The Place:

Saturday night or Sunday morning, depending on where you are, either sleeping or dining after a punk and ska show at Big Boys Tijuana.

The Band:

After a cold night and a big concert, Paco, Bernie and Tarek of punk ska band Los Kung Fu Monkeys treat themselves to some tortilla chips as they wait for their food orders. “Extremely drunk at 4 am, Big Boys is the place to be,” says Bernie, singer of the band. “It’s 24 hrs, so we always come here,” says Paco, singer number two. Elevator music on the background decorates the air between the questions and answers. Their name comes from a magazine, where it read something about a Monkey Kung Fu. Somehow on their fi rst gig their name is messed up to Los Kung Fu Monkeys and that is what they become. This I hear before, when Bernie is selling their merch while other bands play in the outside.

Tarek (guitar), Hassan (bass) and Bernie started the band together, they all met in Catholic school. I ask them if they had nicknames in school but they smile, nod and say no. Bernie offers some names but recants and says there were none. It’s obvious they’ve agreed to keep that secret.

“It was fun, it was a dream come true”, Bernie and Paco say of playing at the Warped Tour. Indeed it is a dream for many punk and ska bands to play the famous summer festival, although few get the chance to. They are the first independent Mexican band to be on the tour, and the first Mexican band to be included in the Warped Tour Comp. “We don’t even know how we did it”, says Paco with a big smile on his face. Paco is the happy one, he seems unable to stay still, specially on stage. In fact, both Paco and Bernie love to jump around as they sing. They are by far one of the best bands live I have seen. Since the first time there was something contagious to their energy, inviting you to jump up and down with them. But off the stage only Paco keeps the energy going, Bernie becomes serious and well kept, although he seems quite capable of having fun. Tarek is definitely more quiet. He tries to be ignored during the interview, focuses on his burger and fries and listens but remains silent.

Their sound has transformed from a ska punk band to more punk. But in reality, they feel punk has always been their beginning. “It’s our roots. From the beginning,” says Paco. “We’ve always been a punk band, before everything else,” says Bernie, with an X marked on his hand from the show, in fact we all have one, the classic mark of a punk rock show that has now been associated with straight edge, but the X has more meaning, from the jaded term “generation X” to the legendary L.A. punk band by that name, the X is a seal that punk rock has imprinted on those who have been touched by those distorted riffs and angry screams. “We mix styles like new wave, a little bit of metal, this and that, but if we started listening to ska bands like Operation Ivy, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, NOFX, then we got into the whole ska two tone, the fi rst wave and the third wave like the Toasters, so we started listening to ska because of punk.”

Wherever their story is, whether punk led them to ska or vice versa, the Monkeys have embraced the genres and made them their own, putting their special touch and exploding it all over the border, crossing it to the north up to Seattle, Washington, the farthest they’ve gone, or and going down south to Mexico City. Tarek says there is really little change from the American audiences to the Mexican audiences. “It’s really no different, if you put on a good show, then I guess the audience doesn’t really matter. We’ve been lucky that we can play in English and in Spanish and that we live in a border town that people are open to our music.”

The language selection is no issue either. “It depends on where we are, some people don’t like it, some people don’t care,” says Tarek. I’ve heard of people criticizing them because they have songs in English even though they are from TJ. “They should only sing in Spanish”, they say, specially when they play a show with Spanish-only bands, but the language controversy escapes them. In their world, English and Spanish live together.

“Because we live in a border town it’s really normal for people to speak both languages”, says Bernie “If you go to Europe, everybody is close together and speaks each other’s language. If you live in France and Spain everybody at the border speaks French and Spanish. I think it’s the same situation here, we live in a border between the US and Mexico, so they speak English, we speak Spanish, we’re so close together we have to speak both languages.”

Even though they see no problem in speaking both languages, they are certainly aware of the confl icts the border brings. The harassment and the discrimination from border patrol agents when trying to cross the border, legally and, in the case of Bernie, with American citizenship (He was born in San Diego but grew up in TJ). “On the Tijuana-San Diego side no, but in Texas, oh my God, they treat you like crap, and it’s Mexicans that treat you like crap. I mean it’s ironic. It’s the same border, I don’t know why they’re different, they’re a little more harsh, here they’re more lenient,” Paco mentions.

“Border Patrol in Texas sucks, but the people are nice, if you go play shows, people are cool,” corroborates Bernie, “We don’t feel that the border is right, but it happens.”

Whether border keeps people in or out, it also keeps ideas away. I myself have been witness to the misconceptions that people from both sides have about each country. To many Americans, the Speedy Gonzales image is still their idea of a Mexican. Paco retells the story of a guy that was surprised they came from TJ. “Oh my God I can’t believe you people have come so far, you play punk rock music and you smell good. … [we said] you’re not joking are you? No! no we should do something, I want to interview you for a school newspaper or something...”

Bernie has another peculiar episode to share, “We were in Austin, Texas and the show didn’t go through, but the promoter took us to his apartment, he fed us, he gave us a place to sleep and everything, and we were with Billy Milano from S.O.D. and he said, Did you guys take a ferry to get over here, isn’t Tijuana an island? And it was funny, well he didn’t know I guess but he was a nice guy, he even gave us some burgers.”

Their latest album was recorded in Riverside at a studio called Love Juice Laboratories. “For me it was cool because that’s where we recorded our fi rst record. I know it’s not the best one but it’s our fi rst one” Bernie says modestly. Indeed their first album is not their best but it certainly has the innocent angst that Los Kung Fu Monkeys keep in their pockets. They have playing since May 1997, and those almost ten years have taught them to progress musically and lyrically, but their energy when playing live has stayed the same, if not grown. It is the energy of youth, the sweat emanating from the mosh pit that the monkeys cause whether in Hermosillo, Sonora or San Diego, California.

The genius behind the music is Hassan, and Paco the front man is not ashamed to say it. “Someone comes up with the music, usually it’s Hassan, sometimes I help, sometimes he helps (directing his head at Bernie), but I have to give the credit to him… The brain, we’re the party, he’s the brain. We balance it out.” Their future plans include a tour to Europe with the German ska punk band Wisecracker, who incidentally share their bilingual taste in their songs, playing in German, English and Spanish. They also plan to tour Mexico with Wisecracker, breaking the borders just a little to bring punk and ska all around the world.

Kung Fu Monkeys are: Hassan, Tarek, Mario, Paco, Bernie & Adrian