Music Notes: Interviewing Vallejo

This issue, rather than re-acquainting you with a familiar Texas favorite, I’d like to introduce you to a group which may be new to you. From the Austin area, this band bears the surname of the three founding brothers, Vallejo. Vallejo is twin brothers, guitarist/singer A.J. and drummer Alex and their big brother, bassist Omar. For added flavor there are two additional percussionists, Diego and Jeff, and shredder lead guitarist Heath Clark. They are a big bunch of really groovy muchachos!

Recently I had the delightful opportunity at the Engine Room to meet and speak privately with Vallejo. Hopefully these excerpts will help you get to know Vallejo, too.

A: I know you’re in Austin, but aren’t you from Alabama?

V: Well, we were born in El Campo, Texas, but we moved to Birmingham for a few years and then we came back to Texas.

Our father is a chef, and Birmingham was where he happened to have a job. But once we grew up and figured out that Mexicans and Alabama don’t fly, we definitely figured out we needed to come back to Texas.

A: I was wondering what a typical day is like for Vallejo, when you’re working?

V: At home it all has to do with music. We spend time with our families of course. We have a studio at my house and we do everything in house, for production. We also rehearse. We use that house as headquarters for everything we do. Whether it’s Vallejo or Bang or Dirty Worm, this other act we have, it all runs through that house.

A: For awhile you were with Crescent Moon which is owned by Emilio Estefan. I was wondering if you met him or worked with him at all?

V: He wanted to delve into the rock world [at the time]. I think we wrote some good songs, but looking back, it was just something that he wanted to try out. It was a good learning experience for both of us. One good thing was that we got to hang out with him and write with him. On the Black Sky album he co-wrote “Black Sky” with us and he helped us write “Let’s Talk About It” which is off Stereo.

A: You went on a world tour in 2002, is that correct?

V: Yes, the Watcha Tour, it was a Rock en Español tour. It’s more international bands. It’s the same thing that America has—like for every Beastie Boys and Aerosmith in American music, the Latin community has that too. That tour was cool because we got to see rock on the other side, something other than American rock. Because everybody that plays here just assumes that this is all there is. You go to other countries – these bands are from Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and it’s really wild. You get to see that they think and do just...

We hope that you enjoyed reading this excerpt from "Interviewing Vallejo". If you would like to read the entire article and more, you can order a back issue of Jan / Feb 2005 where this article was originally published.

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