Hello Rockstars!
Today’s Artist of the Week is amazing Heavy Metal Band ELOTEROS!
I absolutely love their unique sound, and stories they tell with their music. They are excellent musicians who always put their heart and soul into everything they do and truly have an amazing passion and drive for their music and their culture.
I feel they have taken metal to the next level and feel incredibly lucky I got to ask them about their band and their beginnings, their amazing songs, the sick chemistry they have as a band and in their live shows, and what the future holds for this truly one of a kind band.
Check it out!
——VMS 🙂
ELOTEROS current Lineup Is:
Baal Rivera—Vocals
Saul Najera—Lead Guitarist
David Bones—Lead / Rhythm Guitar
Ivan Najera—Bass
Diego Najera—Drums
VMS:
“When did you start writing and performing your music, what’s your backstory and current lineup.”
ELOTEROS:
Saul – So it was around 2017 – 2018 that me and Diego started writing metal riffs and literally to fucking play shows. We gave it some thought and said alright, this is heavy, and then we would play a show. That’s pretty much how it started. And then Ivan came and we showed him the songs, and then we played shows. Without a singer, no second guitarist or anything. just the three of us. Currently the line up is still Diego on drums, Ivan on bass, me on guitar with now Bones on second guitar, and Baal for vocals.
VMS:
“What artist or bands inspire you and your sound.”
ELOTEROS:
Ivan – Black sabbath , Cannibal Corpse. A Lot of jazz.
Saul – It literally goes from classical music to jazz, blues and then more modern metal. Technical death metal. It’s good that Ivan has a Rush influence right, on bass. Mixed with metal with Diego doing more technical drums and me as lead guitarist having influences like blues, jazz and metal. We try to mesh that up. and that’s Eloteros.
VMS:
“What’s your writing process and inspiration for your lyrics.”
ELOTEROS:
Ivan – Culture, a lot of culture.
Saul -That’s with the lyrics, definitely the culture. All the names of our songs are based on something that was traditional to our ancestors.
Ivan – Stories or our mythology, traditions.
Saul – And then writing the music, it’s just fucking heavy. It sounds heavy and good.
Ivan – Heavy and out of place.
Saul – Yeah, that really is the mentality that we have when we write this shit, it’s not like there is a formula. We literally start playing and shit and we think what sounds fucking badass right? Like dude, no bullshit. We come across heavy riffs and then we make a song.
VMS:
“I love your songs “The Rise of the Mexica“, “Gates of Mictlan” and “The Return of Kukulkan“.
What is the inspiration or story behind these songs.”
ELOTEROS:
Saul – So “Return of Kukulkan”, Kulkulkan is a Mayan Aztec god, he’s the feathered serpent and obviously in the mythology of Mexicas, He’s supposed to come back and reclaim our land or culture. and then “Gates of Mictlan” is a place. It’s of the afterlife. The land of the dead.
Ivan – So “Gates of You” sort of go through certain things to be remembered.
Saul – Yeah, like you die and then you’re at the gates of the underworld. The lyrics of which Baal did write, I just gave him the idea for the title of the song. You gotta be worthy of crossing those gates of the underworld. “Rise of The Mexica”, when we wrote that , we wrote it with Brian, our last guitarist. It was me, Diego and Brian who wrote that song. But the idea of it is that Mexica is us as people, right? The tribe, not Aztecs or Hispanics or Latinos. We are the Mexica tribe and the “Rise of The Mexica” is saying we as people as a tribe and culture …we’re rising to give ourselves that value. We are simply emphasizing we are still here, our culture is fucking thriving and we will rise and lead.
Listen to ELOTEROS on Spotify:
Listen to “Gates of Mictlan” on YouTube:
VMS:
“Which local artist would you like to work with and why.
ELOTEROS:
Ivan – I’d say Body of Filth.
Saul – Yea, Body of Filth is a good band. I will say Cielo Impuro because the guitarist Freddy, is a beast ass guitarist. He is definitely one of the best guitarists in town. and it’s just one of those things, as a musician, I don’t see it as a threat I see it more as like, I thrive to be around talented musicians like that. So it would be beast to have a show with guys like that, that genuinely write original music. That’s a big thing.
VMS:
“Do you have a favorite song that you like to perform.”
ELOTEROS:
Ivan – “Return of Kulkulkan”.
Saul – Honestly, my answer is almost the same as his. “Return of Kukulkan” is one of the first songs we ever wrote, it’s the longest one, it has all these changes.
Ivan– It’s like two songs in one.
Saul– We were at the point where we had half of a song, we were like alright this is definitely not the end. That song has a lot of death metal, black metal.
Ivan – It’s hard as fuck but it has a taste of every one else.
