Guatemalan group Malacates Trébol Shop enchants with its Latin rock and ska

We have had the opportunity to talk with artists and groups from many Latin American countries and the United States, but so far, we had not had the honor of interviewing anyone from Guatemala. Therefore, it was a pleasure for us to talk to Leonel Fernández and Rodolfo ”Chofo” Fernández, two of the members of the band Malacates Trébol Shop, to whom we dedicate the following lines. 

How did the members of Malacates Trébol Shop get interested in music?   

The band Malacates Trébol Shop already has more than 27 years of creation in the country of origin of its members, which is Guatemala. They started playing ska, which basically, in the words of Leonel Hernández, has been the backbone of everything they have done during this time, but this has not prevented them from flirting with other Latin genres that they also like very much, such as cumbia, reggae, Latin rock, among others.   

bout this, Rodolfo pointed out that each of the members of the band has very diverse musical tastes including rock, pop, jazz, ska, blues, reggae, funk, salsa, bolero, mariachis, among others. So, all the musicians bring to the table their own musical ideas resulting in the sound that the group has today. However, just like Leonel, he emphasized that ska is always the basis on which they build most of their project.   

Previous experience to Malacates Trébol Shop   

Leonel again took the floor to emphasize that all the musicians in the group had already been in other bands before being part of this project with the illusion that at some point they were going to be music professionals fair and square.   

It was in this same musical environment that Leonel, Rodolfo, Jacobo Nitsch, Francisco Paez and other artists met and began to get together. Over time, they all discovered that their views on music were very similar, so it would not be long before each of them would leave the groups they were in to create something on their own.    

They would all get together regularly on weekends to play music, have fun and drink some beers. With the passage of time, they noticed that they were taking things more and more seriously to the point that they decided they had to lay the groundwork for something more formal in the near future.   

This represented for the youngsters the opportunity to do something serious in music for the first time and they were not going to waste it under any circumstances.    

How did the name Malacates Trébol Shop come about?   

The name Malacates Trébol Shop came about just before the first rehearsal of the group because they wanted to baptize the project from the beginning, but the guys wanted something original and, if possible, humorous for people to remember it upon hearing it.    

So, they all began inventing funny names to identify themselves with, such as ”Conchinflín Godinez” or ”Los Champurradas” (a typical Guatemalan bread). This is how one of the boys suggested the name ”malacates”, which was a word used by grannies to refer to children who misbehaved. In addition to that, there was a club in Guatemala called ”Trébol Shop”. This resulted in the current name of the group which is ”Malacates Trébol Shop”.   

When they started to call themselves this way, people generally took it with humor and it caused curiosity, which was exactly what the musicians were looking for. At that time, musical bands used to have elaborate names with many deep meanings, so ”malacates” broke that mold and stood out from others.   

In its first performances, without a doubt, the name was one of the elements that made its early audiences that enjoyed the band live have it in their memory for a long time.    

First professional experiences   

In order for Malacates Trébol Shop to play live for the first time in a formal presentation, the musicians rehearsed for a whole year to make sure all worked out as best as it could.    

In the process, they managed to be played on the radio and generated a lot of expectation around what they could offer with their talent, so many commercial brands wanted to work and sponsor them. One of them was Pepsi, which published a campaign with a Malacates song in the background, which was a great honor for the boys and resulted in a much larger number of concerts and bookings in general.  

Groups and artists who inspired Malacates 

As for the groups and artists who inspired the members of Malacates, we can mention Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, The Skatalites, Grupo SKA-P, Bob Marley, Cultura Profética, among others. 

In addition to this, one of the founding members of Malacates and the band Bohemia Suburbana, Juan Luis Lopera, is one of the first Guatemalan artists to do some Ska in the country, which made him one of the precursors of the genre in the Central American nation.  

They also used to listen very often to the group Madness, Los Auténticos Decadentes and Versuit Vergarabat.  

It is on these groups that Malacates Trébol Shop has based its sound and repertoire since it was conceived as a serious project by its founders and members. 

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