Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Twin Tribes

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Twin Tribes. Coming out of Brownsville, Texas, Twin Tribes — the pair of Luis Navarro and Joel Niño Jr., whose intoxicating sound owes much to ’80s darkwave — have accumulated millions of streams without ever losing touch with their DIY roots. Releasing songs through DistroKid, creating their visuals, and touring internationally, they’ve built out the band on their own terms. Ahead of their European and Latin American dates, the duo stopped by the Artist Friendly studio to dissect their independent success. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with Luis Navarro and Joel Nino Jr. Yes, that's right, folks. I found another Joel out there. He's here today. They're from the Dark Wave post-punk band Twin Tribes. Let's go.

Twin Tribes. Yeah. Thanks for coming. How are you guys doing? So excited to be here. Yeah. Thanks for. having us really. I'm glad I we could have both of you usually we only do one person but like I was we were

talking about it and we're like we got to figure out how to do at least two people and this is our first two person in the chairs so I'm very happy about that thank you guys that's awesome yeah yeah how's it going that's good good yeah yeah yeah it's been great great weather out here so yeah it's been how long have you been in L.A got here yesterday right yeah okay flew in Yesterday. Cool. Yeah, yeah. Is the tour done?

Yes. I mean, at least for the U.S. we're done. That leg of the tour is done. Yeah, I don't think we have any more U.S. shows for the rest of the year. No, yeah, yeah, it's all done. Yeah, we've got a Canadian one we're going to fly in a little bit later on this month, actually. How was the tour?

It was amazing. It was called Darker Skies Tour, and the first leg was with the Chameleons and Clan of Cymox. And the second leg was with Traders Forever Grey and SoftVane. And both were, both were a blast. Yeah, we actually got to play Anaheim, got the Hasse Blues, and then we did the Wiltern here. So great, you know, both really cool venues just to, LA's always been really good to us. Yeah. Well, they like that, like, dark synth pop slash, like, goth slash, like, the thing you guys do, which I think it's like rock and roll.

It's like, alt, alternative, like, but it's darker. I grew up listening in my, like, later teens when I started diving deeper into, like, Back in the 90s, there was like a big industrial kind of wave. And the music that I think people would like, in popular culture, you think nine and snails. But I think that's a great representation of this like subgenre and subculture of like all this darker electronic music. There was this big goth night in D.C. that was at a huge venue. It ended up growing to become like really big night. But there was bands like V&V Nation.

Womskut, Apoptingma Berserk, like these 90s, like Gothic industrial. Skinny puppy. Skinny puppies, I would say like a more mainstream, like, but still in that world of like, but they, those bands like skinny puppy, nine inch nails, you could even say like Depeche Mode and New Order and all those all in those same world of like this like darker industrial sounding, but the subculture of it was like all these gothic industrial bands that we used to go and see and my brother was really into it. But you guys remind me of like all that stuff in a really great like true fashion. It feels like you're just fucking living it. That's definitely high praise.

Yeah. We're, you know, fans of all these bands, Skinny Puppy, you know, we have a close friend that played with them for a while. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's funny. Traders were just on tour the V&V Nation maybe a year ago. I fucking love VNVNation. Yeah, yeah. One of my favorites. Yeah. I still go back to that stuff.

Nice. Apoptigma Berserk, I promise you, dive in. Okay. They have a bunch of, I would say they have like three records that I like. Just dive into the Poptima Berserk wormhole. What else was there? There was, um, we just played with somebody. Who was the one that we played with in Houston?

