Vallejo

Vallejo

Band of brothers

by Amy Edgerly

This issue, rather than re-acquainting you with a familiar Texas favorite, I’d like to introduce you to a group which may be new to you. From the Austin area, this band bears the surname of the three founding brothers, Vallejo.

Vallejo is twin brothers, guitarist/singer A.J. and drummer Alex and their big brother, bassist Omar. For added flavor there are two additional percussionists, Diego and Jeff, and shredder lead guitarist Heath Clark. They are a big bunch of really groovy muchachos!

Recently I had the opportunity to meet and interview Vallejo at the Engine Room.

A: I know you’re in Austin, but aren’t you from Alabama?

V: Well, we were born in El Campo, Texas, but we moved to Birmingham for a few years and then we came back to Texas.

Our father is a chef, and Birmingham was where he happened to have a job. But once we grew up and figured out that Mexicans and Alabama don’t fly, we definitely figured out we needed to come back to Texas.

A: I was wondering what a typical day is like for Vallejo, when you’re working?

V: At home it all has to do with music. We spend time with our families of course. We have a studio at my house and we do everything in house, for production. We also rehearse. We use that house as headquarters for everything we do. Whether it’s Vallejo or Bang or Dirty Worm, this other act we have, it all runs through that house.

A: For awhile you were with Crescent Moon which is owned by Emilio Estefan. I was wondering if you met him or worked with him at all?

V: He wanted to delve into the rock world [at the time]. I think we wrote some good songs, but looking back, it was just something that he wanted to try out. It was a good learning experience for both of us. One good thing was that we got to hang out with him and write with him. On the Black Sky album he co-wrote “Black Sky” with us and he helped us write “Let’s Talk About It” which is off Stereo.

A: You went on a world tour in 2002, is that correct?

V: Yes, the Watcha Tour, it was a Rock en Español tour. It’s more international bands. It’s the same thing that America has—like for every Beastie Boys and Aerosmith in American music, the Latin community has that too. That tour was cool because we got to see rock on the other side, something other than American rock. Because everybody that plays here just assumes that this is all there is. You go to other countries – these bands are from Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and it’s really wild. You get to see that they think and do just exactly like we do, just in a different language. It’s a good sign that music breaks language barriers.

A: Do any of you ride bikes? Or do you have any experiences with bikers that you’d care to share?

V: Our former guitar player, Bruce, has a Harley he loves, so he’s the only rider. I (AJ) actually rode, I learned how to ride on his bike. The first motorcycle I ever rode was a Harley. He taught me and he let me ride in the studio parking lot. That’s as far as I went. I didn’t have the cojones to get on a bike and go on the highway.

But with the whole biker thing, when we were in high school, we weren’t old enough to play in bars. So we had these friends who would come out and see us in talent shows, and they were bikers. So they’d go, “Hey man, come play our biker parties!” So we’d play Little Daytona, Biker Blow-Out and all the weekends leading up to it and all those things. So being 16, I mean we’d be playing out in these fields with a power generator, in front of five thousand bikers. Those were the first real gigs where we really became a rock band. Definitely our first foray into a wide spread kind of thing was just bikers taking us under their wings. And we did all their parties. They put us in every one of them.

And once we got older, apparently a lot of these big guys had their own bars so we graduated to the biker bars, which we still thought was great. Bikers were definitely the people that really gave us our first break.

A: How would you describe yourself for someone who has never heard you and doesn’t know anything about you; regarding your sound, your philosophy, or whatever you think.

V: We’re mostly all about family and about staying close, and we have a good unit here. We talk every day. As far as our sound goes, we always tell people it’s hard to compare us to somebody. But we say, it’s more of a “modern day Santana” as far as bringing the Latin culture of the percussion with Jeff, and the Latin rhythms that Alex has and AJ’s playing – we all came from that, it’s our roots. But we also have our influences like Aerosmith, and all the new stuff, too, so it’s one big melting pot of everything that we listened to growing up. Any form of rock, you name it. Classic rock, metal and modern rock, and the grunge era. We’ve always been big fans of rock, so it’s a big mixture of all things rock, with some Santana and Latin percussion in it.

A: Who does most of the writing, and which album are you proudest of?

V: We all write. The new album, Leftovers, is the one we’re the proudest of. We wrote it all together. We also wrote all of Stereo together, too. We tested it on the crowd first, and the songs that made it on that album were the ones that went over well live. The fans help us write the albums because they determine what we’re going to put out by their reactions. So it’s all good.

It is indeed all good. Look for Vallejo in your travels throughout Texas. Or better yet, check their online tour schedule on their website

“Take A Ride” for the sole purpose of catching a show. You’ll be muy contento you did!