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Guest DJ: Chicano Batman's Musical DNA

The members of Chicano Batman are, from left to right, Carlos Arévalo, Gabriel Villa, Bardo Martinez and Eduardo Arenas.
Josue Rivas
/
Courtesy of the artist
The members of Chicano Batman are, from left to right, Carlos Arévalo, Gabriel Villa, Bardo Martinez and Eduardo Arenas.

A lot has happened for Chicano Batman since the band first performed together in the mid-2000s. It was one of the first Latin-music acts (along with its SoCal neighbor La Santa Cecilia) to perform at Coachella, it toured with auteur rocker Jack White, it's put in countless miles on the road performing in cities big and small and it recently performed in front of a nationwide TV audience on Conan.

In other words, Chicano Batman gained its rising popularity the old-fashioned way: one fan at a time, through hard work and amazing music.

To get to the bottom of that latter component of the band's success, we invited Chicano Batman's members into the studio for a Guest DJ session. As expected, what followed was a very geeky musical conversation that reveals the sources and inspiration for its one-of-a-kind sound — not to mention lots of laughs and some profound thoughts on culture and society.

For a glimpse of a band enjoying itself as it navigates its musical journey, listen to the show at the audio link above.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Felix Contreras
Felix Contreras is co-creator and host of Alt.Latino, NPR's pioneering radio show and podcast celebrating Latin music and culture since 2010.