Thursday, November 7

Banda Los Sebastianes lets themselves be loved

The best Christmas gift for Saúl Plata, leader of the band Los Sebastianes, is to have closed 2023 with a flourish: many performances, many successful songs and wholesale projects for 2024.

“We have done very well,” said “Choco,” as the founder of this Sinaloan group is better known. “Now we return to our house to rest for a few days.”

The 18 members of this combo will spend the end of year holidays in Mazatlán, where they have their residence; They will resume their activities in mid-January, when they return to Southern California and Las Vegas to offer a concert and participate in National Band Day, respectively. Then in March, they will travel to Austin, Texas, to perform at the Bésame Mucho festival.

A few days ago they passed through Los Angeles to promote “La del agüite”, a cut that will be included in the band’s next album, which still does not have a release date. It is a ballad in which a spiteful man tells his ex-partner much of what she feels for cheating on him. (In Mexico, “agüitado” is a colloquial way of saying that someone is sad or in a low mood).

Los Sebastianes love to perform these types of songs because their audience also loves to listen to them. Choco says that when they are at concerts they ask attendees who are in love to raise their hands and that only 5 percent raise their hands.

“And when we say raise your fucking hands, everyone raises them,” he said. “[Por eso] It is a very current topic.”

This is the fourth cut from the new album they released after “Que seas mi mama”, “Nada de nada” and “Made in Culiacán”. In mid-January they hope to release “Malamente”, another song of spite, the artist announced.

“To throw [atacar] to women,” he said, “because they behave very badly.”

But not everything will be pain on the album, because Choco says that life is also love, party and atmosphere, and that is why the band also has cumbias and a lot of rhythm prepared, “because we have to bring the joy of the Mazatlán carnival” ; and also corridos because the group is versatile.

“In our productions we take people to all the feelings,” said Choco. “To love, to heartbreak, to partying, to hard against them, to hard against them.”

The band will begin its new tour in March, in Los Cabos, Mexico, then will go to Mexico City and from there to the north of that country to perform in Coahuila, Torreón and for the first time in several cities in Sonora.

This 2024, Los Sebastianes will also celebrate its 20-year career, and its founder could not be happier because he believes that music is not the only thing that unites the group with its followers. It has been an accumulation of aspects.

“It has also been contact with the public, that we are kind to them,” he said. “We let ourselves be loved […] People bring us chocolates and flowers to concerts; It is very nice that people who pay for a ticket bring you a gift, and we also respond on social networks and that is why they treat us like their family; “Everything comes together.”