RECORDING
LA SIEN
Fabricio Ycaza interview by Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun
Left to right : Alejandro Zapata , Carlos Bernal ( top ), Fabricio Ycaza ( bottom ), Erol Kuscu
Rock en español is as loose a genre as the rock ’ n ’ roll from which it stems , and that becomes particularly true when the listener is privy to all the different Spanish dialects in the music . For the Houston group La Sien , together since 2009 , that dialect is Ecuadorian . The name of the group refers to the temple in one ’ s mind , and the quartet of FABRICIO YCAZA ( guitar , vocals ), EROL KUSCU ( lead guitar ), ALEJANDRO ZAPATA ( bass , vocals ) and CARLOS BERNAL ( drums ) explores the strengths and vulnerabilities of that temple on their newly released album , La Sien , their first with this lineup .
Is this a batch of songs that has come together over the last year , couple of years ? It ’ s been about a couple of years . There ’ s maybe a song or two that it was maybe a little longer , and there ’ s also a song where we had recorded pretty much the entire album and then I went back and just felt like writing this song “ Violeta .” I just had it in my head and could not let it go and it had to be on this record .
Were you listening to the record and felt like it was missing something or was it just that this song in particular jumped out at the right time ? You know , the song kind of came over a little bit of world events . A lot of my songs come from , I guess , borrowed feelings – some of them come from my own experiences to some extent , but some of them come from borrowed experiences and feelings , and that song in particular … I felt some people were not being treated right and it just became a song very quickly , so once I started writing the lyrics , it just kind of flowed .
34 L O C A L | june 16