THE BRONX PART PUNK PART MARIACHI

The Bronx are part punk band part mariachi with their new series of albums, and the band talked about their songwriting styles.

The Bronx is appearing at the CMJ Festival next week in New York City, and they’re out promoting their new album. In a unique and creative twist, the album is actually two albums in two forms, a punk collection and a release by El Bronx done Mariachi style. The former is set for release November 11, and the latter Mariachi album is set for release in 2009.

The hardcore band has mixed and matched styles, and nothing is more of an example than this than their new dichotomous direction. Part of it has to do with the new members Brad Magers and Vincent Hidalgo. We asked longtime member Matt, with the new guy Brad sitting next to him, about the sonic changes the band has undergone over the years.

“We never really made conscious decisions as far as conceptually where we want the music to go. It’s always been about what comes out of the members of the band, and I think that our new record is a reflection of the new guys, Brad and Ken, in the band as well me, Joby, and Jorma all playing together and really gelling musically for the first time on a record. The sound has kind of evolved naturally. It’s not something that we try to shoot for as far as, ‘Let’s make a certain type of record, or make this…’ Records kind of dictate themselves.”

We also asked him about the songwriting in the band.

“We stumbled for the first two or three months of the record, writing. We wrote probably every type of song, just spanning the whole musical range just trying to figure out where we were going, and it just has a way of leading you.”

The Bronx will be touring long after CMJ, which stands for the College Music Journal, is over. They will be touring through late November in the U.S. before heading over for Australian dates December 10.