Interview: Midnight Talk with Mírame
We recently sat down with San Antonio Latin R&B hip-hop infused band Mírame in a West Campus parking lot to discuss their year in music and their philosophy.
Written by Cat Pozos
Photos by Jonathan Castro
Mírame from left to right: Natassia, Yung Verm, Enrique, Will, Lil Spicy, Jamail
Having only played their first show together this past March, Mírame is a fairly new band. However, their polished performance and ease with one another on stage could easily lead anyone to believe they’ve been playing together for years. Born out of the University of Texas at San Antonio, singer Nat, drummer Enrique, percussionist Luis a.k.a. Yung Verm, bassist Jamail, guitarist Lil Spicy, and rapper/keyboardist Will were first brought together by trumpet-playing songwriter Angelo.
With most of the band being of Latin-American origins, it only seemed natural for a piece of their cultures to come through into their unique, genre-blending sound. While their performance for the first Afterglow Session at Love Goat gave us a taste of their dance-worthy music, we had a conversation about their journey over the past year with their music in hopes of uncovering more of the group’s history.
Your first show was only this March! Since then, how do you feel your performance and dynamic as a band has changed?
Nat: I think that each time we play, we tap into a different part of ourselves. We’re all on this same wavelength together, and we just feed off each other's energy so each time we play, we discover a new part of ourselves. I know that when I sing sometimes I do something that I didn’t know I could do. It's just all in the moment though because we’re feeling the crowd, we’re feeling the music, and we're feeling each other, and we discover new things about ourselves. And practice. We get better with practice. Different from the first gig, we went straight into the first gig. We didn't really know each other at the beginning that well. We knew of each other, but we didn't know each other. It's different now that we’re all comfortable around each other, and we all know what we want and we all know how we want us to sound as a collective so that’s become different over time.
Spicy: We’ve definitely grown since the beginning. We sound, I would say, really different
Will: We sound tight. Compared to just playing the songs, we’re now able to grow on them.
Spicy: We’re finding our sound and getting closer to what we want. At first, that March show, we were more like jamming, feeling it out, and now we kinda know what we're doing a little bit better.
Enrique: Definitely, on two aspects to think about it, we're each getting better technically cuz we’re playing every weekend, so we're always in the music. And also musically and vibing together with the energy, we’re pretty much hanging out with each other like a lot. We're always sharing music with each other, starting to influence each other and starting to mesh into this one sound that's made up of all these many sounds and it's becoming our sound.
Rapper/keyboardist Will
What about how your songwriting process has changed over time?
Spicy: When it started off, Angelo was the one who knew all of us individually, and he kinda saw ‘oh this person is on the same wave that I am and so is this person.’ So, he kinda knew that we were gonna f--- with each other — and he was right. So at first, it was Angelo's tracks. The first time we practiced, Angelo brought two originals that he already had and I brought one original that I was gonna throw away but Angelo said “bring it to Mírame and let's see how this sounds with us," and now we've started just jamming and ideas will come out through there. If one of us will bring an idea, the rest of us will jam it out and that's how the song will come.
So what I’m getting is that you each get to just add your own layer over some material?
Enrique: Yeah, Angelo will come out with some chords
Spicy: Yeah and we all do that. Will will do that, he'll be like “oh I made this verse” or something and we’ll add on to it because we all understand each other and what we're trying to do.
Jamail: It's lots and lots of improvisation.
(To Spicy) You guys played a show at Brick this summer and Angelo introduced a song you’d written. Is there anything you can tell us about that specific song?
Spicy: “Hit My Line” yeah. Will and I started “Hit My Line” as a summer project. We were just feeling ... I don't know if we were listening to Lauryn Hill ...
Will: Listening to some old hip-hop throwback stuff ... Fugees, probably.
Spicy: We made that, and then I had to leave San Antonio for a bit and when I came back, we did it as a collab with Mírame cus I kinda wanted it to be with Mírame not just our own thing.
Will: It's just tight with the band;there’s so much you can do with the whole band as far as hip-hop goes. Just the live drums add a whole new touch and a flare to it. It’s a nice sound.
You guys play “West Side Girl” at almost every show since your first show, — are you planning on putting that out sometime soon?
Nat: We are sometime soon! It is in the process. We've already recorded it, we're just figuring out some technicalities.
Spicy: But now that we have Luis, Yung Verm, on the congas, we got that percussion.
Yung Verm: I got the f---ing flavor right here! I'm in the f---ing back banging on the bongos, you know what I mean, that's all I do you know. I'm waiting for everyone to get active.
Spicy: For real though, some tracks we have, we're holding onto before putting them out. We just want to perfect them.
Enrique: Not only that but our music constantly evolves. Our sound is evolving because our influences are evolving. We’re discovering new music from around the world. No matter who it is, we hear something, and I just think ‘my god that's so innovative! Let's let that influence us and come into a new sound.’
It seems like a lot of your songs have undergone some change. or example, the “Feel” you guys do now is not the same “Feel” you played this spring or even this summer.
Nat: We changed “Feel” so much. That was a song Angelo and I did before Mírame so it was kind of like the starting point. We kinda wanted to emulate that sound with Mírame. But now that our [Mírame’s] sound has changed and as a band we’ve evolved, we wanted to change that song up. It’s an OG but we wanna keep it with our current sound.
Singer Natassia
So a lot of your music is inspired by Latin culture, and in today's overall climate, just the act of broadcasting or celebrating another culture tends to be seen as a political or social statement. Was that your original intention with Mírame, or was everything just a musical stylistic choice?
Spicy: I think it's definitely more of a style statement. but if it gets political, we're definitely all about pride and expressing the culture. I don't know if I'd say it’s political but if it does get political ... for us, culture is culture. Wherever you're from, you can be whoever you want and that’s what Mírame’s about. We all come from different places and we’re all Latino ... except Jamail.