London after midnight, kind of, uh, somewhat. I don't know. London after midnight, I was kind of there a little bit. It's such a good world. Yeah. It's amazing. I mean, we've come up from, you know, the underground about seven years ago. We kind of started it all. And so we've kind of grown into it. And the scene is just a really beautiful, you know, we help each other out. You know, we would get each other shows through message boards and stuff like that. So in general, like it's been around since like you said, the 90s even before that, the 80s. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very DIY. It seems like it's a, it seems like it's a very small scene. But, Yeah, like Joel said, everybody helped us out in the beginning. It was those booking shows, getting into Facebook groups, trying to figure out where there's a scene. Yeah, yeah, trying to find your people. Yeah. Because there's a lot of people who like this style of music, but it's interesting because you could go play with any band, but also when you're playing to your crowd and to people that are

inclined, it's a different kind of show. That being said, what I think about twin tribes when I listen to the music is you have a real ability to play the, you know, the industrial scene in the set, or you could go and play with any rock band. And I think it's nice to be able to do that, you know, and you don't need to play for a crowd that just wants to hear the, you know, the industrial synth pop kind of music. Out of this emerging kind of scene, I think you guys have, is why I wanted you here was I think you have a good grasp on the songs. in the songwriting and the music as a, you know, rock as a overall genre is like, that's my world.

That's my favorite, you know. And I love to see bands that many merge out of like a subculture into a mass or bigger audience that could maybe get into this subculture because they heard a song, you know, just like we all did when we heard Sinich Nails on the radio back in the 90s. Yeah, it's a little different now, right? Like you, we get a lot of like, oh, you know, we heard this song on a video. or a compilation, you know, on TikTok or on Instagram or whatever. So it's a cool thing.

Again, you mentioned like the little, not the little, but the underground scene. And there's pockets everywhere. You know, we've managed to kind of connect the dots throughout these years and kind of, you know, build a little bit of a name for ourselves and build our own little fan base. And it's been a really cool experience. Yeah. And now, finally, you mentioned it because we are trying to, you know, be paired.

or, you know, be able to play with somebody outside of, you know, post-punk or darkwave or, you know, what you mentioned. I think there's been some, you know, tours that I've seen like a darkwave band and a metal band. And it just works super good. I mean, we played a festival in Houston that was, you know, all basically was like black metal and thrash. And they had us do the after party. And that was like one of the coolest shows that we've ever played just because the audience was a little different, you know, than we're used to. two, those mosh pits, like, you know, one or two broke out. So that's always kind of cool to see for, in our genre anyways.

But, but yeah, like, it's cool to be paired with all these different types of rock bands. And, you know, of course, we love our own, our own scene too. You mentioned it's an affair and people come out, they get decked out. They have all the makeup on. Yeah, yeah, they have the suits, canes. I love it. It's beautiful. I love, like, we just used to call it Goth Night.

Yeah. And, like, I used to love it because I, I, I, I, could never really pull it off but i would love to go and be around all of it it's just so it's so great we welcome you come what a what a scene what a great scene yeah it's so cool it's it's beautiful it really is yeah we're so close to our hearts because you know it's and it's not only here in the us i mean we go to like south america and we've gone to mexico now we've had our first shows there last year right and it's just the the passion you know like what do you think you'd is with the Latin culture and the dark wave because I noticed that too. Even if you think about like

in L.A. I would say in the broader world of rock, you have over the years, good Charlotte, we had a lot of fans in L.A. and in South America and across the world. But in South America, in L.A. and Texas. We have a lot of Latino fans. Remember like the Morrissey cult? Like the cult fans of Morrissey here in L.A. It was like a thing. They did a story on it. Because to me, that's in the world as well. Like Marcy to me has always kind of like had one foot in the world of like everybody who loves like this like kind of dark wave music when they think about the Smith or you think about the cure. There's like these certain bands that kind of live in that world a little bit. What do you think it is about the music that just like why those fans love it so much. I'm not sure. I'm not sure the

Morrissey correlation between a little Latinos because everybody like seems to love the Smiths and Morrissey. But I feel like it's a, I don't know, maybe also, for example, our South American tour has been my favorite because of the energy, the reaction of the crowd. But I also feel like they don't get to see these acts very frequently. So whenever they do, there's some sort of like a almost a bitomania thing you know people following us to our hotel running behind the van and you know trying to grab your hand but your ring falls or you know it's it's very weird i'm not sure exactly why and you get these uh kind of feelings like oh we're not worthy you know of all this kind of you know thing but um you know like like lewis mentioned you know there was

fans waiting for us at the airport you want to sign stuff like how how did you know we're going to be here at this time and and and then like the guy that ran after us in peru and as well. It was crazy. But, you know, I think with South America in general, yeah, like Luis mentioned, there's, there's just a love of music. Yeah. That is just all encompassing for them. And it's just like, it's not just, it's not just music. It's like just a love, you know, a passion. Yeah, passion. Yeah. And not to say that, you know, people from other areas are not passionate at all, but it's just a different thing. Because when you go, when we tour there, it's different.

