Artists

Latin talent has been spreading across the United States over the years and every day more salsa bands and orchestras are becoming better known in states where we never would have imagined before. Such is the case of Grupo Batachá, known as ”Houston’s Premier Latin Band”, which is established in the state of Texas and whose director, Oscar Larrañaga, was kind enough to give us some minutes of his time to answer some questions regarding his career and the group lead by him.   

Oscar’s beginnings in the music world 

Oscar has told us that as a child he always knew he was meant to devote himself to music. Even since he was in preschool, he showed signs of how would be his future in music by showing interest in certain instruments and styles.   

The musical figure who has inspired him most in his family was his great-grandfather, who was part of a philharmonic. Oscar heard many stories about the musician, the way he played and how good he was at what he did, which led his great-grandson to want to be like him someday.    

It should be noted that, at all stages of his formation, he never obtained any academic training related to music. Everything he knows about the job he has learned on his own through constant practice and attention to everything he wanted to emulate.    

However, it was in 1990 that his career officially began many years later in the United States. It was there when he finally decided to create a project with a few musicians he began to perform at Latino family events such as weddings, quinceañeras, birthdays, among other events. This gave him the necessary experience to know how an orchestra works on stage and, of course, fitted for what was to come next in his career.   

How Grupo Batachá began   

Oscar revealed to us that Grupo Batachá was founded in 1997 in Houston, Texas, and made up of the artist and four other members who joined him at that time. They all decided together that Oscar was the best choice to lead the band and chose him as their director, a position he still holds today. Many members have come and gone, but he has always managed to ”keep the ship afloat” at all times despite the changes.   

He explained to us that the name ”batachá” is a term that comes from Cuba and its literal meaning is ”fun times”. In addition, when he was in his early twenties, Oscar met the members of a group with the same name in Guatemala and liked it very much from the first time he heard it. For him, ”batachà” is synonymous with fun and having a good time, things he sees represented in his work with the band. That is why his album is called ”Batachando” and would be something like ”disfrutando” in Spanish.   

Languages played by Grupo Batachá   

While it is true that Grupo Batachá makes music in several languages such as Spanish, English and Portuguese, Oscar wanted to make it very clear that everything he and his bandmates do is aimed at salsa influenced by the typical Cuban flavor that comes from drums and Yoruba culture, elements that are primarily handled in Spanish. This is why the main language of the group is and will continue to be Spanish.   

In terms of clave, it is much easier for the group to get into the correct rhythm in Spanish for what we have explained above. For the same reason, English, Portuguese and any other language are not a priority for Batachá at this time.    

How Grupo Batachá manages its performances 

During the band’s 15-year trajectory, Grupo Batachá has performed at more than a hundred weddings, quinceañeras, birthday parties, anniversaries, corporate events, among others. In each and every one of these performances, Oscar and his bandmates have always stood out for their professionalism and great musical quality, so they have no problem to obtain contracts and clients of this kind very often.   

As for the method the band uses to select their clients, there is not much to explain. Oscar simply gives priority to the client who agrees on a date first and then tries to reach an agreement with the one who makes his request later, although he emphasized that this does not happen very often.   

About this, he said he feels very lucky to bring joy to different types of public with what he likes more than anything in the world, which is music. It makes him really happy to be able to live from what he loves and, by extension, to transmit that same happiness to those who have the opportunity to attend one of his shows. 

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Medusa Pop Band is a group based in the city of Calgary, Canada, that is mainly focused on the Spanish language and Latin rhythms of the 80s and 90s, so it has some very particular characteristics that distinguish it from other bands that can be found in the aforementioned country.  

As we found everything about the Medusa Pop Band very interesting, we contacted its manager to talk to some of its members and know a little more about the band. This is how we have managed to have a wonderful conversation with Lorena Galindo, Eduardo Infante and Willy García, who talked a bit about their beginnings, styles and future projects.   

Musical backgrounds of the current members of Medusa Pop Band 

As is the case with most bands like this, its members have already been part of other groups until they met and came together to do completely new things. This is how Lorena, vocalist and founding member of the group, who has been working with versatile music for more than 40 years, explains that she had the idea to create this project just two years ago. She even worked with the famous actress and singer Lucero and belongs to the musicians’ union in Mexico City.   

In Eduardo’s case, he has more than 25 years of experience in rock in his home country Mexico, until he decided to move to Canada to try his luck. That was when he met Lorena and was invited to join Medusa Pop Band as the lead bass player.   

