Local Band La Otra Media

You know how they say that there’s not enough support for locally-made things? It’s funny how many of us don’t know that we have great music to our ears just faculties away! Three individuals with three amazing personalities captivated me with their beautiful songwriting skills, their funny antics and their spark. “La Otra Media” is here to stay, folks. These three funny, talented men write with their hearts on their sleeves. From “No te perdí” to “Recuerdos de Amanda”, L.O.M. give a vibe like no other band you’ve heard around campus, or anywhere at all. Please welcome “La Otra Media”.

Name: Emanuel “Meridiano” Pacheco Rivera/ William David González Sierra/ Ramón Ernesto Torres Santa

Age: 21/ 19/ 21

Major: Comunications, Journalism and Information/Science of Animation/ Audiovisual Communication

Classification: Senior/ Sophomore who thinks he’s a senior/ Senior

Hometown: Toa Alta/ Toa Alta/ Bayamordor

Instrument: Bass and vocals /Drums and other annoying, loud and obnoxious sounds. What I consider to be “back up singing”/ guitar and vocals

(From left to right:Emanuel M. Pacheco Rivera, Ramón E. Torres Santa and William D. González Sierra)

1.HCUPR: How did the idea of the band begin?

W: Like 11 months back, we were on campus joking around with a guitar singing immature songs about coming of age.

R: Pretty much what William said.

E: From what I know, William and Ramon went to a show of a local band, whose name I will not mention, and William said: “We can do better than that”. And so a few days later, they asked me to join them!

2.HCUPR: “La Otra Media” is a very peculiar name. Tell me about that.

E: I’m still looking for it. I can’t find it. It’s red. Tell me if you see it!

W: It’s a… joke.

R: I like the playfulness of the name and the fact that it could mean anything.

3.HCUPR: Inspiration behind the songs:

R: Well… Most of the things I’ve written are mostly about myself and past experiences. Some of them, for example “Pues”, mean a lot to me because it’s a turning point of a certain time-frame in my growth.

E: More so than what we think of life, it’s more of how life presents itself to us. We like to sing about things that have happened to us, or people familiar to us, and so people can relate with what we write and the stories we sing. We write for and about life.

W: I like creating characters. Very rarely do I find myself spilling my personal life into the songs. I find it to be more of a challenge to create a fake person with a real story to tell. Then try to think, talk and react how said person would through the song. I also like the idea of romanticizing the past and making it seem like it wasn’t as bad as the present, so I do that a lot in my songs as well.

4. HCUPR: What are your plans with La Otra Media, both long term and short term?

W: For now we’re working on some short-term goals like playing a few shows and getting local recognition. Our long-term goals include recording the album we already wrote, playing bigger shows and expanding our fan base.

R: Recording and sharing our EP, that’s in the works. Play gigs at different local venues so we can get heard, that is short term. Long-term goals would be to record all of our material as an album. Produce and play in festival type concerts, maybe even create the events too.

E: I’m pretty much looking for it, I want this to happen and so I’m putting all my eggs into this basket. Short term, I want to become a better musician, prepare some gigs and go around and play. Long term I would love a record deal, to be able to make more and more music and share it with as many people I could.

5. HCUPR: What’s the songwriting process?

E: It usually happens in one of two ways: firstly, we either come up with a melody during a jam session and out of it we make some lyrics, like it was with “No te perdí”. On the other hand, one of us comes up with a song and presents it to the rest the band and we work it together to give it a more La Otra Media – esque feeling, like it happened with “La Descarga”.

W: Usually I call Ramón or Meridiano and go like: “Hey guys I wrote some new lyrics!” And they say: ” It’s 3 AM, you lunatic. Go to sleep”.

R: This is a pretty interesting question because 90% of our material is written by William, lyrically speaking, and as for the music, I help him set out a melody and chords for the song. Sometimes he’ll be mumbling words and we find what’s right. Sometimes he’ll have the words for months but we don’t give up on it until we find what the group wants. As for me, I’m mostly scatting or mumbling melodies while strumming chords I like or maybe some guitar riffs and then I’ll write some lyrics. If I struggle too much, then William will help me out.

HCUPR: How do you manage to balance school, social lives, and a band?

R: We mostly practice on the weekends, so it’s not a problem, but transportation and moving things around is pretty time consuming.

W: In my case, there’s no real struggle for fitting the band into schedule. I don’t do much on the weekends other than passing time with my friends. So band practice falls into the same time as going to my friend’s house and playing video games or watching movies. Social life? Is that a Pokémon?

E: Well, I’m pretty into my classes, so I can focus most of my time on the band. We usually rehearse on weekends, and so are the gigs. Starting next week we are going to hit the thing harder, and we are going to practice one extra day, sorta as a boot camp to become better, faster.

7. HCUPR: Biggest challenge as a band? How did you overcome it?

E: Well, just how we are doing right now, we want to share our music with more people, and so we are trying to gain more recognition. This would allow for more people to listen to us and so, more people to share stories with.

R: Lack of equipment. We’ve mostly been able to practice thanks to things that we’ve borrowed from friends.

W: There have been a few for me. My family doesn’t really like the idea or believe in us. It’s kind of a rocky road but we have great people supporting us as well. Other than that, we’re struggling to find a way to give our audience good quality content and it can be a really frustrating process.

8. HCUPR: What advice do you have for people who want to form their own bands?

W: I really wouldn’t know. I don’t think I’m in any position to be giving advice right now. If anything I’d like some other bands to give us some advice! Up until now we’ve been “winging it” in every sense of the phrase. We’re just now getting started with organizing the project. Then again, if we’d already have this figured out it wouldn’t be as fun!

E: Believe in yourself. If there is something that you really need to become a great artist/band is trust. Know that what you are doing is great music, and believe that people will love it. Note, do not confuse confidence with arrogance.

R: Just be yourself and enjoy the music.

9. HCUPR: Would you rather have fame or fortune? Why?

R: I would mostly like recognition or appreciation for what we do.

E: Fortune, as in good fortune. I don’t care about the riches of the world, I just want enough to be able to keep making good music that people like.

W: I would pick appreciation. A plethora of modern day musicians and or artists tend to find fame and money through non-artistic mediums such as scandalous publicity and a false, idealized image. I guess I just want people to appreciate what we do as we try and represent what we really are as best as we can.

10. HCUPR: Anything you want to say to the audience?

W: We appreciate all the support that we’ve been getting. We have so many great people that care about us and believe in us and its the most amazing feeling! We hope to keep expanding our audience and make our songs available for all of you in a good quality. You guys deserve it.

R: Wait… What audience? Are we playing right now?

E: Thanks for listening to us! Don’t forget to like our Facebook page and listen to us in Soundcloud! Keep track for our next shows and our upcoming music.

11. HCUPR: Favorite song that you wrote and why?

E: The one I have made by myself for the band that has been played is “Sr. Juez”. A very rabid punk, strong voice and heavily social content about drugs, death, laws and their victims.

W: It’s a collab between us three. I wrote the lyrics, Ramón made the music and Meridiano came up with some great idea for ambient with back up vocals. The song is “Oscuridad” and it’s about finding inner peace and reaching a point of acceptance inside all the problems around you. It’s such a stripped down and bare song with a beautiful guitar and soothing vocals that gain power at the end. I find it to be a very intimate song for the band because its the only one we’ve never played live or in front of anyone.

R:“Pues”, because I remember writing it and later showing it to the guys and I was amazed that they actually liked it even though it was so different to the raw, fast-paced energy of the other songs. And after we put that demo on soundcloud I was receiving feedback by different kind of people who enjoyed the song and were actually playing it multiple times.