Antonio Sánchez does not know exactly how or when he fell in love with the drums, the instrument that has led him to work from award-winning films to world-class artists. The only thing he is clear about is that his mother had a lot to do with it.
“I was lucky that my mom really likes music,” said the musician, originally from Mexico City and based in Queens, New York. “I listened to what she listened to, from the Beatles to The Who to Janis Joplin.”
That on the one hand, and on the other the classical music that his maternal grandfather listened to, who by the way is the renowned Mexican actor Ignacio López Tarso.
What is also clear is that the crush on the battery was instantaneous. He learned about this instrument through the brother of his uncle’s girlfriend.
“When I first saw her [a la batería] I was shocked,” said the 51-year-old musician. “I related all the music I had listened to with my mother to the sound of drums.”
After learning to play it, Antonio decided to travel to the United States to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There things were not easy. His mother paid for the school, whose cost is extremely high, with a credit card in 1994, just before Mexico experienced a tremendous devaluation of its currency. So from one day to the next, Antonio’s family had twice what it originally was in debt.
The great desire to stand out helped the musician – who will offer a concert today Thursday with his band Bad Hombre at UCLA’s Royce Hall – to obtain a series of scholarships. This is how he was able to interact and play with artists he had admired since he was a child, such as the jazz player Chick Corea.
Antonio is also responsible for the soundtracks of films such as Birdman and the television series The Anarchists. He is currently promoting “Shift (Bad Hombre Vol. II)”, an album that took three years to make and became a personal project because Antonio was in charge of recording all the instruments.
Participating in the album are Ignacio López Tarso –with his voice in the first and last piece–, Dave Matthews and Pat Metheny, Ana Tijoux, Lila Downs, Silvana Estrada, Becca Stevens and Rodrigo y Gabriela, among others. For live shows, Antonio is accompanied by vocalist –and wife– Thana Alexa and renowned musicians Bigyuki and Lex Sadler.
At the end of this tour, on November 11 in Portland, Antonio will begin work on his next album, which he hopes will not take as long to finish as it did, due to the pandemic, with “Shift”.
Now, and with a long career behind him, he doesn’t have to wait for the great masters he admired when he was a kid to call him. Now he is the one many music figures are looking for to work with him.
“Many dreams have been achieved,” he said. “Now I would like to be a kind of mentor or reference.”
In detail
What: Antonio Sanchez and Bad Man
When: today, 8 p.m.
Where: Royce Hall, 340 Royce Dr., Los Angeles
How: tickets from $39; reports cap.ucla.edu