An interview with Esteban
An interview with Esteban
CULT
What inspired the name of the band and what are your influences?
The name comes from cult 80s series, The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Esteban is the central character who stows himself away in a merchant ship headed to the new world in the 16th century. The name fit our mission of exploration and adventure, seeking new experiences and knowledge.
David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, and Queen, let’s just go with these for now otherwise the list will be endless. Bowie was a pioneer of music and fashion, his biggest influence on us was that he always did his own thing, consistently performing at the top, whilst keeping his personal affairs out of the limelight and pushing the boundaries all the way to the very end. Stevie signed to Motown’s Tamla label aged 11 and hit the top aged 13! We were young to the stage too and for any aspiring artist, this is an inspirational beginning but, to go on to produce some of the world’s most important electronic, boogie jazz-funk and to be still performing is utterly jaw dropping – a living legend. Queen came along and re-wrote the rule books during the late 70’s and early 80’s. A band that didn’t really fit a genre exactly, but knew precisely how to use their individual talents to spur each other on to write perfect stadium anthems time and time again.
How do you approach song writing? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start?
We’re a conscious bunch, we learn, we travel and we live the human experience. This is an essential part of our writing process; we translate these experiences into the music. We talk about the world we live in, taking inspiration from ancient tales, drawing comparisons to our own lives and that of the people around us. We sing about love and loss and the special everyday moments we find ourselves in. But ultimately, we celebrate the creative process that comes with being original artists.
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
How do you approach song writing? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start?
We’re a conscious bunch, we learn, we travel and we live the human experience. This is an essential part of our writing process; we translate these experiences into the music. We talk about the world we live in, taking inspiration from ancient tales, drawing comparisons to our own lives and that of the people around us. We sing about love and loss and the special everyday moments we find ourselves in. But ultimately, we celebrate the creative process that comes with being original artists.
DESERT FUNK
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
As a band we have never tried to fit in to a particular genre, we coined the term ‘Desert Funk’ to describe our sound and it stuck, it’s the sound that we have always made when the four of us get into a room – funky bass and drums, four part harmonies with a bit of Latin guitar thrown in.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
We generally know which songs will work live because we’ve written with the live performance in mind, so we don’t need to transpose them. We’ve never had to change any part of any song to fit a live setting. Sure, there are some wonderful surprises that happen when you take an album on tour… ballads for instance go down really well for a number of reasons, they not only give everybody a break from the high energy party vibe we bring but, it allows you to reset before smashing out the bangers and encores. We started learning our stagecraft aged 16 and 17 and even in the early days we rehearsed sometimes three or four times a week, so we’ve grown naturally with a sense of how to write for an audience. We’ve also been lucky in the way that we’ve nearly always run our own headliner shows – probably 250 of them so far have been just us playing our albums back to back with no support act. Some songs however don’t always translate to the stage straight away but they are fan favourites for different reasons and you’ve always got to be ready with that song if they start chanting it – you just can’t let them down after all, they have come to see you!
LIVE
LIVE
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
We generally know which songs will work live because we’ve written with the live performance in mind, so we don’t need to transpose them. We’ve never had to change any part of any song to fit a live setting. Sure, there are some wonderful surprises that happen when you take an album on tour… ballads for instance go down really well for a number of reasons, they not only give everybody a break from the high energy party vibe we bring but, it allows you to reset before smashing out the bangers and encores. We started learning our stagecraft aged 16 and 17 and even in the early days we rehearsed sometimes three or four times a week, so we’ve grown naturally with a sense of how to write for an audience. We’ve also been lucky in the way that we’ve nearly always run our own headliner shows – probably 250 of them so far have been just us playing our albums back to back with no support act. Some songs however don’t always translate to the stage straight away but they are fan favourites for different reasons and you’ve always got to be ready with that song if they start chanting it – you just can’t let them down after all, they have come to see you!
JACKPOT MOTEL
What plans do you have for the future?
We have just released our second Esteban album Jackpot Motel, a 16-track desert funk odyssey and we’re chomping at the bit to take this new record live! However, like everyone we’ve put the shows on the back burner for now. Our fans have been genuinely thrilled to get their hands on the album. They’ve waited very patiently so, when it was announced that it was happening, our Facebook was alive with genuine love and support, we are truly grateful for their response. We have the best fans; we wanted to make this record for them as much as for our record label and ourselves. COVID has, for us, been a really productive period; we’ve doubled down on writing new material so we’re heading back into the studio this year to record. Next year, we’ll be recording and hopefully playing live again.