I started in music when I was a child
Actually, when I like seven yeas old, maybe
And I start very into the folk music, eh
From Colombia and Latinoamerica
I learned to play guitar with my old brothers
And my father who is all the time singing tangos
Of Carlos Gardel and música colombiana like
You know, vallenatos and all these kinds of things
So- so I grow up listening to all this different rhythms
And, you know, music
And then, when I- em, when I get 14 years old
Eh, I was in school I started to listen to rock music
And I bought my first electric guitar
And I get eh- totally crazy with, eh- metal music
You know I start to- to listen to Metallica and Sepultura
And Slayer and Black Sabbath and Zeppelin and- I mean
All this kind of music because I never listened to that kind of music
I mean before I was always into the tango music and folk music
And then when I get- get crazy with rock, I start with a metal band
In Colombia, which was call "Ekhymosis"
And that was in the year 88', we start in Medellín
Which is my- my city, my- I born in Medellín
Em, we start to play very loud and very hard
And ah, we spend like 12 years actually
Playing together and we released five albums
With that band
But through all those years we start to experiment
A lot with different rhythms, so we start to incorporate
Like latin rhythms or rhythms from
Of- from the colombian folk through the metal
You know, and we start to do kind of a lot of experiments
And then, after 12 years, em, the band broke up
Each member of the band decided to, you know
Do different kind of music so, so that's
That- that was the reason why I moved to Los Ángeles
After 12 years I, you know, get very depressed in Colombia
Because we couldn't find the opportunity
We never go out-outside Colombia
We were like a loco band always
So- no, the band broke up do I was very depressed and I
So I- I decided to move to Los Ángeles
And I start here to, to find new opportunities
I start to play here the bass guitar with a metal band call "Agony"
Which is- they are friend of mine
And at the same time I was trying to find, you know
Opportunities to working in my demos
And after like eight or nine, almost a year
Gustavo Santaolalla, he- he got one of my demos
And through a friend of mine that give it to him
I knew that he was living here, I mean
I knew his name for a long time ago because
He was very famous in Latinoamerica
He produces all this big bands from Latinoamerica
That I respect a lot, like Café Tacuba, like Los Prisioneros
Like ah- La Maldita Vecindad, like Molotov
Eh, so for me, Gustavo was familiar, I mean his name
And also because he- he used to have a band in Argentina called "Arco Iris"
He was I mean, the singer of Arco Iris, so I- I know him
And then when Gusta- I was here
I was having a very difficult time in Los Ángeles because I
I had no money and I had no friends and, you know, I had no car
So I was always walking, it was difficult for me
But after a year, some- some day I was in the- in the motel
In the motel I was living there for that time and the phone rings
And I just answer the phone and was, that was Gustavo
He was telling me that- that he liked the demo
And he wanted to work with me
And at that time in, I just- I would start to cry like a baby man
Because I was so happy, I couldn't believe it that
That was happening to me
And definitely that day my- my life change completely so
He take me to Universal, you know, to sign with Surco Universal
And I start- we start to work together
We record the first album, "Fíjate Bien" in the year 2000
We co-produce together, I mean, three of the, of the albums
And that- that was the beginning of my solo career