It's like, it's different. I can't explain it. It's passion. You feel it. Like they live it. And maybe it's like, yeah,

I don't know. But it's different. There's other countries too where you feel like culturally, like Japan, when you go there and you play your music, it's different. And it leaves a like mark on you.

It leaves like an impression on you because there's just this like excitement and energy and passion that you've never experienced. And every different cult, every different country and culture. I'd almost say that every place has its version of that, but the South American version of that,

the Japanese version of that is just different. So it's like you really notice it. You're like, holy shit, they're living this. Like, yeah, that's crazy. That South American tour has been my favorite. It changed our lives. I don't think we had ever seen or heard so many people seeing our songs like that. I mean, I remember.

And then I'll speak for Louise here too. I mean getting like choked up you know it's like one of those things like oh yeah you know I don't ever remember like getting so emotional about it but that I mean again we've been doing this for for for a bit now and and that's like the only time that I can remember because usually when we're on stage it's like you know it's go time it's persona like you know I don't even talk on stage when I'm on stage you know right so that's cool yeah yeah but and so it's like I wish I would have started that persona it's too late for me yeah It's never too late.

But yeah, you know, but it's one of those things that it means a lot to us. Obviously, you know, we're Mexican, American. And so it just means a lot to us, you know. And I think it's reciprocated by the fans, especially in Latin America and Mexico when we go there. And so, yeah, it's like, it's just this vibe and energy that it's just not the same anywhere else we go. But I think you guys are at a really exciting jump off from where you've come to now. you're at the forefront of the career that you dreamed of. Oh, yeah.

We're already, I mean, a couple of years ago, I was already saying we're living the dream, dude. Yeah, I know. Can't get any better than this, right? No, no, no, no. Now it's just, like, the fun part. The fun part, let's, you know, how can we make the shows better?

You know, playing with better bands, bigger bands, I'm sorry. And some better. Sure, you know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's the truth. Yeah, yeah. You say it the truth. It doesn't always sound.

Yeah, you know. Nice. The truth ain't always nice. But, but yeah, yeah, better bands, bigger bands. And I guess to going back to your point where, like, you know, you formulate this way of getting you to that next, next achievement, next goal, next success, really, right? In your career, in your life, whatever you want to do. But yeah, you know, like, you just got to do it. You know, I guess, you know, that's just it. That's just it. You just got to fucking do it. What do you think the most challenging thing about being an independent band is? I think that some people probably just, it's hard for them to bet on themselves and to just say, you know what, fuck it, I'm going to do this, whether I get a yes or no from a label, I'm going to do it.

And I feel like the biggest challenge is just that. Just do it. You don't need anybody. And I feel like some people might, you know, either slow down or just wait. But we bumped into that music videos, everything that encompasses, you know, us, releasing, I feel like was, you know, there were challenges for us. The challenges that we just tried to, again, find solutions to find people who were like-minded in our goal to get to that next level.

When we started off, again, we weren't on a label, but we made partners. Like Luis mentioned a label in Spain who was like, hey, can we put out your record? You did like a one-off with them. Yeah, we did a one-off with them. That's smart. Yeah. And then another record label in Germany reached out like, hey, can I keep producing these for you?

And we're like, sure, that sounds cool. We didn't have the money to do it then. France for CDs. And then we had somebody in here in the U.S. who was willing to do CDs, but never somebody that was like, okay, we're just going to, you need a sign with us kind of thing. It's more like a partnership. Okay, let's work it out.

