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What Puya Says
With their debut album recently released by MCA, Puya is at the forefront of a new genre -- Latin...
With their debut album recently released by MCA, Puya is at the forefront of a new genre -- Latin hard music. Doug Van Pelt recently talked with Eduardo Paniagua about Puya's Puerto Rican roots, and how they found a niche by
combining the sounds of Spanish rock, salsa and American heavy metal.
Why don't you give me a brief history of Puya?
Well, we got started back in 1990,1991; we were all living in Puerto Rico and we all knew each other from before that. In the 80's we were all there, like, we knew of each other but we were all playing in different bands. But we started the Puya thing...well, actually, at the beginning it wasn't called Puya. The first name that this band ever had was, uh, Mr. Biscuit, and uh, it was instrumental. There was no singer, it was a 3-piece; bass, guitar, and drum. And you know, we started jamming out while we were still playing in other bands, it was a just like little side project we had. Then shortly after that, I went to Boston to go to college, to Berklee for a couple years, and during that time this other drummer filled in for me.
You know, the first three years of the band, the band lived in Puerto Rico, and it was instrumental. At the end of the third year we started auditioning singers, but at that time I was still in Boston and then, in ‘92, the band moved to Ft. Lauderdale. And then, shortly after that the drummer left the band, and I came back from Boston and rejoined them when they were already in Ft. Lauderdale. They decided to change the name to Puya around 1995, like at the beginning of ‘95. After moving to Ft. Lauderdale, it started getting a little bit more heavy. I guess we were a little bit influenced by the South Florida death metal rock scene and the heavy stuff. But it was cool ‘cause, at the same time, the roots started to come out more. And I guess living away from the island and all that.... maybe that kind of like, made us go back to the roots a little more and like Latin rhythms and some salsa and stuff. It was a good thing, you know we got to play out a lot and the band got really hyped.
These were like the most struggling years of all, cause we were away from our homes. But we sang with an independent label in Florida. First we did a tape when there were not even a label; we did just like a 6-song tape and it got around a little bit around town. But then they became like an independent label and we did a CD, but it didn't have the distribution or anything that we wanted. But still we were able to get it around and we handed it to some key people, you know. And that week we were able to play at one of the key shows I consider in the history of this band -- it's when we played at the Billboard Latin music conference in Miami back in ‘96. That's where we met Marusha, the manager that we have now. And she saw us play for the first time and Gustavo Santaolalla, the producer of this record that we have now, as well -- he was there and he saw us play for the first time. You know, a lot of stuff came out of that.... it was definitely like a turning point.
And then next thing you know we were in L.A., recording demos with Bob Ezrin -- he's a producer from L.A. He's known to produce like KISS and Pink Floyd and some other bands, so with him, we were able to come out here and record some demos. Next thing we new, we met the MCA people and we started recording immediately. Puerto Rico is where we call home these days cause that's where all our personal stuff is. Well, basically we've been out on the road for a while and I haven't had time really to think where I'm gonna be established and based at. I guess for now it's Puerto Rico; that's where we all live and stuff. Except for the singer; he lives in Miami.
Well, describe the festival in Bogota, Colombia, and your experience there.
Oh, yeah that was great over there. Well, that was in, if I remember correctly, May of ‘96. It's a big festival in Bogota, in Colombia, and they do it every year; it's like a 13,14 bands each day. There's like three different stages and it's all weekend long, and uh, we played twice over there at two different stages. The best day was the last day of the festival. It was at a big soccer stadium, and it was like, according to the newspapers over there, like 60,000 people. It was like, you know, packed, cause it was like, free concert, you know, for the people. It was great, we were the only unsigned band.... and you know, we got a great reaction from the people over there. You know, big mosh pits and everything, but it was all like Latino bands, you know, like Spanish rock bands. I think we were the only ones that had some English in our lyrics, you know. And they went nuts over there when we sang in English, man -- I was really surprised. But yeah, that's one place we've gotta go back to sometime, I think they're still doin' those festivals. And now that the record is out and everything; everybody's been waiting for it since then.
How did you guys react to the Fear Factory tour mishap, and give our readers a short description of what happened?
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