When Adrián Quesada was a boy, he wanted nothing to do with the Spanish-language music his parents, who had immigrated to Texas from Mexico, listened to. His passion was groups like Nirvana, and nothing else.
One day, however, he had a revelation. He was driving in his car when he heard a song on the radio that left him stupefied, so much so that he stopped to call the station to find out who the artist in question was.
“They told me, ‘it’s the Green Cakes,’” Adrián said in an interview from Austin, where he lives. “The song was ‘Slave and Master,’ and that song has been an influence on almost everything I’ve ever done.”
Adrián is a producer, guitarist and co-founder of the band Black Pumas, with which he has toured for several years. When he is not traveling he collaborates on other artists’ projects. His career began a couple of decades ago, when with a group of friends he formed Grupo Fantasma, a band that played cumbia, salsa and rock.
At that time, he really liked the process of creating music: getting to the studio, inventing sounds, chords, looking for the best tones for a song. What he didn’t know was that he was unwittingly becoming a producer.
“I had no idea that that was producing until a friend told me,” he said.
Since then he has collaborated with artists such as Prince, Los Lobos and GZA, from Wu-Tang.
However, the Green Cakes never left Adrian’s life. From “Slave and Master” Adrián began to inquire almost obsessively about this and other interpreters. This is how he got to know the first records of artists like Juan Gabriel and José José.
“These artists and bands from the ’60s and ’70s were recording songs that for me had a little bit of everything I love about music,” he said. “They had the influence of rock and roll, psychedelics, soul, funk, but they were boleros.”
Adrián always wanted to produce an album that paid homage to the music of that time, but he never had time, until the pandemic hit. He then recorded the music and invited singers like Ile, Gaby Moreno, Girl Ultra, Tita and Gabriel Garzón-Montaño to interpret each of the twelve remakes of “Boleros Psicodélicos”, an album in which he puts his name on the cover for the first time.
“In this case, I did put my name in front because it was a very special project for me,” he said. “It was also easier to have just one name than 20.”
The 45-year-old musician, born in Laredo, Texas, is now preparing the second part of “Psychedelic Boleros.” He has already chosen the songs and the list of potential collaborators. And it is that the critics —media such as National Public Radio, the New York Times and others— praised his album so much that a second part was almost mandatory.
After all, he says, “growing up on the border means that I don’t see a difference between languages, music and culture.”