Los Bitchos are kicking ass and taking names with a Margarita in hand. They are sun, sand and Latin-inspired, wrapped in something spicy hot but ice cool. Cowboys hat tipped to these lot ¡Arriba, Arriba! ¡Ándale, Ándale!
Hello, and welcome to the Rodeo! How are you? How are things going?
We are still recovering from Festival season, our latest one in open air Basel ended up with us partying for a few days, playing a show at 2 am, then leaving a few hours later. Still in good spirits though. Everything is Peachy as we have our latest release, Pista (Great Start), to keep us occupied and happy.
Your music is very relaxing to listen to, is it something relaxing to play and perform? How else do you spend your free time?
It’s pretty high energy to perform, it naturally ends up being that way as we love playing and the tequila really kicks in by the second song. We love to hang out, cook and take care of our plants. It’s a nice way to reset ourselves in between tours.
The music is fun, it’s not serious and offers some much-needed sunshine to listeners, is this a conscious effort? If so, why?
The project just started off as a bit of fun anyway. Me (Serra) and Carolina had been listening to a lot of Old Cumbia and it’s all pretty chilled and makes you feel good, so naturally, we gravitated to making songs that emulate this vibe, most of the time anyway.
I’ve seen you describe your music as various spirits, tequila, whiskey etc. How would you describe it in terms of cocktails, though? Are we talking something sweet, something bitter, or god forbid something with tomatoes in?
MARGARITA’S and occasionally Michelada’s.
Having such a strong Latin American feel to your music, what do you think the importance of listening to international music is? A lot of people don’t move past their linguistic boundaries I feel.
International music is what we all grew up with due to our different backgrounds (Uruguayan, Turkish, Swedish, British). It’s great to be able to carry influences over and keep things fresh. We are forever learning something new from each other’s musical tastes.
You’ve released some excellent instrumental-based tracks, is having no vocal something you decided as a band? Is it something you would branch out from, or is it something you’d like to stick with?
Yes, we were very much into the idea of making it instrumental. The songs (Roots of Chicha) that inspired us to make this project were just that. We have a couple of tracks now with some intermittent vocal lines, which is pretty fun to do live, but I’m very much into letting the guitars carry the melodies. Plus it’s nice not having to worry about writing lyrics and coordinating singing and playing lead guitar lines.
What do you want to achieve as musicians and artists? What motivates you to create and keep creating?
We love playing live, hanging out in different countries and meeting new people, so as long as our music can keep us doing that, we are all good. A collaboration with Shakira or Cher would also be welcomed.
Finally, what’s the plan for the rest of the year? Anything exciting coming up?
We will be our promoting our latest release, Pista (Great Start) and having a smashing time while doing so. We have our own headline show on the 25th of September at the Lexington (London) and a bunch of others till the end of the year rounds up and last but not least we are going to record our debut album, ready for next year!
Listen to Los Bitchos on Spotify and Apple Music. You can find merch, those black Frisby things on Bandcamp.
