By JC Casarez
Commercial radio has limited the selection of original new artists that listeners are exposed to.
Thanks to bands like “The Gloss,” fans of rock music can look forward to music that will not only produce original lyrics, but a sound that has some reminiscence of bands like The Strokes and Nirvana among their many influences.
The band, whose members come from various parts of Los Angeles, have an East Los Angeles core that brought them together – as it is home to the 24-year-old lead singer/guitarist Fernando Andrade.
The up-and-coming retro-rock band is flowing with potential.
Their blend of artistry is a unique one, merging members’ own musical background together into one.
The other three members of the band consist of Giovanni Padilla who plays second guitar, Byron Turner on bass guitar and Daniel Santillan on drums.
The band members have known each other for years with the exception of Padilla who just recently joined the band.
“We’ve been friends since high school. And Gio, the second guitarist who recently joined, is becoming a really good friend
“Every time Gio would come over, he would be playing the guitar and I just thought, oh this guy is actually pretty good,” Andrade said.
That interaction led to the band asking Padilla to join them as the second guitarist to add depth to the sound they wanted to create.
The band has a following of more than 19,000 fans on their official Facebook page.
Their fanbase has spread internationally to the United Kingdom.
“We have gotten around a few blogs. That’s good, especially anything in the UK. I just feel like there they just like music a whole lot more or they’re way more into discovering indie type of artists,” Andrade said.
Some of the songs on their newly released “The City EP” have a sense of similarity to early material from The Strokes with a mid-’70s vibe.
Yet, the late lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, continues to be a thriving inspirational figure
“Like how I loved Kurt Cobain. That’s how it starts out for a lot of bands with Nirvana. We have our own sound, but the success of The Strokes is an inspiration,” Andrade said.
While the band has been together for less than a year, they have managed to produce enough songs to release an EP and slowly move forward toward a full album in the future.
“We have been together for almost a year, but we have a lot of songs. We have 14 songs and we just put five on the EP that we felt have a similar vibe, sound and feel to it,” Andrade said.
Andrade, who writes most of the material, takes a direct approach to how the songs come together.
“I just start playing with chords and whatever I find interesting I just piece together.
“I just match them up and see how they end up sounding and then they just end up becoming a song,” Andrade said.
Ricardo Pimienta also contributed to this story.