Medvedi!! The one from El Paso, not the Czech one! Duh!!

You might think Medvedi? What is that? Well, it is a badass group of guys from El Paso that make cool music. I saw them once at the Lowbrow Palace and all I can say is: I loved it and they don't disappoint. To anyone that has not heard them yet, I recommend that you give these dudes a listen. When I first heard them I thought: Cali surf punk, but who fucking cares about labels you go decide it for yourself. I recently interviewed these guys. They are very funny guys and it is clear that the band's chemistry is "on-point" as the kids say nowadays. The band members consist of: Ben Balusek (vocals and guitar), Ernie Carillo (drums), Chris Odom (bass), and  Andy Chavez (guitar). However, when I asked them, they had different names for each other, as Ernie put it: Carl, El Chingo, Verizon, and Ernesto. I'm pretty sure if you see them out and about, you should still refer to them by their normal names.

You guys have two EP's so far tell me more about your newest material.
Ben: "We actually have more than two EP's, it's just not online yet. We recorded it at Ernie's house for "Short and Sweet Records". This new album we made was with Bug. Thus the Bug/Medvedi split. We still have newer material to put out there. Half this material is from like a year ago."

Is there a theme or an idea behind your material?
Ben: "Medvedi has always been stuff I wrote, just played with different people. These guys just make it different. It is very organic."

What genre would you consider yourself?
Ben: "Punk, post-punk, indie and so on. Every time we play, people tell me something different. Some people say emo, surf band, and others say folk."
Ernie: "We have different bands so we sometimes influence each other."

How long have you guys been playing together?
Ben: "We have been playing this line-up for over a year now, but I've known Chris since I was 15. I've known Andy forever and Ernie and I have been playing for a while now." 

Why Medvedi?
Ben: "I'm mostly Czech, so I wanted something in another language. I love bears and Medvedi means bear in Czech. It works out." 

Any tour dates?
Ben: "We are planning to travel throughout the U.S. and that includes mostly the east coast and west coast." 

Anything you would like to say?
Chris: "I'm really sad right now. Just kidding. I played in Medvedi a while back when it was only Ben and his wife. We stopped for a while, moved out of El Paso and then we moved back and we began again. I used to play guitar and now I play bass. Andy and Ernie came in later and it worked out. The vibes were right. We each write our own parts and it has been working so far. It's s great. On a side note, most of us are playing instruments that we were not always comfortable with."
Andy: "Ben had asked me to play with them during a band practice one day and I liked it, so I joined the band. Wanted to socialize and play video games."


Thanks guys! Check them out!

https://medvedi.bandcamp.com