But yeah, you know. These were all like things that we bumped into like distribution and things like that. And it's just like if we would have said, all right, well, you know. Yeah. Wouldn't you say, though, that by forcing yourself, to do it, you learned some people are waiting for someone else to do it. And some people just go and do it. Right. And by just going and doing it, you learned on the other side of doing it, you have this like this skill set you didn't have before, right? Like I would bet now if I said,

hey, if you don't make a record, put it out, put it on all the DSPs, find vinyl. If I held a gun to your head and said, do it or else, you could do it. It's like if someone held a gun to my head and said, write a song, I could write a song. I didn't know how to write a song when I was 15. I just started trying. And then I learned how to write a song. Yeah, I agree. What else do you guys want to talk about? We've been playing a couple of covers every now and then, you know, just to keep things interesting. And we live like in a border city. Yeah. So I grew up in Mexico, a big rock and Espanol fan. And so we started playing covers of South American bands or Mexican bands every now and then. And we've been doing it for maybe two or three years.

And people have been saying you should put it out on Spotify. You should record it. So we finally recorded two covers and we're going to release them. It's just a small EP. Sick. And that's coming soon. Just really because we love those songs. love rock in Spanish and we want to, you know, just put it out there.

Like one of them's Lovo Ombre in Paris, right? By La Union. By the union. And then the other one's Tren al-Sur. By those prisoners. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just, you know, us, you know, giving back because it's really not about

anything else other than, you know, these are things that we grew up with. Yeah, yeah. It's like acknowledging and honoring something that has like this emotion. value to you that you also share with other people. I bet it goes off live too. Oh, it does. Right. When we were in South America playing Trena al-Sur,

it was just, it was crazy. Like Joel said, I couldn't even sing at that point because I wanted to cry. It was just crazy. It was just the fact of, you know, that we were able to be there. Yeah. So it was just crazy.

Yeah, it's like for the music. Absolutely. And, you know, one of those, one of the things that that is we play it live so like people are kind of like oh awesome you know like a lot of people know it a lot of people don't you know depending on where we're playing it right we can be in connecticut and they probably don't know these songs because yeah but a good song is a good song but you know what i kind of like about it is that we are also bringing this to our fans and our you know the people that may not be their live can now hear these songs and be like oh these are

really good and well let me let me go back and see who the covers from and then go through their discography and then be like how we were when we first listened to these songs and and we're inspired by them and and so hopefully it serves us as a little gateway to that too so it's really cool i think it's great i think also like there's something about like sharing a part of your like whether it's your childhood or it's your or it's like an experience that you had like with a song somewhere like let's say you were in Mexico and like the first time you heard this song you had a feeling or you're at a concert and you heard it or wherever it's the joy of like why we do music in the first place if we let go of that we get lost if we hold on to the joy of

music and the pain the joy the pain everything that music is well what music does is it is it brings us all together and it gives us a place to go when we're alone to not feel alone and it's something like when we all come together and we're happy or we feel all together that's what music does that is why it has to exist right because it makes life more livable right makes life okay in pain in joy, in all the emotions of life, there's music for all of it. In our sadness, we can listen to music to comfort us. In our joy, we can listen to music to celebrate. In heartbreak, we can listen to music to soothe us.

It's the soundtrack of life, right? And like, think about movies and TV, if there was no music, would not fucking work. And that's what music is for life, for our everyday life. And to bring a song that makes you feel something. something from a place to Connecticut or to Germany or to wherever connects us all so that people can feel the joy of that song that they may have not ever checked out otherwise, but also whoever that artist was that wrote it. This is the other magical part. It's like you could write a song and then 10 years or 20 years from now some artists connected with your song and brings it

over to these people over here or over there. And your art is living in a different way than it was 20 years ago. And that's the most important part about art is like, be careful to judge the result too fast because we don't know when a song is going to have its moment and where and why. And so that's why put the song first, write it, believe in it, love it, give it all you got. And then put it out once you feel it's done. It's like a painting or whatever. And then let it live. And you don't know where or who or why,

but that song could emerge and it could do what you meant for it to do. You know, when you wrote that song, if you were in love, or if you were heartbroken, or if you were in pain, or you were happy, those are the basic emotions. That's it with songs. It either makes you, it soothes your sadness or makes you sad. Either way, it's soothing. It expresses the love you feel for someone.

makes you happy or it gets your anger out. You know, I mean, like it's like a healthy way to, instead of going and beating someone up, you just, yeah, you could scream along to the song.

