Los Crudos are a great Chicago hardcore band. The things that set them apart are their intensity and the fact that all their songs are in Spanish. They all have Latin American roots and use their backgrounds and punk music to provide a voice for injustice. Through their music they paint a picture of the desperation of the worlds poor and our need to try harder to improve things. Hopefully they even open a few eyes. Martin sings, Brian drums, Jose plays guitar and Leonard plays bass. They were interviewed by Carol Steele of Not My Son in Corpus Christi when they played a show together.
10: How long are you going to be on tour?
Martin: About 2 months.
10: Tell me about the Mexico thing.
M: OK, we leave tomorrow, we are crossing through Loredo, and we will be in Mexico until August 1st.
10: And you cant take any gear with you?
M: No, weve spent the whole tour using other peoples stuff and its working out pretty cool.
10: How has it gone so far?
M: It has gone all right. We have been out for a week and a few days and people have been treating us pretty good, except for a few weird things, but for the most part it has been really cool.
10: What do you guys stand for? Time to stand on your soapbox.
M: Well, thats a tough one. First off let me explain this to you, when we started this band we never thought we would get it out of our community cuz we sang in Spanish and didnt really think it would be accepted in the English speaking punk community. Although its gone alot further than our community, one of the things we have stood for since it was in just our community was basically to be independent and as self-sufficient as possible and try to be as active as we possibly can, despite the other forces that are manipulating our community and other young people.
10: What brought you to do punk lyrics in Spanish?
M: For me it was because ever since we were in grammar school we havent. It was the language we spoke at home, but when we got to grammar school there was this big stripping away from us of what our language and our culture was. Their was punishment if you spoke Spanish and things like that. So now that we are older, I think we can think about things more clearly these days, we do it more out of anger, as a big slap in the face to that whole thing. It was like, fuck this.
10: School does that to you, just like they tried to get me to not write left handed when I was left handed. So there you go. Is there anything you guys want to say?
Jose: We would like to thank all the bands for letting us use their equipment and the people for letting us sleep on their floors, I mean that within itself is just great. We werent planning on playing through the whole United States on the way to Mexico, so everyone has been real nice to us.
10: What are your plans for after the tour?
M: Well, just rest a bit, and we want to put together an album that will be called Songs from the Lorena Borders (I think this is what they said), but of course it will be in Spanish.
10: Are you on a label?
M: We are on our own, its called Lengua Armada.
10: All right, thank you.