Jamail: Yeah, I've lived in San Antonio all my life.
Spicy: We all bring a little different side of the Latino community. Some of us are straight from San Antonio, Angelo’s originally from Miami, Yung Verm's from Laredo.
Yung Vern: But my daddy is from Venezuela!
Spicy: Same!
Nat: I'm from Cali, and my mom is from Nicaragua. But we definitely present a different side of the Latino culture, and we bring that to our music, and we want to bring that to the people. Everyone can be a part of Mírame.
Spicy: And the reason our music sounds Latino is cus we are Latino, so we're trying to stay true to that.
Enrique: We’re definitely getting into some world music too, not just Latino.
Will: I feel like we have a good blend of a lot of our culture. We take a lot of jazz elements too.
Nat: For sure with Mírame, at first we wanted to get our Latino culture out there, and we wanted to normalize it. Not just as ‘oh, this is just Latin music.’ It can be regular pop music. It doesn't have to be segregated in its own category. Everyone can listen to this. We're bilingual, so we switch from English to Spanish, and you can jam to whatever. We're just trying to make it normalized, and it’s so chill that everyone can get into it.
Jamail: I think the best way to put it is that we're trying to innovate. We’re trying to make our own sound out of multiple sounds. And then, in the end, we don’t see it as Latino funk jazz blah blah blah fusion. You just hear "Mírame. "
Will: Our current genre is Mírame. That's what it is right now. Until we can create our own genre ... which eventually will most likely happen.
Spicy: It’s in the process.
Will: I don’t wanna give too much of the sauce away.
Guitarist Lil Spicy
San Antonio has a big indie scene and an established math-rock scene with some local bands who have been around for a while. When Mírame came in, you were a completely new thing. How did you feel the community opened up to welcome you? Did you have any problems coming in?
Enrique: I feel like as far as all those different scenes when we started and still today, when we have a crowd, we try to catch their vibe and we kind of play that vibe. Like the math-rock, we try and do what we can to fit the scene and fit the vibe and almost fit the energy. We had a stripped down set where it was like a house party; it was just a couple people. It was good, it was like an NPR Tiny Desk kinda thing.
Spicy: For that one, we got more chill. We still had our sound but we fit into what the energy was. We like vibing off people’s energy, it’s cool. We think music is an experience. Yeah, it’s a sound but we just want everyone to be … if we’re in the same room, we’re on the same wave, and we’re listening to the same thing. It's a beautiful experience to share.
Nat: In terms of the music community in San Antonio, everyone was really accepting. Everyone was really awesome.
Spicy: I love the art scene in San Antonio.
Nat: It’s really beautiful. There was no drama, no tea.
Spicy: Yeah, never. You go to any space and it’s all love and you can feel it.
Jamail: And I think we were accepted so quickly because we were so different. I feel like a lot of the bands have similar sounds. Like they're all different, they have their own flavor, but they're very similar in the ways they play, and then we come out with something that's just new.
Spicy: The scene has been indie for a while, and we do have some indie elements but it was cool because we were something a little new for some people. But, no push back at all anywhere.
Have there been any specifically memorable shows you guys have done?
Spicy: Princess Pass [a house show] was cool.
Nat: We played a show at Princess Pass recently, and that crowd was the best crowds we’ve ever had — it was so hype. We had the same energy, and we were feeding off each other, and it was awesome. But, my favorite show personally was when we opened up for La Santa Cecilia just because I love them so much. It was just really cool because it was our first actual real concert, you know what I mean. It was a real concert like we got to open up for a really huge band, and it was really awesome.
Enrique: I feel like as far as our live performances, they're always different. Catch us at any live performance right after the other, and it might be completely different. And we're all on that grind — this one Angelo couldn't make it. So sometimes, on the spot, we gotta fill in the empty spaces and that's where the improv comes in.
As a particularly large band, how do you adapt to that and roll with the punches when someone can't make it?
Nat: I feel like we’re okay without everyone.
Spicy: It's always the same sound no matter what.
Nat: But when more people come in, you know, those people that come in, we just invite them in. It'll make it sound so amazing no matter what.
Will: I think the main element of it is that we all have our frontman aspects. All of us could hold down a show if we needed to have a solo set. So with all of us coming together, all of us bring that energy, and if there's a part missing, we just fill in that space because we know how to take that lead. It's a good thing to have with such a large group because even when we're missing someone, that energy is still there.
Enrique: And we all pretty much play a bunch of instruments, so that's very useful. We're all very versatile, and we can just hop on something and do it if someone can't.
Jamail, you were gone for a while this summer. Coming back with a bit of outsider perspective, were you able to see a shift in the band's music, style, or dynamic?
Jamail: If you're talking style, no. If you're talking enhancement and improvement as musicians, then absolutely. The players I came back to were not the same players I left, and it's a great thing. The night I came back, we just jammed before we rehearsed, and I just felt like I was at home — it just felt right. They'd all really honed in on their craft, and we’d all separately improved, and we brought it together in one moment. So the core style didn't change, I just feel like it became more tight. Quality was just elevated.
Enrique: It’s nice to know that we're all invested enough to hone in and get better in any way musically and technically.
Bassist Jamail
Where do you see it going now?
Spicy: Everywhere.
Nat: As long as we’re spreading love, it’s fine. When we’re spreading love in our music, then it’s all good.
Spicy: We're really about the music. For all of us, this is what we want to do. We're really just trying to keep going. There's not necessarily goals other than growing as musicians and having fun together.
Will: We're trying to rock more people's socks off.
Interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.
Mírame can be found on all social media @Miramemusic
Video of their performance at Afterglow Session #1 coming soon to our website.