La Santa Cecilia continues to rise to the top. After several years of working hard and having new and exciting experiences, a new album has been brewing; Buenaventura. Fresh from celebrating their album release at the Lincoln Center in New York with a packed house, they came home to have a special in store performance and album signing on March 3rd at the historic Amoeba Music. Buenaventura was released on February 26th, 2016 and quickly debuted at #1 in iTunes Latin music sales.
La Santa Cecilia spoke with Al Borde about their recent experiences that contributed to their new album.
AB: A few months ago, you performed on the Conan O’Brien show, which is yet another amazing accomplishment for you. How was it to perform in front of an audience on live television?
LSC: What an experience it was for us! You don’t really see many Latin bands and especially a band like ours on late night shows, so it was a very unique experience. We presented one of our new songs “I won’t cry for you”. It’s a song with really fun lyrics and we got a great response from the audience.
AB: You recently played with a legend, Mr. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. It would be an incredible honor for anyone to share a stage with him, but it specifically speaks volumes about you as a band. How did that come about?
LSC: It was an incredible surprise for us. We were part of a festival called Todos Santos in Baja California. We were told that we would have a special guest and it turned out to be John Paul Jones. We could not believe it! He arrived and we started playing one of our songs called “La Morena.” It all felt very natural, he improvised with his bandolin and played his own rhythm. He was very humble. It was such a memorable experience. Obviously we are all huge fans so it was such an honor.
AB: In more recent news, you have a new album coming out, Buenaventura. Can you speak more on what led to this new album and what we can expect?
LSC: We are very happy to finally put out a new album. It consist of songs that we are so in love with. This album reflects on our lives for the past few years. We’ve grown as a band and also personally. We’ve gotten married and started families all while living our dreams. We’ve had the opportunity to visit and perform in different places like Alaska, Colombia and Mexico. Not everyone gets the chance to have such experiences so we feel very grateful and are very proud to manifest it on Buenaventura.
AB: Your new single “Nunca Mas”, which continues your pattern of creating such meaningful music, is a song that represents the community but also encourages the community to speak up. There’s a particular line in the chorus that stands out, “Mi cara tiene nombre y nunca mas se callara”, can you elaborate more on that song and the meaning?
LSC: It’s a song that responds to all the violence happening here and everywhere. In Mexico we’re still struggling with the situation in Ayotzinapa and here in the States we are living the Black Lives Matter movement. So it’s a way for us to say that we are fed up with this type of violence in our communities. We are simply struggling and fighting for our rights in a productive not a destructive manner. We want people to open up their hearts and find a peaceful way to resolve things. And in general it serves as an inspiration for anyone who is going through anything difficult in their life. We encourage them to make the right choice and make positive changes to improve their lives.
Los Angeles is very proud to call the Grammy award winning quartet one of their own. Their constant success continues to be the voice for the immigrant community and for the Latin community in general. La Santa Cecilia will launch a US tour beginning with a performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown LA on Saturday, March 26th. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.
Buenaventura is available for purchase on iTunes.
