Conceived in the 1980s in Mexico and brought to California through the border inside of his 6-month-pregnant mother, Rudy de Anda is releasing his debut solo record, Tender Epoch (September 18 via Karma Chief Records), a love letter to the long historical lineage of rock ’n’ roll music as interpreted through his multicultural lens. “I write my own story, I don’t want to be defined by any scene” De Anda proclaims of his personal journey, and his ability to adapt and flit between cities and cultures is part of why L.A. Record has called his sound “deliberately difficult to classify, familiar but novel at the same time.”
De Anda’s origin story counts more locations than most and setting the scene is a perilous endeavor: his early childhood in Compton was interrupted by the L.A. Riots that pushed his family to relocate to Long Beach, where De Anda stayed only temporarily before catching the chickenpox and being sent to his grandmother’s house in Mexico, where he lived for three months. Only upon his return did De Anda begin to lay roots in the city he still calls home. From playing soccer to getting into dumpster-cage fights (over cilantro) at his Whole Foods job, De Anda always circled back to music as a means to express these experiences that inspired him. A solo trip to Chile – to go see Spanish musician El Guincho perform – with no cell phone or credit card proved especially influential, and made De Anda realize the profound impact of Latin music on his adult life. In the midst of ceaseless moves, a constant in De Anda’s history was the omnipresent soundtrack in his Hispanic household: from rock and bossa nova, to crooners, ballads and even traditional Mexican music. These sounds of his roots and the angst of the punk bands he embraced as a teenager would soon intertwine harmoniously.
The most influential figure in De Anda’s storied upbringing was without a doubt Ikey Owens of The Mars Volta and Jack White’s band. The late, great Grammy-winning producer struck a friendship with De Anda early on, when he was a teenager to whom Owens would give vinyls and tickets to shows. Owens took a young De Anda under his wing and invited him into his world and into his studio. This is where De Anda began to piece together a solo record, on his mentor’s 8-track, which for the first time felt more personal in execution, and tackled the intimacy and romanticism of generations of the artist’s past, while still employing the scrappy punk rock attitude he has always placed first and foremost in his music and life’s work.
Since 2005, De Anda has played thousands of shows in various musical projects, but with Tender Epoch, tellingly the first recorded under his own name, he has clearly found his own voice with a wealth of stories to spotlight. It’s exquisitely crafted pop, with universal messages of heartbreak and loss that still feel appropriate played speeding windows-down on the highway in the coastal sunshine. Above all, De Anda likes to keep people guessing: from the album artwork to the multi-faceted textures of sound, Tender Epoch feels ambiguous to any era, a perfect collusion of old and new that showcases a music historian’s knowledge of both past greats and influential peers. Sculpting his own path through a wild ride that feels unlikely to let up, De Anda refuses to settle down or get comfortable, instead carving out a classic record that is sure to set a standard for songwriting to come.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the video for “Espume,” one of the standout tracks on the new album. Blending psychedelic Mexican rock with the Latin grooves of Chicano Batman and jangly pop guitar, De Anda sings passionately about taking on life’s uncertainties. The video brings to mind French and Italian cinema of the 60s, with its protagonist whimsically wandering sunny California streets and taking part in activities that aren’t exactly legal. There is a sense of romance in the way De Anda sings, and his vocal exuberance is matched by spunky, soaring musicianship.
De Anda explains the inspiration behind the song:
“Espume means to ‘spume’ in Spanish. You’re like foaming at the mouth… so metaphorically I meant to kinda just own up to this grey area and uncertainty. I’m asking life questions. The chorus is ‘que hacemos aqui?’ which translates to ‘what are we doing here?,’ furthermore acknowledging the uncertainty, but in a slightly romantic way.”
“I got to work with incredibly gifted people on this video. The director Adam Neudstader is a brilliant man and I was lucky enough to have the talented and up-and-coming actress Gabriela Maldonado be my co star. “
WATCH:
