Kacho, Kilos and Mongo Gama grew up performing in cemeteries. Together with their father, José (a.okay.a. Batuco), the brothers would play subsequent to the mariachi and Norteño teams performing for households visiting their family throughout Día De Los Muertos. They might weave by the cemetery with their marimbas — a percussion instrument with a heat sound, just like a xylophone — between the elevated tombs, taking part in conventional Latin music.
“It was the day we had been wanting ahead to essentially the most,” says Mongo, reflecting on taking part in graveside at Panteon Municipal de Rio Hondo, a cemetery close to their dwelling in Naucalpan, simply west of Mexico Metropolis. “And it was the day that we felt the closest with our dad. Issues had been, like, extra emotional.”
Practically 20 years later, the Gama brothers will proceed that custom at Hollywood Perpetually Cemetery. They’ll participate within the annual Noche De Los Muertos occasion on Oct. 29, an evening of performances from conventional and fashionable performers that additionally options altars, artwork and distributors. For Son Rompe Pera, the night time is an opportunity to carry out of their favourite U.S. metropolis. “Feeling at dwelling is sort of a dream come true,” Kacho says.
However the brothers are way more than vacation gamers. Together with buddies Raúl Albarran (bass) and Ricardo López (drums), they carry out as Son Rompe Pera — some of the energetic acts in Latin punk. Or punk, interval.
Son Rompe Pera proclaim — on T-shirts, in lyrics, in sheer pressure and in dedication to creating their very own model — that cumbia is the brand new punk. “We don’t need to faux that punk is extra or cumbia is much less. We’re saying that [our music is] cumbia with angle, greater than the rest,” Mongo says. “We’re rockers who play cumbia. We’re very political [personally, but] for us it’s all music that folks take pleasure in and everybody having time.”
Whereas the band places a rocking twist on conventional cumbias, its influences are a lot broader. There are parts of rumba, chicha, son jarocho, hardcore and even some ZZ High (“My dad all the time listened to salsa, steel and rock,” Mongo notes).
There’s one thing for everybody, however there’s some frequent sights at a Son Rompe Pera present: moshing, couples dancing to punkified covers of conventional cumbias, crowdsurfing and buddies bopping collectively. A circle pit usually kinds because the five-piece jumps round onstage, at numerous factors eradicating sweat-soaked shirts and switching devices. Everybody’s yelling, and whereas an understanding of Spanish isn’t required, the vibe is completely infectious.
Kacho, the eldest and quieter Gama brother, provides, “If I didn’t transmit something whereas I used to be taking part in, I'd really feel lifeless.”
Marimba has lengthy been a lifestyle for the Gamas — and the way Batuco made a dwelling (he additionally coined the title Son Rompe Pera, an amalgamation of his musical pursuits and spouse Esperanza’s title and no-nonsense angle). He taught then-13-year-old Kacho and 11-year-old Mongo learn how to play, and collectively they'd carry out at weddings and events. Once they didn’t have a correct gig, the household carried their heavy marimba all through the streets of Naucalpan, busking and passing out enterprise playing cards for the household band.
As they turned youngsters, the younger Gamas had been embarrassed — marimba was an outdated man’s instrument, performed in a standard model with formal apparel. The brothers had tattoos and massive, flattop pompadours; they had been into ’80s English psychobilly and punk, ska and hardcore from the likes of Kortatu, Decibelios, the Misfits, Rancid and even Blink-182. But Batuco initially discouraged his sons from taking part in low-paying rock gigs. “He would get mad at us and inform us that what we had been doing was no good, that our future was within the marimba,” Mongo advised Remezcla in 2020.
Timothy “Timo” Bisig agreed with Batuco, although his imaginative and prescient was a bit totally different. The tour supervisor and reserving agent was visiting Mexico Metropolis in 2013 when he first caught the Gama brothers taking part in marimba their method. He remembers seeing a bunch of youngsters, wearing black with mohawks, approaching marimba gamers in Lagunilla Market and holding his breath.
“They appeared badass. I believed they had been gonna beat the marimba guys up or one thing like that,” Bisig says. “They requested him for the maletas and so they began taking part in the marimba like f—ing loopy.”
Bisig knew he had witnessed one thing distinctive. “For 2 years, I wrote these guys [on Facebook] and they didn't give me the time of day as a result of they had been method too cool to speak to any person. They’re like tremendous punk, tremendous anti-establishment.”
