BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
1. Tell us a little about your band, where your from , and how you came up with the name?
Rafa: Inspired in Sindrome del Punk… nah… Dave will come up with a better answer
Dave: We are from Monterrey, México, the land where everybody thinks is cooler than you.The name came up as a drunken joke. We tried to think about some badass name.
Joaquín: Well, it all started as a joke while Dave and I were drunk and stoned at some shitty show in Monterrey, I remember it was a Saturday night haha, it is kinda weird that this is actually happening, weird but cool man!
Violeta: We’re just four young people from monterrey who like to play and drink caguamas together.
2. How long have you been playing?
Rafa: I’ve been playing with Ratas like 3 or 4 months after it begun. Dani, the first drummer and really good friend had to quit the band for personal reasons.
Joaquín: About a year or so, we are going pretty fast, so I hope we don’t die that young nor too old haha.
Dave: The band started around this month on the last year.. but we are really close friends and we hang together every weekend.
3. Who are your biggest inspirations?
Rafa: My personal favorites are Black Flag, Adolescents, Germs, Bad brains, El Amaya LTD, Mayhem, Emperor, Slayer and Polo Pepo (the supposed grandfather of punk in mexico).
Joaquín: I guess Siege, Unseen Terror, The Kids, Townes Van Zandt, Sarcofago, The Sods, Raxola!… almost any killed by death style bands,and some death-trash-black-metal bands too.
Dave: Sindrome del punk (amaya ltd), the wipers, three souls in my mind, devo, charlie montanna.
Click each pic below to enlarge
4. Can you tell us a little about the Punk scene in Mexico? Which other bands in Mexico do you play with?
Rafa: Mexican scene is so fucked up, sometimes it gets boring, bands come along and separate, some of them are fucking great, some of them lame! Mexican bands which i have enjoyed playing with are Los Margaritos, Inservibles, Los Wilson, and I can’t remember any more good bands
Joaquín: Yeah it often gets kinda boring but at least we have our friends, beer and music. Inservibles and Los Margaritos are so cool! but there’s still another CRAZY band called Los Nassis when they play you never know what to expect, in fact last time we saw them they actually trashed the whole stage and the show almost turned into a total fight, it was awesome yet scary to be in that gig.
Violeta: There are a lot of many awesome bands in Mexico, old and new bands. some of my favorite new punk bands in Mexico that we’ve played with are Inservibles, XYX, Los Margaritos and Los Wilson.
Dave: Here there are some really cool bands like XYX, Los Margaritos, Los Inservibles, Los Wilson, Chafirete Fantasma, and many others..
Listen to Esquema Social from “Matado por la Muerte”(Bowery Records)
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5. Have you guys ever played in the USA?
Rafa: SXSW was our first time with Ratas playing in the US, its fucking awesome!, people always respond so good to the music, they fucking dig good bands!
Joaquín: Our first but we’re pretty sure it won’t be our last, no fucking way! Everyone treated us so good, Austin doesn’t seem to be like the rest of Texas, Austin is the best city in TX! I loved getting drunk with MD 20/20 and Wild Irish Rose on Austins alleys and sidewalks, I had a blast over there I’ll never forget it!
6. If you could put together any line up for a show in the USA who would it be with? What venue would you want to play at?
Dave: I would choose The spits, christmas island, black lips, fag cop, daily void, live fast die at a house party.. cause i dont really like bars or clubs.
Violeta: I would like to play the west coast because I’ve never been there and everyone says it’s rocking. But honestly we are excited to go anywhere people take us. Anytime.
7. What websites do you currently visit online? What is your favorite ?
Rafa: I dont surf that much nowadays, i guess, im always reading like stuff from random blogs, forums and the official alarma magazine site.
Joaquín: I only surf when I want to see porn and jack off while listening to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, well sometimes I also use wikipedia, but mostly www.youjizz.com everyone should take a look at that site, pretty hot.
Dave: www.tube8.com is my favorite, very good long porn videos and also the same as everyone, youtube, myspace
8. How did you hear about The Lechuga?
Rafa: I Just ran into it, again, dont remember how, maybe through stumbleupon or something?
Violeta: I recently read the interview you guys made to Nene Records, a label based in Monterrey, that’s how I found out about Lechuga.
Dave: I think you are the same who interviewed Nene Records and banned some of my answers…
9. Can you tell us a little about your experience this year at SXSW in Austin?
Rafa: Austin is fucking good place,it is my second year straight going to a SXSW, and i like them both very much, the response from the people was great, some guys that went to our gigs, kept telling me that they had the record back home and they loved it!, that blew my mind, I still cant believe that someone actually buys the record and likes it, Austin is like mi segunda casa!
Joaquín: Yeah man I wish I could live and work in Austin, it’d surely be easier and funnier than living in Mexico, well except for the food, but Austin girls are so pretty and booze is so cheap and tasty!
Dave: Austin rules,, people there is amazing, specially this guy Jug from the record store Sound on Sound….Girls are beautiful up there too.
Violeta: We had a great time and we met a lot of awesome people. Everyone up there is just really cool and polite. We didn’t get to see most of the bands we wanted to see, like The Spits, but we still enjoyed it.
See a video of Disimula tu Pendejez performed at SXSW
http://www.vimeo.com/438107410. Will you go back next year?
Rafa: For sure… if we’re still together!
Joaquín: Dude of course we’ll be together this is the best band I’ve ever been , everyone should remember that rock and roll never dies it just takes long breaks.
Dave: Is our second home.
Violeta: Of course. If we have the chance we’ll do it for sure.
11. Whats next for you guys?
Rafa: We plan to do a full on US tour maybe on Autum/Winter ‘09 or Spring ‘10, we have to plan it very very good so we can cover the most cities in the shortest amount of days, we’re also about to head to our “studio”, which is Dave’s house with a 4 track recorder and some microphones, to record several new songs, so… you’ll hear from us!
Joaquín: Yeah we have to plan this tour so well, and yes we’re about to record about 8 or 10 songs for our next two 7″ EP’s, one in Volar Records and the other one in HBSP-2x Records.
Violeta: yes, we’re about to record some new songs for a few 7 inches and tapes from some cool labels, and we really want to tour a lot this year. We will most likely tour the US, maybe California, but we also want to go to Canada. Although it all sounds too ambitious because we don’t really have any money to travel that much.
Dave: release the most records we can, drinkin, touring.
12. Where can people learn more about the band?
Myspace
To purchase the record
Booking requests or questions