Afropop Worldwide's Sean Barlow spoke with Mexico City-based singer-songwriter Ely Guerra backstage at Celebrate Brooklyn in August, following her performance as part of the Latin Alternative Music Conference.

Transcription by Katherine Booth

Sean Barlow: I've heard an interesting story about how you became a song writer, something about your father not allowing you to speak? Tell us that story.
Ely Guerra: Yes, it's not that he didn't allow me, no not at all. The thing is, I was the guilty one because every time I wanted to talk to them, not just my dad, also to my mom was when I felt like they did something unjust, does that make sense? To me maybe they were wrong about something I did I just wanted to explain to them what really happened or the truth, and I came to them but at the time I wanted to talk, I started to cry. It was difficult for me to talk to them about things that I cared about, make sense? So every time that I wanted to talk to them about things I was moved to, I just couldn't because I start to feel like crying and that's why I started to write my songs. In order to explain to them some feelings so, that's when I started to write when I was 10 years old. Since I can remember I was very dramatic, too intense (laughs) since maybe 5 years old, they can tell you more stories than me. They remember them. I've been so intense since I was a child so I was like pretty young.

SB: Actually your performance, especially at Joe's pub when you were solo was very intense. I don't speak Spanish fluently, but I feel like you're really sharing your story.
EG: Yes, it is kind of that. I like to think that music for me is a good moment that I can speak out things that I have been maybe keeping or that I cannot share in another moment. Even though I am a very open person, I don't feel like I need to be quiet or whatever, as you saw before (laughs). I'm always very honest, I can't be too nice so on the stage is the best place to be for me.

SB: Can you tell us about your tribute to Los Tigres del Norte that you performed?
EG: Sure. Well in Mexico and Los Angeles they did this record for Los Tigres del Norte, they are a very big band from Mexico, very popular also from the north, they do this norteño music which is as I said very popular. They asked different rock musicians to do this tributo so I did "La Tumba Falsa" - the song that we did tonight. It is a very special song because it talks about a problem in Mexico and I believe in different countries, it talks about abandon. This guy is telling that his wife just abandoned him with the kids so he decides to tell the kids a story about the mommy's dead. So your Mommy's dead, that's why she's not here and finally the mommy comes back and he tells her, "I can't do anything, you're already dead". So that's the meaning of the story of this song. I tried to do this song in the voice of a child like hurt or whatever but the sound if the song is very big and fat and very distorcionado because I felt like we needed to feel the power of this song. And this is the tributo I chose to do. I gave it to the band Los Tigres and they were very pleased with it and we were so happy!

SB: You were talking about your young age but tell us how did you go about becoming a musician and songwriter.
EG: I think my story is very different from others. I am involved with different musicians in Mexico, they are my friends, they are people I love and I feel sometimes I feel very a part because I don't feel like I am an ordinary musician that likes to buy music and share music with other musicians and feel comfortable. Most of the time I feel very uncomfortable like putting my new songs to hear to someone else, it's very weird to me. I never heard music as a child, only Brazilian music because my family were very near to Brazilian people and they were very good friends of my Mom and Dad and my mom would hear Elis Regina and that was the only music I heard as a child. My family is not a very musical family. My dad plays soccer, he used to be a soccer player, right now he's a coach, and my mom used to be a model also, they didn't listen to a lot of music. I believe I started to write because of the story I told you and I started to play my guitar because it was the only way I believe that music for me is a vocation I chose it because I used to go after school to ballet classes and swimming classes, I was into sports, not into music, it was a desire for me to be singing and play my guitar but mostly to write. I needed to write and say things. That was my approach to music because I never studied, never had an example to follow or whatever, I start to hear the music, I start to define and that's a little bit the story. I feel uncomfortable sometimes when I go into music stores, I don't know what to buy like I feel intimidated you know because I see all these records and all these CDs and it's like, what? Which way? I cannot understand that and I kind of feel envy to friends who go into store and go wha wha wha wha wha and come out with all this bunch of records and for me it's not that simple. I'm very selective also. I go to hear someone and I'm not sure if I like it. Maybe because I'm too intense and I don't like to hear simple lyrics or whatever. I don't know, I am very selective maybe it's because I don't have an education in music.

