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Once again, the Venezuelan talent in the United States is a source of inspiration for the subject of these lines and it is the turn of Venezuelan musician, sound engineer and DJ Eduardo Ron. The artist has kindly taken a few minutes of his time to answer our questions about his career and group, so here are the most important topics of our conversation.

How Eduardo started in music in his native country

Since Eduardo was just a five-year-old boy, he proved to have a very capable hearing at home and already liked music very much, so his parents decided to enroll him in piano lessons, although he confessed that the instrument was not his thing. At school, he became part of bands with which he gradually found his preferred style and genres.

With these groups, he even competed in school band contests in Caracas, which are very common in the city. Over time, the only one of his close friends who ended up devoting himself to music was him, to the point that he became a ‘’one-man band’’ who took care of almost everything in his own musical project.

It was until 20 years ago where he began to include singers, percussionists and other musicians to be part of his group. That is when he changed the name to ‘’Fondo Blanco’‘, taking Eduardo’s last name, which is Ron (rum in Spanish), as inspiration.

What things Eduardo learned besides the piano

From a very young, Eduardo always liked to have contact with the part of the audio and equipment, which led him to study sound engineering at the Taller de Arte Sonoro. In addition to that, although he loves percussion and masters it to some extent, he was a keyboardist and singer for many years. He is no longer doing either at the moment, as he has decided to devote himself entirely to music production, mixing and mastering.

When Eduardo decided to move to the United States

About 14 or 15 years ago, Eduardo decided to move to the city of Miami due to the political and economic situation in Venezuela at that time. For the same reason, he had no choice but to start from scratch with the project in these new lands and return to play, something he had not done for years, but the situation warranted.

The artist describes the Miami music market as complicated, since the competition is fierce. A huge advantage he had was that he studied English since he was very young, so the language issue was not a problem for him, but that did not make the other drawbacks easier to solve. 

One of the first surprises Eduardo got was that, in Miami, he has done no more than 50 events a year, while in Venezuela he had as many as 140 in a year. This is because the market is gigantic and it is difficult to make a big name in it, not to mention that live orchestras do not have as many bookings as before due to cost reductions.

Two years later, he had already got new artists working with him and his situation had stabilized successfully, although the process was not easy. Moreover, even today, he cannot demand exclusivity from those who work with him because he does not have the economic muscle for that, so he has a long list of musicians whom he calls for certain events. One of the first ones he always calls is Army Zerpa, whom he described as one of the best bassists and arrangers he knows, which is why he has become a key person for his project. 

Artists with whom Fondo Blanco has shared the stage 

Fondo Blanco has been fortunate to share the stage with great artists such as Oscar D’ León, Ricky Martin, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Marc Anthony, among others. Of course, the contact with these luminaries taught Eduardo many things and he assures that one of the best shows he offered was during a Santa Rosa concert, where there were more than 12,000 people. He assures that this is one of those days he will never forget.

However, just as he has had very positive experiences as the previous one, obviously not everything is rosy. The Venezuelan told us that one of those not so good days was during a Ricky Martin concert, an event he had to open that day. It turns out that his equipment was damaged two hours before his turn and he had to try to fix it in front of the crowd of 30,000 people who came to see the Puerto Rican superstar, but nothing he did worked and the audience began to hiss.

That same day, Ricky Martin’s keyboardist asked him to borrow his keyboard because his was damaged and, when returning it, it was totally messed up and what Eduardo had there had been deleted.

Today, although he remembers this with humor, the experience was so unpleasant that it led him not to accept other proposals due to fear that the same thing could happen again. However, once these fears were overcome, he continued to play with his band and has managed to adapt to what the Miami market required both locally and internationally, which shows that the goals and targets should not be disregarded no matter however difficult the circumstances become and Eduardo Ron is a great example of that.

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Puerto Rican singer Max Rosado is one more example of everything Puerto Ricans have accomplished and continue to achieve on a musical level in the United States, so it is a great pleasure for us to speak with this phenomenal artist about his life and career in the following lines. Below are the most important topics covered in our conversation with Rosado.

What caught Max’s attention in music in the first place?

Since he was very little, Max always had a great love for music and this is largely due to his mother, who loved salsa and instilled this taste in her son from a very young age. She loved La Fania All Stars, Hector Lavoe and Frankie Ruiz, who were practically the first artists Max listened to as a child.

As he grew up, he also listened to other salsa exponents such as Jerry Rivera, Rey Ruiz and Luis Enrique, who strengthened in the youngster his taste for romantic salsa which was very fashionable at the time. 

Since he was six or seven, Max was already singing those songs he always listened to on the radio, but he did not take formal music classes until he was 17, which is when he took his artistic inclinations much more seriously. Moreover, at the university level, he started to get involved in bomba, plena and salsa ensembles, thanks to which he met Ramon Sanchez, who is Jerry Rivera’s musical director and arranger for many other artists such as Jerry himself, Frankie Ruiz and Gilberto Santa Rosa. 

Professional start in music

The mentorship he received through these ensembles he played with helped him enormously and his first professional contact with salsa was in 2011 with Rey Ruiz, for whom he worked doing backing vocals and with Guillermo Calderon, who gave him the opportunity to do some dates with them.

He was also able to work with great arranger Tommy Villariny, who worked for El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. Gilberto Santa Rosa and finally his son Oscar Villariny. Thanks to this contact, Max may have formed part of the orchestra Villariny Salsa Project for some time.

All these experiences were teaching him what he needed to know about the Puerto Rican musical environment and the musicians of his homeland. He has also been able to improve as an artist and have more experience in the genre.

All this adds up to his training at the university with classes related to piano, arrangements, improvisation and other areas of music to understand it and his colleagues so much better.

The 7th St. Band

Back in 2020, Max was planning on forming his own band and finally becoming independent. When he left Puerto Rico and moved to Washington DC in 2018, he met people like Leonardo García, Dominic Patrick Noel and Eduardo Padua, who were also working on their own projects and aroused the artist’s interest in exploring the idea of creating his orchestra again.

It was then that, the following year, he started to perform with his own group in Cincinnati, specifically at an event known as Salsa On The Square. Since then, he could finally make his dream come true and sing live with his own project, with which he has been able to travel to various cities.

As for the name of the group, The 7th St. Band, it owes it to the name of the street Max grew up in Puerto Rico, but he translated it into English to give it that American touch it has.

What has Max learned from the artists he has worked with?

Just like Max has worked with Jerry Riera and Ray Ruiz, he also did the same with Luisito Carrion, Ismael Miranda, Jose Alberto El Canario, Daniela Darcourt, among many others. When we wanted to know what he learned from these big names in the industry, he explained that he tends to observe other artists and their engagement with the public to learn well from each one. In the case of Daniela Darcourt, he told us that her talent, interpersonal gifts and human warmth pleasantly surprised him and he was glad to have been able to meet and work with her.

By working with El Canario, Max noted that he was ”a master of the stage” who has an exceptional and admirable audience management. Talking again about Jerry Rivera, it was an honor for him to have worked with ”El Niño Bonito” of the 90’s whose songs are still chanted with the same feeling as many years ago.

Something that Max admires about all of them is the way they have maintained their positions over the years. He himself notices it in his shows when he plays some of their iconic songs and makes people go crazy with happiness. These are timeless lyrics and artists that Max hopes to belong to one day. 

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