On the other hand, Willy has five years of experience in music, so he would be the one who has the least time in this world, which does not diminish the importance of the role he plays. He was in a group called De Cajón, but when receiving the proposal of Medusa Pop Band, he decided that this was what he was looking for and accepted to be the percussionist and be in charge of ”embellishing” the songs, as he himself describes it. 

How Medusa Pop Band was created 

Eduardo heavily emphasizes that the one who started the whole project and put together the team is Lorena, and subsequently, the rest of the team joined his idea. In his case, he saw an advertisement on the internet saying that a group was looking for new members and he was postulated to be part of Medusa. He mentions that what attracted him to this proposal was the style of pop handled by the group and the possibility of playing the bass, which he loved being able to do since he had always played the guitar and it represented a challenge for him. 

Willy commented that he lived very near to Lorena’s home and they already had a friendship for a long time. When he found out that Lorena was also a musician, he was invited to rehearse with the rest of the band and loved the kind of music he listened to and professionalism of the musicians there, so he stayed with them.  

With regard to the name of the band, Lorena explains that she had always wanted to do something with the famous figure from Greek mythology Medusa, in addition there was a nightclub called 

Medusa in Mexico City the singer liked a lot, so it all added up to being the name chosen for her band. In the end, the word ‘‘pop” was added because of the main genre on which the group bases its discography. 

Why choose Canada to establish Medusa Pop Band? 

‘‘We have chosen Canada to establish the band basically because we all live here and it was in this country that we all met. There was no way for Medusa Pop Band to be born in any other country but this one” said Lorena about the reasons why to establish the band in this country.  

On this, Willy added that the diversity of nationalities in the group has been a great advantage for them in Calgary, as that has allowed each member to bring their own essence to the music they are doing. ‘‘It’s very important for us to have more diversity in the rhythms we choose to make more people happy and please a wider audience. I think Canada is an excellent country for that” said the percussionist. 

Receptivity of the Canadian public towards Medusa Pop Band’s Spanish-language music  

Eduardo has said that the reception from the Canadian public towards them has been warm and has come from less to more. In fact, he commented that the amount of assistants to their shows has been growing exponentially and every day the band are gaining more and more fans at the local level.  

”Currently, we only have music in Spanish because we are focused on the Latin American and Spanish-speaking community, but we also have a musical amalgam of different countries and cultures, which makes Medusa Pop Band even more magical. We are always looking to please all types of audiences” Eduardo continued explaining. 

Lorena also added that she and her bandmates have found that many Canadians love Spanish, to the point that they have learned that many fans have started taking Spanish classes to understand their lyrics, which makes them extremely happy and motivates them to keep creating more and better music.   

Challenges Medusa Pop Band has had to face 

Eduardo took the floor again to affirm that one of the biggest challenges facing the band has been finding Spanish-speaking musicians because there are not many in Calgary and the vast majority of them already have their own projects and bands, so getting the necessary elements for the group has not been an easy task. 

To these words, Willy adds that the hardest thing to find are singers who speak Spanish, so he is glad Lorena handles that part. Faced with these challenges, he ended up by saying that the support of their families has been fundamental in order to move forward, and like any other band, its members spend many hours rehearsing each day of the week. That is why the understanding of their partners and children has made it much easier for them to follow this difficult path to the success they have achieved. 

Nationalities in Medusa Pop Band 

One of the most interesting things about Medusa Pop Band is that its members come from very diverse countries like Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Vietnam and China. This makes the group have elements with a variety of musical cultures so diverse that it could complicate the picture when agreeing to work on their music. 

What Willy has to say about this is that the Latin musicians have a certain ”feeling” to play the music, while the Asians have a completely different one, so guitarist Kalvin Ma and keyboardist Lee Que Long have gone the extra mile to engage with the rest of the team and play their instruments as is required. 

In this regard, Lorena stressed that both Calvin and Lee have done a great job all these years and their contribution to the group has been immeasurable, since they also propose techniques and add different sounds to those already known. 

What has made things difficult for the aforementioned musicians is the language, as they do not speak Spanish and the rest of the band can only communicate with them in English, but that is no impediment to fulfill their role to the fullest. 

What makes them call themselves an eighties and nineties band? 

Once again, Lorena took the floor to explain that the group describes itself as an eighties and nineties band because many fans of their work who are contemporaries with them, but that does not stop them from playing music of all kinds and all eras, either from the 80s or this same year. What they seek is to make different arrangements so that their covers sound different than their original versions. 

It can be said that the age group that most often follows them goes from 18 to 50 years old, giving Medusa Pop Band a huge range of action. Additionally, the word ”pop” is too general and gives them the possibility to choose from a large range of genres and rhythms that captivate an ever wider audience. 

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