Kinky: Mexico's Number 1 Latino Techno Punks

Kinky are a Mexican five piece electro rock band who were discovered by Coldplay producer Chris Allison in 1999 when he happened to be in Central America. Winning America's Battle of the Bands competition in 2000 in New York, the group shortly after came to London where they recoded their debut album Kinky, at the Chemical Brothers' studio. Fusing bass, guitar and drums with Latin rhythms and electronic samples, they've come up with their own unique sound, hailed as "Latino techno punk" in the latest Muzik.

Skrufff's Jonty Adderley caught up with them recently at the offices of their London label Sonic 360 and discovered them to be remarkably fresh faced and friendly as well as unusually tight as a group. So tight, in fact, that all quotes are attributed to the band rather than individuals.


Skrufff: You formed in 1999, what was the initial vision for the group-

Kinky: "We started with the idea of combining electronic music with acid jazz and Latin as a fusion, mixed with a Mexican folk vibe. Everybody thinks we're more of an electronic group, but we're not, we perform all our music live. We do use samples of course, but we're a band with bass, guitars, turntables, keyboards, drums and percussion. So, the way that we develop our music is a little different from just being electronic. It's electronic and organic."

Skrufff: What's the music scene in Mexico like-

Kinky: "There's quite a big scene in places like Monterey but it's quite divided, you have DJs who mix house and trance then there's a lot of rock & roll bands playing ska and that kind of music. We used to play both styles in clubs as DJs and also in rock & roll bar. But it's not like Tijuana, it's not that close to America. The scene is full of Mexicans, though we do have some audience from the United States."

Skrufff: When you formed the band, was it a really serious thing-

Kinky : "Not really, we've been playing for years in different bands. Ulises and I (Gil Cerezo) used to play together in a different bands, then I left to go to college. When I returned Carlos and Ulises had started this band and I joined then. We used to play at parties and jam around but we weren't that serious. We then made a demo in Carlos' house and somebody sent that demo to this Battle of the Bands competition and we won."

Skrufff: You come across very much as a band, is that how you see yourselves-

Kinky: "We feel like a proper band, all of us are very different people and listen to different styles of music from Tex Mex to jazz and electronic and even rock music. We listen to stuff like Radiohead and Massive Attack, lots of British stuff."

Skrufff: Is the plan to keep on touring-

Kinky: "Yeah, we do a lot of travelling, we just came back from Colombia, and played at a huge festival there, with around 70,000 people there."

Skrufff: Colombia's supposed to be really dangerous, with loads of kidnappings, did anything happen to you guys-

Kinky: "They say Colombia is as dangerous as any other Latin American country, it's no more dangerous than Mexico City, for example, because Bogota has 7 million people compared to the 25 million in Mexico City. They treated us really well there and we didn't see any trouble at all. It's like every country if you go to the wrong places , also after dark, then you can find trouble."

Skrufff: Does everybody have guns in Mexico, including you-

Kinky: "No! You see more guns in the States, you can't buy guns in Mexico, whereas you can in America. All the films about Mexico always show gangsters but it's really not like that. We have areas like that but only small parts of big cities."

Skrufff: What does London have, if anything, over Mexico-

Kinky (Omar) : "Before I came it was my dream to come to London. It's as I expected, and it's quite similar in that you can find lots of different styles of music and bars but the good thing about here is that you can find all the things you want, such as clothes and instrum Tags

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