Hi, who are you Uptown Psychos and what instruments do you play?
Hello, I’m Roman Gomez I am the vocalist and rhythm
guitarist for the band. Amongst the group we have Jose Torres on Drums,
Andrew Pulido on the contrabass, and Johnny Pineda on lead guitar.
Uptown
Psychos is a Los Angeles based Psychobilly band. We throw many events
locally in Southern California and try to keep the scene thriving.
What is the musical genre of the group?
To be quite honest we don’t really fit the mold to
be labeled as a 100% Psychobilly band, we all play and listen a lot of
different music. Our roots are definitely strongly influenced by a lot
of early Punk Rock and Psycho/Rockabilly for
sure. But I guess If you took a listen to us you’d agree that we have a
different style compared to most of the bands in the Psycho scene.
Why Uptown Psychos as a name?
Hugo Martinez actually came up with the name, he is a
close friend of the group. In high school we had a crew/social club
whatever you want to call it, and it was called Uptown
Psychos. The original singer Jonathan Pinkard and myself decided
to start a band after having heard bands like Demented are go,
Calavera, and Os Catalepticos. Since we weren’t clever enough to think
of a name ourselves we decided that Uptown Psychos was a name good enough for our band. And here we are 13 years later 😂
Where are you from?
Originally from Whittier California.
But we are all living in different parts of Southern
California. Andrew is in Commerce, Jose in Corona, Johnny in Fontana,
and I’m now in Riverside. It makes things difficult since we all live
apart from each other but we all make it work.
When did you start playing as Uptown Psychos? That would be September 2007.
Do you have other parallel bands or do you play in other bands?
Andrew: Uptown Psychos, Psycho Demons, Rhythm Reactorz, No Way Jose.
Johnny: Uptown Psychos, Badluck Aces, Rhythm Reactorz, Los Pakololos.
Jose: Uptown Psychos, Sin of the Innocent, She’s a Kreeper, Wrecking Dead, Los Chilaqz.
Roman: Uptown
Psychos, Resist and Exist, Corrupted Youth, Hardstride, Rhythm
Reactorz, Wrecking Dead, Los Difuntos, Calavera, The Slanderin, No Way
Jose, Psycho Demons and The Howlers. Many more
I can’t even remember haha. This is an on going joke for everyone, because I play for everyone and anyone. 😂
Influences? (Musicals, literary, cinephiles, etc.)
My personal influences would have to be Torr Skoog
from Kings of Nuthin’ for writing some of the best lyrics and music I
have ever heard in my life.
And I would say I am personally influenced by people
who seek discomfort, go against the grain. In my opinion say fuck the
path of least resistance, nothing has been easy for us as a band. The
little we have, we have shed blood, sweat, and
tears for. At the age of 16 I was sneaking into bars with a high school
identification card, just to play for a group of 8 people. 4 of them
being the bartenders and security, the rest being our supportive friends
who were there even if we sucked.
We’ve accomplished a lot of cool things as a band, I
believe we have played as direct support or as an opening band for every
single psychobilly band I own a record of. And that means the most to
me, we do this because we sincerely love the
music. I never want to stop doing this because whenever I needed a
helping hand, music was my therapy.
PSA (We still suck.)
Do you have something recorded? Tell us what you have. Are you going to record something soon?
We have only a handful of demos released, but the
latest recording we have was done with Raul Cuellar. One of my best
friends and favorite engineers.
You can find it on almost every streaming app Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, xHamster, and I believe Pandora.
Just type in Uptown Psychos-Had Enough and you’ll run into our music.
What do your songs talk about?
They used to be about zombies, hotrods with zombies driving, hair grease, spider webs and cemeteries. 😅
But now after growing up 13 years and living the life
I do, and to have seen as much as I possibly can around the world. I’ve
decided to start writing more personal songs. I’m currently writing a
song about our borders from United States
and Mexico. And another song about a friend who’s passed away. Torr
Skoog really influenced the way I write, because he made me feel like
it’s ok to be personal and write sincere things. Not enough bands do
this anymore, and it irks me.
With whom and where have you played?
Our first show was at the Slam Theatre in El Monte
California. The Henchmen, Goddamn Galows, and Calavera played those
events. This was the earlier years of psychobilly. Where everyone
actually sounded pretty unique and not like some cookie
cutter assorted Meteors sound.
We have shared the stage with a lot of really amazing bands.
Astro Zombies, Total Chaos, The Quakes, Skitzo, Los Gatos Locos, Nekromantix, and so many more.
Upcoming events of Uptown Psychos?
The next show we have lined up will be direct support
for Torment in Anaheim. And after that I believe we will be playing
with The Psyclocks from Japan.
To keep updated on those events find us on Instagram: UptownPsychosOfficial, and you can also follow Diabolic Events and Checko Presents for the updates on the Torment and Psyclocks show.
Are there good bands in your environment?
Yes there is!
Take the time to look up Radarmen, Uhh Random Bunch, Deranged, Quaranteds, The Vectors, Patient Zero and Spectre.
And we need your
support to help rebuild it! So please help promote
our bands and our events. Honestly if you just keep up with our social media
pages we will post all of the bands sometime or another. The Los Angeles
Psychobilly is on the verge of blowing up again.
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