Strange Cadets

I recently got to catch up with indie-rock band, Strange Cadets, from El Paso, Texas! They just released their single, "Seaside", which will be part of their not yet released EP, "Love's Not Time's Fool". You can listen to the song down below. Strange Cadet is made up of Ricardo Solis (Lead vocals) Pepe Ramirez (Lead guitar) Raul Haaz (Bass guitar) and Alan Montes (Drums). The are heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, Tame Impala, Kings of Leon, The Killers, and  Foo Fighters. I think it really reflects on their sound especially the new single, "Seaside". 

I recently got to interview Ricardo Solis of Strange Cadets and this is what he had to say:

Desert of My Eye (Pao): I would love for you guys to tell me about the band itself! How did the project come about? Have you guys always known each other?

Ricardo Solis: The band really started at the beginning of this year. Pepe and I have known each other since we were in high school. We’ve always dreamed about this, traveling the world and doing what we love. In mid-2017, we both started writing songs as a hobby. We ended up writing a couple of songs and by the end of 2017 we met our former producer Cesar Legazpy, who helped us to build this project. He produced a song for us, but we felt vulnerable and insecure so we came to the conclusion that we needed two more members. We immediately started looking for people to join our band. A friend of ours introduced us to Raul Haaz, bass player, who happened to be looking for a band at that time. We instantly clicked. At that point, we were just missing a drummer. One day we were all together and Cesar told us about a family friend and how well he played drums, but he lived in Dallas. I remember Cesar showed me a clip of him playing drums to “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone”, and I instantly knew he was the perfect fit to complete our band. Cesar spoke to him about us needing a drummer and he showed him a couple of our demos to him. By the next week he was already moving to El Paso. From the very first rehearsal, we felt a very strong chemistry between all of us.
 
D.O.M.E:  Why did you guys decide to call yourself's Strange Cadets?
R.S: It’s a funny story, everyone is so intrigued about how the name came to be. It was actually a night when we were doing recording for one of our songs. I remember we were eating nachos in the living room during one of our “breaks” and by that time we already had a deadline to have a band name in order to start promoting our material. Someone in the room came up with the name
'Space Cadets". The band always wanted a name with the word “Strange” in it, so we figured out that maybe combining it with "Cadets" would sound good. We were not to sure whether to keep it at first, but we just decided to keep it.

D.O.M.E: Please tell me about the EP. Is there a theme behind it? What inspired it?
R.S: The initial idea came to us through a demo we released about 6 months ago on our website. The name came from the Shakespearian sonnet “Love’s not time’s fool” and we found it to match perfectly with the song’s message: “love will never fade away”. I think that in this EP every song has it's own theme, but it all correlates to the same idea. 


D.O.M.E: "You've been waiting for someone new, I really hope he likes you too." Those are lyrics to "Seaside" is it based on a true story. Love the sound by the way.
R.S: Thank you that’s so sweet. All of our songs are based on a true story or experience. I think that we all have experienced a broken time in our lives. I am really grateful to share those experiences through our music.


D.O.M.E: When is the expected release date of the EP?
R.S: There is no release date yet, but we are doing another single release soon. 


D.O.M.E: Do you have any shows coming up?
R.S: We are doing a small show on November 16. We will be announcing more details soon. After that, we are planning on playing some other local venues and tour other cities as well. 


D.O.M.E: Do you think that being a band from the border and being located in El Paso has influenced your sound?

R.S: Thats a great question. We think it’s a privilege in having all of this variety in culture due the fact that we were raised by Hispanic parents and we were influenced by Latin rock.

​www.strangecadets.com