SB:Your song "Tengo Frio" means that I feel cold?
EG: I'm cold, exactly maybe a metaphor for I feel lonely or sorrow, or I am living a difficult experience whatever and "Silencio" talks about the silence. I love to be in silence that's something that I enjoy. I don't need to be with the TV on I don't need to be with the radio on. If I'm at home I like to be by myself and listen to nothing sometimes I like to cook and I like the silence. I believe there is a lot to learn when you have reflections, and this song "Silencio" talks about this.

SB: And what about the music, you compose the lyrics but do you also compose the melodies?
EG: Yes.

SB: So talk a bit about your band.

EG: We've been playing for five years now I guess we have been growing together. The musicians that are with me, they are mostly jazz musicians so they definitely have their own way of sound and yet they needed to change a bit with me and in order the grow the project. We are learning from the producers that made the records with me, we have been growing together. I believe we are getting tight….the 5 of us are like sisters and brothers, we feel comfortable with each other and most of the sounds come from the records but once we understand the record, we go farther, we feel free to do different things, to improvise, to jam, that's fun for us. We feel that we have the capacity to go beyond that like tonight, every show it's different because we never do the same thing. I feel totally comfortable with them. I feel that they are great musicians and I feel like they can do whatever and I won't be like, what did you do? It would be great if they can go to some other place like they did tonight. It's nice to feel like we are a band and I am not just a solo girl doing this stuff I have 4 other musicians giving me something else. They are part of the band and they feel part of the band and they can do whatever they feel so I guess we are starting from the records and finally we are doing new things every moment.

SB: You could feel that in the performance. I love the way you move on stage, you have a original style---kind of crouching.
EG: That's the way I need to express myself, kind of weird I know.

SB: Elly, who is your audience in Mexico?
EG: Oh, it's difficult to say. It's been pretty difficult, my career has been a difficult thing to follow. I've been performing for more than 10 years and I've been growing with the music, the record really shows it. But at the same time I am too intense and I'm too personal so the people who follows me they don't have like the same ages or they are not a crew, very elite. No, It's like children, adults, teenager, my lyrics are not too explicit. People are very sensitive, very intellectual which is very weird for me like I feel like I am an ordinary woman. But the people who come to the project are very interesting so it gives me an opportunity to meet different kinds of people which is very nice so I believe that's why our project is so difficult for my record company. It's not a very easy project to attack, it's kind of difficult our audience in Mexico goes from adults to kids.

SB: Are you comfortable when people say "Latin Alternative Music" here in North America? Do you feel like you're part of that? And what does that label mean to you?
EG: Someone asked me yesterday if I believe that Latin Alternative Music is a movement and I told him it's a pose. "Una pose". I feel like "alternative" doesn't mean anything precisely so it's okay for me then. I'm not really a defined person so if they call me "alternativa", it's okay because I don't belong to this or to that. It really helps to keep improvising, it really helps to keep experimenting different things for my next record or whatever. I do believe that that's why alternative comes to this movement because we don't really know what we are. Just in my generation you know, I'm talking about Mexico. I'm 30 years old right now. My mom used to be a model, she needed to leave it because she needed to take care of me and my sisters in order for my dad to go and play soccer and to bring the money to the house. So that was the education--women have to stay at home. And right now, we have all that education but at the same time we want to be professionals. We want to do our stuff. We want to be alone doing things. It's kind of difficult to break the ice. It's kind of difficult to understand past and present… It's difficult to be involved in a relationship because they don't understand. They don't want to be a macho man anymore but at the same time they learn to be a macho man and they are trying to break that "patron".

SB: Are you trying to say that the old model doesn't work and when you're a woman with a profession, it's hard to be in a relationship because the men don't accept that?
EG: I don't know if it doesn't work. It did work for some people. The thing is I am not saying, not judging if it works or not. What I'm trying to put on the table is the idea of we (women) being educated in a way but now we are breaking a role and we are trying to do a new way to live and this is difficult. This is not giving us an identity. This is not helping to be a model. We are totally restructurando totally making a new way of life and this is a beginning and I believe that beginnings are not easy. So that's why I'm saying that alternativo is a good word because we don't really know what we are.

SB: And there's very few as far as I know women who are leading their own bands and so on, and you're one of the few, right?
EG: I believe yes. We are very few that are signed in a record company but I'm sure there are a lot of women doing some things out and doing things in order to get into a record company. I don't know if that makes sense.

SB: Sure. I didn't mean to keep you this long but I really enjoyed talking with you.
EG: Thank you! For more information on Latin Alternative music, visit these web sites:
www.alborde.com
www.latinalternative.com

Back to Top