“Three guitars. Three drum sets. Three men. No mission.” That’s how Melbourne’s Puta Madre Brothers describe themselves. They’re not kidding. Blurring the lines between mariachi and many more genres, the trio come off irreverent and rickety, whether you’re experiencing them live or on record. With those iffy Spanish lyrics and the requisite nods to ‘La Bamba’, they’re the kind of band you’d dismiss as a novelty if they weren’t so much dirt-caked fun. Below, member Anto Macaroni discusses
It’s A Long Long Way to Meximotown, the follow-up to 2010’s first album
Queso Y Cojones. He talks cover songs, language barriers and, um, death threats.
Doug Wallen: When I first saw the album title, I thought it said “Mexicotown.” Then I re-read it and got it. So what is Meximotown to you?
Anto Macaroni: That’s the place we’re trying to get to. That’s the promised land of the Puta Madre Brothers, where all our favourite kinds of music merge into a burrito full of joy.
DW: Wow.
AM: I guess it’s where Mexican mariachi music converges with soul and garage music. Where Mexico meets Detroit, New York, and Melbourne.
DW: That’s fitting, because U.S. Mexican food is a bastardisation of actual Mexican food. One could argue that you’re doing the same thing with music.
AM: Yeah, I guess it’s a continuation of that bastardisation of culture.
DW: The new album has covers of songs by CW Stoneking and Those Darlins, who both played Meredith with you last year. Is that how those came about?
AM: It was partly Meredith. We toured with Those Darlins around Australia around that time and then we toured France with CW. We developed the CW cover on the road in the tour van [and] demoed it on a telephone. We decided we’d play it at one of the shows, hoping he’d hear it and think better of us. But he didn’t actually hear it. I’m not sure what he really thinks of us. (Laughs) But I think he likes the version. At least, he’ll learn to.
DW: Would you consider yourselves fluent in Spanish?
AM: I guess if you listen to the album, that will make it obvious whether we’re fluent or not.
DW: Well, if someone doesn’t know Spanish themselves, they couldn’t tell.
AM: Yeah, we’re not out to educate anyone in linguistics.
DW: But often people don’t know what the name of the band means, or what lyrics they’re dancing to.
AM: Well, if you’re in Spain, the name translates to “The Really Good Brothers”. In a slang sense that is, not literally. Or “The Very Great Brothers.” But then in Mexico I think it means
something else in slang.
DW: Was the original concept to be a band of one-man-bands?
AM: Yeah. We’re all brothers and we were all doing our individual one-man-band thing a few years ago. We all came back home at the same time and our mother said, “Why don’t you join forces and make this incredible monster of a band?” So we tried it, and it sounded pretty bad at first. But once we managed to all count in at the same tempo, it kind of converged and became what it is today.
DW: So you’re actually brothers?
AM: Uh, as far as history books go, yeah, we’re brothers.
DW: Did you have much interest in mariachi before this?
AM: I guess. We all like a bit of everything, so there was a point where we were all synchronised and listening to a lot of old mariachi, Tex Mex and also old soul music.
DW: How many times has the band been to Europe?
AM: We did two trips last year and we’re about to do another one after the album launches. The first one was seven weeks or something ridiculous. I think we played 38 shows across 42 days in seven countries.
DW: How was the reception?
AM: Uh … I think it was good. Our memory’s a bit shattered. It was just an absurd blur. The memories are made up of freeways, crying men, screaming women, blood, chocolate and cheese.
DW: Do your records get released in Europe?
AM: Yeah, we’ve got a label in Germany and a couple of other independent labels over there that put out 7”s.
DW: You’re launching the record in Melbourne and Hobart. Is there some Tassie connection for the band?
AM: Our mother lives in Hobart, so we’re pretty much obliged to play down there. We have no relatives anywhere else in Australia and we’re a family band.
DW: Do you have plans to tour America and Mexico someday?
AM: We’re looking at [it]. We get mixed reports. We get Mexicans telling us “Definitely come over” and we get other Mexicans or people from the southwest of America sending us death threats. So I think there’s an equal degree of invitation and terror.
Puta Madre Brothers will launch
It’s A Long Long Way to Meximotown at the East Brunswick Club in Melbourne on February 25 and the Grand Poobah in Hobart on March 3.
WORDS: Doug Wallen