Saul – Exactly and then at the end we do that solo with the guitar and bass where every time we play that shit, everyone is like holy shit! When we perform, that’s like the cherry on top of our show. People are like, alright they have death metal riffs, OLD SCHOOL death metal riffs which is what we get recognized from. So yea that’s my favorite song to play, and then the most challenging one is “Feed the Maggots”…Fuckin assholes.
VMS:
“What do you want your audience to feel and experience at one of your live shows.”
ELOTEROS:
Saul – Energy, it’s what I’ve told these guys when we started playing music. It’s almost not even really about the riff that you’re playing..it’s the energy you transmit as a musician to your fans watching you play music.So that kind of goes back to the other question you had. When we write these riffs, we want to make sure that when we play these riffs that the audience captures that energy, there’s a value to it. They feel it. You hear a beat and it’s inevitable for your body to be like..fuck yea. And then they break it down or make it faster, that’s the shit.
Ivan – My intention when I play is to inspire someone and to also make them feel something they’ve never felt, that frequency.
Saul – And that’s what I’m saying, me as a fan of this type of music, right, I go to shows and I hear these tasty ass riffs and I’m like “oh fuck yea”, I feel it, I feel the energy. You know, you can almost see these dudes sitting in the room writing the riffs.Same thing, that’s what we want for our fans or people watching us to feel.They hear the riffs, and they feel what we feel. People you don’t know and you share that frequency.
So, definitely like stepping up from what we have put out there. In a sense that we want the people who actually like our songs to say damn..these dudes are stepping up. They’re making songs a little more complicated, they’re challenging themselves. They’re trying to improve the metal that they’re playing. and they’re not playing the same fucking riffs they’ve been playing the past 5 years.
So us as a band, we all talk about, we have to challenge ourselves and be better musicians. Not creating more of the same and riding that wave. If we don’t struggle with the writing of the new songs, we’re genuinely not doing anything to become better; As a band and as individual musicians.
Ivan – You gotta have the mentality that you’re going to leave a signature stamp on people.
Saul – Yea, we gotta make it better, we gotta make them go …”Holy shit! These dudes are like, raising the bar.”
VMS:
“What have been your personal pros and cons of being a band here in Las Vegas. What do you think the scene could improve on and what are your hopes for the future of the Vegas Music Scene.”
ELOTEROS:
Ivan – With the band, it’s definitely built a bond.. as brothers. It’s a bond and it’s challenging, we all have different characteristics.
Saul – I agree with what Ivan said, as brothers we connect as musicians. Being in Las Vegas, there is genuinely nothing bad. Just like I’m assuming every other big band in the world had to struggle somehow, right? They had to eat their shit sandwich just like everybody else and not give up, until you make something happen with it. But only when you are a motivated musician do you see that.
You almost don’t see any cons, you say.. alright this shows gonna suck, there’s not going to be a lot of people, maybe that’s a con right? But you accept it because you already know you’re eating this shit for life. You’re going to play some shows that are gonna suck, so you accept it, you keep going. It’s just like any scene in the whole community, we want to see more of it. We want to see more people supporting each other. What I mean by supporting, is going to shows and making a presence. even if it’s to show up, have a beer, watch their set and go home. Not just writing on social media “Oh hey my homies band is playing” and then they never go to shit. I’m sure almost every musician will tell you the same thing. Like dude, just show up.
Get a beer, a shirt. Guys like TBS (The Brown Sound), they don’t give a fuck about money, popularity .. they’re genuinely there to play the music that they make and support our homies.
And if you see more of that, dude everyone is cool. Show up for each other.
VMS Thoughts:
Music is such an interesting thing sometimes. Personally, when I am checking out new bands in the scene, I go by the emotion of the song and how it makes me feel, and honestly ELOTEROS has all the passion, emotion, lyrical content and sound that I gravitate towards. As artists they truly hold nothing back, I feel every single song, especially with their Piece De Resistance song “The Rise of the Mexica“, like, holy shit dude, they didn’t need to go that fucking hard, but I am so incredibly glad they did.
Between their amazing lyrical content talking about their heritage and the mythology of Mexicas, to their balls to the walls intensity of their music and musicianship, in my opinion, ELOTEROS is truly a forced to be reckoned with and I strongly encourage you to go see as apart of their story their live shows, which is another part of the incredibly complex piece of the puzzle of their music.
I am so fucking excited to see what the future holds for ELOTEROS and to see the evolution of their sound. I know for one that no matter where they decide to take this musical adventure, I am definitely sticking along for the amazing ride.
For more information about ELOTEROS please visit their website.
—–Vegas Music Scene. xoxoxoxoxoxox