Finally, Bisig received the Gamas to attend a efficiency by Chilean cumbia band Chico Trujillo — certainly one of his shoppers. The group’s power set one thing off in Son Rompe Pera, Mongo remembers. “We received carried away by the music — we felt free. We stated, ‘Why don’t we attempt it and let ourselves go?’”The Gamas carried out with Chico Trujillo in 2015 and, when the band invited them to a recording session, introduced their father alongside. Collectively, they lined the Nineteen Sixties Venezuelan tune “Cumbia Algarrobera.”
“That sort of modified their angle a little bit bit,” Bisig says. And whereas they had been “going to surrender the marimba eternally” after Batuco died in 2016, assembly Chico Trujillo brought about one thing of a rebirth. The brand new Son Rompe Pera performed 40 exhibits with Chico Trujillo, La Floripondio and Bloque Depresivo (all initiatives of Chico lead singer Aldo “Macha” Asenjo) and have become the primary Mexican act on Argentine label ZZK. Years later, they'd report two 45s for Brooklyn’s Barbès Information with Mexican virtuoso guitarist Gil Gutiérrez.
“Batuco,” Son Rompe Pera’s debut LP of punk-influenced cumbia, corrido and ska requirements (in addition to one unique), was launched in 2020 proper at first of the pandemic. But the Gamas’ background taking part in on the streets of Mexico was uniquely suited to the second; the band started to get consideration on social media for his or her raucous, energetic road performances throughout lockdown. Finally, Son Rompe Pera and Bisig received a van and began touring the nation.
The group has toured extensively over the previous two years, graduating from unlawful lockdown exhibits to multidate excursions in Los Angeles, New York and Texas, the place they carried out on the metropolis of Houston’s Mexican Independence Day celebration. (“It’s normally a way more conventional, well-known band” taking part in the town occasion, Bisig notes. “It took any person a variety of guts to place us up there.”)
Son Rompe Pera visited Europe for the primary time this summer season, taking their marimba and kit on commuter buses for a 16-day tour that went from Spain to Denmark, and Italy to the Netherlands. “We had been sort of nervous [to play Europe] … however we weren’t very shocked that at virtually each present, the locations had been crammed and so they knew us and so they knew our music,” says Mongo. “With a brand new and uncommon band like us, it is vitally tough for them to concentrate to you [in Mexico]. You must do many issues, or do stuff abroad, for them to concentrate.”
Miraculously, given the jam-packed touring schedule, the band has completed its second album. Recorded reside at Mambo Negro Studios in Bogotá, Colombia, and produced by Frente Cumbiero’s Mario Galeano and Daniel Michel of La Boa, the as-yet-untitled LP will function unique songs steeped in SRP’s distinctive model — which has grown each extra exact and widened in affect with intensive touring. “It has many, actually good sounds from Mexico, Colombia, Chile, [and] there’s a little bit of Argentina. Every thing we’re doing reside, we tried to get on the disk,” Kacho says.
Son Rompe Pera have linked with fellow musicians and followers in three continents, choosing up new vinyl and influences alongside the way in which — in addition to a supporting spot on Fishbone’s West Coast tour in December. Shirking their youthful beliefs in a strict, segmented subculture, the members of SRP have discovered themselves as a part of a wider community of punk and various teams all through the Americas. But their fanbase is especially numerous in cities like Los Angeles.
“We’ve executed very effectively with the general public response [in L.A.]. There’s the whole lot, from households that convey their youngsters, dad and mom, older individuals, punks, individuals who like rock,” Kacho says. “We’re, like, breaking the paradigm that the marimba is extra folkloric, extra classical, extra customary. We need to take it to everybody.”
Sometimes, on Día de los Muertos, the Gama brothers would journey to the cemetery and play at Batuco’s grave. Hollywood Perpetually’s celebration guarantees to be one other connective thread between household custom and the fusion they’ve created.
“We really feel very pleased with what he taught us, as a result of he was not like different individuals to say, ‘No, do it this fashion as a result of it's important to.’ My dad all the time [told us to] all the time play the way in which you need, or really feel,” Mongo says. “It fills us with delight to all the time attain different nations. It was my dad’s dream that folks would know the music that we make.”
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