You know, those are the basics. If you capture that and you do what you meant to do and then you let it live, like you never know where, when that song is going to find its way and how many people it's going to touch along the way. That's why I always kind of,

I think I learned that in the, process of making records after having some success with like hit songs or whatever that you wouldn't have even thought we didn't like when we wrote that song or that song we weren't trying to write a hit we were trying to express ourselves and then you have enough of them and then you go well I think I need to write a hit and you're like what's a hit sound like and then you're like chase you're running around in a circle and you end up right back where you started where you're like I think I just need to express myself and how I'm feeling and then you get back on track so I think covers are really, are really great and important.

And also just like, it's a nice way to share your life, like, what you can't, like, what you experienced through that song with people. So that's dope. So I'm gonna, and like my music, my hair can't change with me. And he has to be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine of Sebastian professional, has all what my cabo needs. Nutrition Profunda. Protection Contral Carta. 99%

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not are not even they're they're they're they're really is sick

yeah yeah and they're in Spanish yes that's cool yes both of them are in

Spanish one of them the original band is from Chile the Pissieneros and the other one is from Spain

the Union So and coincidentally when we played Madrid and we played this cover people went off they went off That's so loud and off and when we went to Santiago in Chile and we played that other cover They're going off it was crazy yeah so so crazy that's sick yeah so cool you just don't get those feeling I mean it's just like this perfect moment you know and those are the things that you kind of live for as an artist I mean that's the reason why you know we kind of started it all right I'm so jealous that you guys can do bilingual, like you can do English and Spanish. Yeah. It's, uh, it's fun for us. And, and, you know, where we're from, border town, everybody's speaking Spanish.

Yeah. Spanglish left and right. Yeah. So, so, yeah, we knew really early in the game that we needed to, you know, have a song in Spanish, especially, you know, us being Latino and being from Mexico. Uh, yeah, we, it was, it was really important for us to have, to have Spanish and. And, you know, we get that, the thing, too, it's like, oh, you know, we love it when you're writing in Spanish and because it sounds really nice. It's a beautiful language. It's a beautiful language.

It's a beautiful language. Like when the music, when you get a song in Spanish, it's hard to beat. Yeah. Yeah. And, and,

you know, also for, again, we talk about, you know, the South America and Mexico and how like you, we write in Spanish

and like they feel kind of like a represent, represented, you know? Yeah. And they see us up there. And we get this a lot too when we're playing live. and fans will come up to us and they'll say, yeah, like, you know, it is just so good to see,

in our genre anyways, somebody that looks like me or somebody that, you know, knows our roots and the culture. And, like, we do that with pride and with love. And it's very special to us to be able to do it. Just looking at the Spotify numbers, like so many of our fans are Hispanic, Latino. You know, Brazil is huge. LA that you know there's so many Hispanics as well you know

and yeah of course LA more people speak Spanish yeah yeah in Los Angeles yeah it's like Joe said it's so cool to share to wave the flag and you know me specifically

you know being here or being able to travel and tourists totally totally crazy for me because I grew up undocumented for so many years I finally was able to get DACA like in 2013 that's when I started

being able to travel in the US legally. And what was that process? It was, you know, being undocumented, it was, you know, not fun. You know, I was in college and high school. I'll throw out school. I was undocumented. And when I was able to get DACA, that was just like amazing. I was like, wow, well, I'm barely going to graduate from college.

