Chikita Violenta

Mexican indie rockers Chikita Violenta just wrapped up a packed week at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in support of their new album The Stars and Suns Sessions. Produced by Dave Newfeld (Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals and Los Campesinos), The Stars is like no other album by a Mexican rock band.

We chatted with Luis "RC" Arce (bass), Armando "Mums" David (keyboards), Eduardo “Pachulo” Pacheco (drums), Esteban “Cheech” Suárez (guitar) and Andés “Güero” Velasco (guitar and vocals) after they got back from The Live Music Capital of the World.

What's up? How was SXSW?

Honestly, SXSW was a pleasant surprise for us. We had never played outside of México, much less a festival. We were lucky enough to perform five gigs at some cool venues with international bands and some fellow Mexican bands.

We were curious to see what kind of reception our music would get at the shows and we ended up getting a really positive response. The gigs were packed and we heard some great compliments from fans and the music press. We're really happy with the whole "SXSW experience." We hope we can do it again. Playing outside of México more wouldn't hurt, either.

Does this mean your future fanbase lies outside of México?

Not necessarily, although it's exciting to know that people outside of México listen to you. We feel that music doesn't belong to one scene or one country. It should be made for the whole world. There's always people who reject your art, but in general, fans here at home have treated us well. We dig it when our music crosses borders. Ideally, we'd like to have fans at home and abroad. We hope we can do it.

You sing in English. Will that help?

Well, it'll definitely make it much easier, although we didn't decide to make music in English for that reason. We've been doing it for years and we're sticking to it. We've been getting more opportunities outside of México and we're sure that the whole language thing helps.

Either way, it doesn't guarantee anything. There are bands who only play instrumentals or sing in Spanish and they've been able to "make it."

What can you tell us about the indie scene in México? Where do you fit in?

Things are looking good, the scene is getting better and it continues to grow. We've been around for a while and we've noticed that there are a bunch of bands out now, compared to four years ago. The media is starting to pay attention. Radio is playing new indie music and there a lot of festivals, record labels, promoters and venues all over the country. Stuff that wasn't really happening a few years ago. It used to be that the only "known" rock bands were on major labels: [Café] Tacvba, Molotov, Fobia, etc.

So, of course we feel we're in the indie scene, we like being a part of it. We like the camaraderie between artists, we enjoy being one of the bands that is helping the scene flourish. Obviously, there's still a long way to go, the scene here is small and the infrastructure needs to grow. The quality of the bands gets better and better and fans expect more, so we think we're going down the right path.

Whose idea was it to work with producer Dave Newfeld? Aren't there any talented Mexican producers?

When we were recording demos of our last album, The Stars and Suns Sessions, we made a wishlist with the names of producers that worked on some of our favorite albums. Dave Newfeld was one of them, we loved his work with Broken Social Scene. We started to send emails to anyone and everyone, we figured we didn't have anything to lose. Much to our surprise, we received a few replies and one of them was from Dave.

There was chemistry between us from the very beginning – he liked the stuff he heard and we would exchange emails. We sent him demos and the rest is history. We know that there are great producers in México, we worked with one of them, Paco Huidobro of Fobia. There's plenty of talent but sometimes you don't have a lot of options when it comes to producers. Despite the cool sh*t being made, it's expensive to record in a nice studio with a top-notch producer here in México. We asked ourselves: "Is it really that expensive for all those indie bands who make quality recordings in the U.S.?" When we added it up, it ended up being cheaper to record in the U.S.

What do you think about the comparisons to Canadian rock collective Broken Social Scene?

We figured it would happen. Music always get labeled a certain way – "Oh, it sounds like this or that," or "You can hear the influence of X or Y." It's really common, and in our case, it was obvious it would happen not only because of the producer, but also because five members of Broken Social Scene guested on the album. So the comparisons to Broken Social Scene are inescapable, especially when a band is "new." Listeners try to pin your sound – and your "scene" – down right away. It's normal and we don't look at it as a bad thing.

It was a honor to work with the guys from Broken Social Scene, we formed a strong friendship and they welcomed us into their "family" with open arms. As time passes and your art progresses, listeners start to respect your identity, although some influences are always going to hang around. Hopefully we can keep putting out more albums and time will tell.

People aren't buying CDs anymore. How do you deal?

Chale, well like everyone knows by now, it's not easy to survive as musicians with the current state of the record industry. Album sales don't really figure into the income of a band. We're pretty "old school" and we still like buying albums instead of [illegally] downloading music. You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you. We think buying an album is worth it, even if it's a digital download. We hope CDs don't disappear but it seems like things are headed in that direction. So how do we survive? We play gigs as often as we can, we sell merch, we take side jobs and we pray! As long as we get to do what we love.

Visit Chikita Violenta on MySpace.