Aztlan Underground

Aztlan Underground navigates time and space between the contemporary and the ancient to create music that reveals the unrestrained voices of indigenous peoples of the world. Through their own personal journey of enlightenment, they uncover the raw, painful, solitude of oppressed people transforming it with unbridled energy and emotion into their hard-hitting musical style.

For nearly 20 years, Aztlan Underground has cultivated a grassroots audience across the world from Europe to Australia and, most importantly, the Americas, from Canada to Venezuela. Initially disregarded as stereotypical American Yankees, Aztlan Underground shocks and awes foreign audiences with their respect for the ancient ways and songs of ancestors mixed with the modern, industrial sounds of today. They have performed with every socially important act from Rage Against the Machine, Manu Chao, to Fermin Muguruza, and Dead Prez. Aztlan Underground remains true to their name and beliefs by playing political rallies, underground venues, and anywhere the doors open.

At home, the band is considered an institution having influenced a whole new generation of musicians, bands, and free-thinkers. Giving back to the community, each band member, in one way or another, reaches out to troubled and incarcerated youth, families in need, and disenfranchised neighborhoods. Yet their hearts lie with their families. Whether cheering their children at sports, jamming alongside their brothers, or inspiring their father to make art, they never lose focus on family.

Growing up in poor, violent households where gang membership was the popular way out, Aztlan Underground band members found music. Their early musical influences went from one extreme, punk and metal bands favored by their classmates, to the other, cumbias, rancheras, and salsa heard at home. Picking up an instrument and grabbing a microphone was a cathartic experience that in a sense saved their lives. Through the healing power of music, four mystified souls joined together and found their medicine.

Their message is one of self-determination and decolonization. They challenge their audience to look within themselves, to their own life-giving forces, and human potential to realize that they are God. Individuals and the collective are strong and divine. They ask to confront personal demons and society’s ills to create a world filled with hope, answers, and a way forward. From the hurt and rage, they inspire positive action within themselves and others

Collaborating as a circle with no bosses and no leaders, each member contributes their personal story to the creation of a song. Four versions of the same story are told in four different ways at the same time. With this ritual, Aztlan Underground has independently produced and distributed three albums: Decolonize (1995), Sub-Verses (2001), and the self-titled album Aztlan Underground (2009). The band’s albums reflect a process of self-discovery and realization evolving from the anger of Decolonize to the new self-titled album featuring an evolution towards a more global, humanitarian struggle. The new album maintains the indigenous infusion of sounds and timelessness where the songs stretch the boundaries of the standard composition and become 8- to 9-minute nonconformist journeys.

Music is liberty. It provides the forum to voice opinions, emotions,
and thoughts that can inspire social change. Music is democracy. The listener
can choose to turn it on or off, stay and listen or leave. Music is the
storyteller. With or without lyrics it says what words alone cannot express.
Music is medicine. It allows the listener to understand, absorb, and heal on
their own terms...