Now I can actually work here where I'm living, you know. So that was just amazing. And eventually, you know, you. You know, Joel and I, when we started the project, all we could do is tour the U.S. And you couldn't go international. Yeah, we couldn't go to Europe, couldn't go to Mexico, couldn't go to South America. Because you couldn't come and go. I couldn't come back. Okay.

I can only live here legally. So we did have some very early invitations to play WGT in Europe. And you couldn't go. And we couldn't go. And it was just like, yeah, this is all we can do until we submitted. I didn't know about it, but we submitted a special permit to try. for people that had DACA like me. Right.

And by this time, the band is starting to grow. We were like three or four years in, and we were able to submit like, well, this is, you know, my work. You know, we're gonna have a tour that's 30 days in Europe and telling USCIS exactly how we're going to travel. And fortunately, that was approved. And when that was approved,

Joel and I went crazy, you know. It was like the first time that we're gonna be able to play. able to play. And yeah, once we made it back and, you know, learned how to, you know, use the system and how to be able to work around it. It just didn't work. I didn't think about that. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Again, one of those, you mentioned walls. I mean, you know, like one of those things that we had to, you know, figure out, like how, what can we do? And thankfully, there was the DACA program and Lisa was able to get that work permit. And yeah, that was four years in, you know. Yeah. Yeah. four years in before we could even think about even trying to do anything like that. So

we're very grateful to be able to do it now. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, fortunately after that, once I got the permit to leave, I came back that granted me like a legal entry. Years later, I get married and, you know, just my status. So now fortunately, Joel and I are able to travel and, you know, to South America, Europe and all that stuff. Thinking about doing Japan and Australian, New Zealand next year, hopefully. Hopefully, hopefully. Yeah. So just the fact that we're able to travel is just, it's just wild.

Yeah. Yeah. Privilege really, you know, at this point. Well, I think it's crazy to say that because I feel like you should just be able to go wherever you want. But I understand how complicated it is. But at the same time, I think, you know, I think it's really good, though, like even me just hearing that, I just think about like.

Oh my God, I didn't even think about that. Having that up against you to be able to like go wherever you want and do what you want. And then, you know, it's not a unique case. There's a bunch of artists here in the U.S., you know, with the same problems. And, you know, it's good to also be able to say that, you know, there's a way to do it, right? I mean, at least for us, it kind of like we went, Luis went through that process and took a long time. And does it change with each president or something? or like, does it change every, or is it a program that's always kind of the same?

It was tricky because I think that things did change. Like, is it worse now? Is it harder now? Yeah, the new president definitely changed some of the, you know, I don't know, some of the regulations or stuff, you know, at least some of the times of when you can apply for it. I think that you can't apply for it right now. I'm not sure.

But yeah, definitely brought a lot of changes. We have a lot of friends from abroad artists from Italy and some parts from Europe that, you know, come and trying to get their visas to play here and to work here legally. I hear that it's also difficult. Spending thousands of dollars for them to just reject them or not get an answer at all. Right. It's just another reality of where we are in the moment, you know. Yeah.

But definitely to everyone that's in a similar boat to myself, you know, there's hope. There's hope so. Well, I'm glad you got it. Yeah. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. It definitely, it helped us, you know. But in a fuck yeah, you gotta.

Need to. Got a tour international. You've got to go to the whole world. You have to. And we would get for years like, well, you know, come over here to Chile or come to Europe. And what haven't you come yet? Like every time we would post a U.S. tour, it was always like that. And we're like, we wish we could.

We just can't, you know, we can't do it. Fortunately, you know, there's a way, you know, don't feel like there's a wall in bucket. Yeah. You have to stay there. And you live in Texas? Yeah, we both live in Texas. Okay, cool. Yeah.

And again, border towns like we're right on the border with Mexico. Right, right, yeah. Where did you grow up? It's called Matamoros. It's a border city between Brownsville, which is the U.S. side where I live now, and Matamoros is where I was born. Okay. And where did you grow up? I grew up in Los Fresnos, which is like about, what, 15 minutes away from Brownsville.

