4TA | Interview
It’s hard to explain how certain strains make you feel, every time I play a 4TA (Cuarta) record I get the same feeling. The keyboardist, aka Chino, took his first dab ever on the night we got the honor to sit and talk for a few hours with the members of the band. He was so blasted, kind of like their music. With funky bassline grooves, guitar licks created in Jupiter, and a singer with more conspiracies than Eddie Bravo, it makes for an epic sound that is hard to put in a box. The boys truly put on a show as well with head banging melodies and futuristic sounds blasting through the amps! Live is where they truly shine!
How was that dab chino?
Chino: Great!
Herman: He just got his cherry popped!
What instruments do you guys play?
Hector: I play the guitar
David: I play the bass Chino: I play the keyboard
Herman: Second guitar sometime lead, sometimes we share lead. I’m also the lead singer. Interview
How did the band come about?
David: That’s a long story! This band got started ten years ago under a different name it was “Cuarta Conquista” back then. The four original members where Carlos, Miguel, Jesus and myself. We started playing in Arizona people started knowing us but it was just one moment and everybody split, I went to another band. Hector came along, he replaced me when I left the band, everybody just started moving on, the whole band changed in a few years and now I’m back!
Hector: It’s kind of weird we all have we all have hispanic backgrounds and we don’t want to forget that so we play in Spanish and English, it’s just rock!
Who writes your lyrics?
Hector: Mary Jane! Herman: And then shroomies!
Do you write while on them?
Herman: Ideas get pushed a little further I would say.
Hector: I think with him you just need to put a pencil and paper and he goes off, he has a lot of thoughts in his head and he just puts it down on paper and it comes out as a song
Are all you guys Mexican?
David: These guys are Mexican I’m Colombian.
At what age did you move to USA?
David: I moved out here when i was thirteen my mom is the one who brought me here, I was like “alright let’s move over there”
Did you ever smoke weed in Colombia?
David: No I smoked weed here! When I started going skateboarding and shit when I was in high school.
What is your favorite method to consume Marijuana?
Hector: I’m not really into weed, but I remember back in the day I used to smoke reggie, I used to be able to smoke blunts for a long time. Now you take one hit of this science weed and you’re fucked up for ever!
David: Puts you to sleep.
What is the first metal band you played, do you remember?
Hector: It has to be between Deftones or System of a Down, at first it made me feel uncomfortable, it was like this makes me feel fucking creepy. I was like, I really like this feeling. Because Mexican music is all rhythm and dancing and shit, but when your grooving to metal or rock, you’re like ‘this is different’ so I just dove in head first.
What are some musical influences for you guys?
Hector: It’s different we are all hispanic so we have that background. Like at home was nothing but Tigres Del Norte, all kinds of spanish shit I wasn’t really into it. It didn’t make me feel nothing. Then in middle school or high school I started listening to heavier music, metal for me was like BOOM! You know it exploded this music actually means something to me. At the time everybody is jamming to hip hop you know like Eminem and Dre. I like rap but it just never made me feel anything.
David: The same thing being in Colombia is all tropical music like salsa and merengue that’s our roots. But in my family there’s a lot of hippies and all that shit coming from the 70’s my dad coming from Germany and everything so it’s a lot of different influences. All my life my older brothers listened to rock and heavy metal and all that shit, moved to the states by myself I started getting into the skater scene, then I started getting into the punk scene. So I get more into the punk side. My old friends from high school were goths and I started listening to really underground heavy rock. This was really heavy musical orchestra music. You have really heavy guitars, violins, cellos in the background it’s crazy! It’s freaking amazing getting into that whole scene was pretty cool. What’s funny when I grabbed the bass for the first time I didn’t know shit about it, my girlfriend at that time got me a junior size bass guitar it looks like a guitar I was like oh shit! So started jamming at my house.
At the time I had the opportunity to jam out with the original members of the band. One day they told me they were looking for a new bass player you want to go and check it out, I was like sure. So I go there I don’t know how to play shit, I don’t know anything about music. They were like dude hold on, this is how it goes and then I started going from there. Then I started studying it getting into, learning music from different bands and the bands that I like. Then I went to school for it at The Phoenix Conservatory of Music and that is how got into music more and more! I started a music business doing engineering, live sound
Photos by Jamal Gray @_kingjayy To read more from Victor Ortega of Roach Clip, click here.