Mena’s former Sound on Sound band mates joined them, but when it’s just the two, the group is not lacking in full sound—the music software Ableton Live, which Mena used for Sound on Sound, enables them to sound complete. “It kind of makes it seamless to where it’s bridging the gap between what a DJ does and what an instrumentalists does, but while staying true to playing instruments and keeping it authentic,” Mena said.

Mota and Mena recorded their songs at Dust Empire Records, a studio that belongs to Mattox co-founder Miguel Valdez. They took about a week to record the songs, not for the sake of brevity, but to maintain their momentum. “I work really fast, and [Mota] can tell you, I don’t have a lot of patience,” Mena said. “I want to capture the moment right away, or else if you spend too much time doing it, it loses that touch.”

But even with Mena’s intense recording process, Mota’s relaxed attitude is something Mena values. “What I like about it is, I would bring the idea of a song and show it to Julio, and there were no limits in the process,” Mota said.

Having two little ones has definitely influenced his lyrics, Mota added, “It makes you more sentimental, not that I wasn’t before, but it definitely changes the way you see things. It makes you a better person.”

While the popularity of Latin music is present all over the world, Mena said the music collaborations along the El Paso-Juarez border bring something new to the table. “I’m sure if we played this music in other parts of Latin America or Europe, to them it would be super exotic,” Mena said. “Even if we went and played cumbia in Columbia, our sense of cumbia would be different. I feel in a sense that that’s the magic of what the border has allowed us to do.”

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TEXT & PHOTO CREDIT: Victoria Guadalupe Molinar