So the same thing. We call it the Real Grand Valley. But my mom was also from Mexico. She came over and she's from Rio Bravo, Tama Olipas, which is, that whole strip is Tamo Lippas, where, you know, our families are from. What's the, like, major city near Brownsville? I think, I would say McAllen. Yeah, McCallon, which is where close to Jewel.

Yeah, I live near McAllen now. So McCallon's like that one dot. Usually people will say maybe San Antonio. Okay. And San Antonio is like four hours north. Oh, wow. Texas is big. Yeah.

Yeah, Texas is big. That's a real drive. Yeah. But McCallin has been getting more popular and bands know McCallin. So you mentioned McCallin. They'll be like, oh, yeah, I know McCallie. Yeah, yeah, McCallin's again. So we get a lot of big artists come out there now.

So it's really cool. It's really cool. But yeah, you know, that's, again, the closest big city, San Antonio. And then, but McCallon is that little dot there besides Brownsville. It's Brownsville and McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley. So mostly Spanish speaking. I mean, you know, about. big population down there speak Spanish yeah yeah I grew up you know speaking both languages and

it feels it feels it feels like it's very small San Diego yeah yeah it's just to put it in it really does yeah we go to San Diego and it's like oh it feels like home except yeah San Diego is awesome yeah yeah such beautiful breeze because you don't really well I grew up in Maryland on the East Coast so it's a little it's different it's like East Coast but yeah yeah then I moved to California and it's a different world. Once I moved here, I was like, I'm never going back. And I've been here for 20-some years. But when you go to San Diego, you forget that Mexico's our neighbor. Like that you think of, I don't know why, but you think like, oh, you have to fly there. You always have to, you always think, like,

oh, I have to fly there. Yeah. If you're not from the southwest, you're from the East Coast. Mexico sounds like this exotic place that you have to get on a plane and you fly and then you land and you're in like fucking Cancun or something. And then we started touring. Mexico and we did like Guadalajara, Monterey, all these places that they're like, oh, this is a big place with all these different cities. And then you go to San Diego and you're like, oh, I could literally just walk over or drive over and it becomes more real to you. Like, and it's not this like vacation place. You're like, oh, it's like a real place. I mean, that sounds stupid probably, but like I think you live in a bubble when you grow up in America sometimes and you think of all these.

places and you only like kind of identify places with either what you see on the news or just these like generalized dumb ways of seeing and then you go on tour and you're like oh every country's the same yeah like your fans are the same in every place beautiful people yeah everywhere you go yeah just with a ton of heart you know and and it's that's one of those things like you you you you get in our, I guess, profession line of work, you get to travel and meet all these cultures and you get to meet all these beautiful people and realize that

you know, we're all humans. Everybody is literally just everybody's living the same life. Everyone's just trying to be happy, try to build a family, try to do something they love for a living if they're lucky. Like, the fact that we get to do this for a living,

it feels magical. We talked about all the work, right? first half of this conversation, but it feels magical. But for me also, because I never traveled, when I went on tour, we always wanted to see the world. And so from the very first record, we were out. And we would go anywhere, anyone would have us play for a hundred people. So we toured the whole world and we never stopped every record. And now we still, like, the whole world is on the map for the tour. We have to figure out how to get to every market. But what it gave us was an education that we never got to get because we didn't get to go to school.

We didn't get to go to college. And what traveling the world gave me was a real education. And I don't get my worldview from the news. I understand what they're marketing and what they're selling on the news is to get everyone to watch and to click or whatever. But when you travel and you see the world and you start to understand like it's all the same. Some places have different laws. Some places have different this. but like you get into when you're on tour

and you have a day off in some city and you get to spend the day there and you interact with everyone, you realize like the same. And that was probably the, aside from living the dream and playing my music and doing that, what this band gave me was,

it made me worldly. And so it's one of the purpose. Also why I think all of us sharing our culture and how we grew up in our music and then also just in these conversations is important so that people get connected so that we understand like, oh, we're all the fucking same. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Totally. Which is weird that we have to still, in concept, the fact that we have to keep doing that. You know what I mean? I think it's never going to end. I think that's why music is so important is to keep connecting. Keep connecting. Thank you guys for coming on. You so much.

So it's such a cool conversation to have. And we thank you for your time, honestly, and for having us on. It's just really, really cool. We know you're super busy and, you know, the fact that we were able to make this work, man, we're so thankful. No, thank you guys for coming out all the way out here. Do you guys do ever, like, acoustic performances or anything like that? No, honestly, like a lot of our stuff is like electronically driven. Like, we have a drum machine.

Yeah, yeah. And we've never, no, I don't even think we've ever even thought about it to be. We haven't tried yet. We never tried. But what's funny is when we first started, we were in, we even have a video, I think, on Instagram that we've archived, I think. but where we were in Luis's room, right? And I'm like on an acoustic guitar, like playing bass lines or something on this acoustic guitar. And so, yeah, I mean, that's the one and only time we've ever done acoustic stuff.

That's how we started. So, yeah. If you could tour with any band, like, of the moment or of the past, whatever, there's no, like, right or wrong answer. But more actually, like, in reality, like, if you could tour with someone right now, who would you tour with? Not the fantasy. Like, like, like, like, really. Realer would be great. But like actually in the world today, if you could look out there and go,

we want to open for you or we want to play with you, like, who would you tour with? Jenna Jackson still? I was going to say Depeche Mode. Yeah. I mean, I would love. I saw them last year, I think. I would love to open for Depeche mode. I mean, I was going to go there too.

So you stole my answer and now I have to figure something out. I think I've actually proposed this before. I think idols was one of the ones. that I really like and it's really cool. That would be really awesome, you know. But we have, again, it's these things that you try to speak into existence, but we have like a list, like, there's the list of the bands that, you know, dream, maybe, probably not, but, you know, why not?

Yeah. But, yeah, yeah. I think that that's a good one. Let's go roll with Depeche, what I like that too. Yeah. Is this your first podcast? Like a speaking one? Like type of interview type thing.

In person? Yeah, I think so. We've done a lot of like the virtual. Boy, we did a lot of those during the pandemic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how was it? I think it was cool because we got a, we got a chance to, you know, interact with the fans or to just kind of like, you know, connect after them hearing, you know, a little bit of our story. But I don't think that we've ever had anything like as in depth as this conversation with, you know, music and our personal. It was all encompassing. Yeah. Yeah. We've had the business. Yeah.

We've had the business chats. We've had the artist chats and you know, this is like everything. Like even from the beginning, I'm telling you like you like legit nailed it how we did everything, which is usually what we talk about. But you nailed it. Like that was, that's the blueprint. Well, what you guys are doing is extremely hard. It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of resilience and it takes a lot of effort.

and it takes a lot of effort that people don't see. It takes a lot of, yeah, it takes everything that you have. You have to give to it. And so if you don't take a moment to hold that before you, you know, every once in a while you got to check in. You're going to keep going down the road. You're going to keep accomplishing more. But it's good to check in and hold it for a second so that you can appreciate it. But also, you can realize who you are so that you can keep going in confidence.

and otherwise if we don't know who we are we can't make good decisions but i think if what you've done is extremely hard until you've you've achieved things that other people want to achieve these conversations are great because you can go oh yeah we did fucking do that okay great let's keep going but i think it's it's it's great to look where we're going going up but also like look at where how far we've come and look at what we've accomplished look what we've achieved and look what we represent yeah right and that's important. Especially with the touring lifestyle and you know you forget about all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So you got to pause. Pause and then just what we just do? What the hell just happened? It's been seven years already? Holy shit. Okay. Cool. It's good. Yeah. Congrats. Thank you.

Can't wait for the next record. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to artist friendly. We really appreciate it. If you like the show, You can also follow us on Spotify. You can follow us on Instagram at artist. Friendly. And you can watch us on YouTube and Veeps. Leave comments. I always read them.

See you next time.