The search for justice in an unjust world is a theme that never gets old. And it’s the search for justice that inspires Jorge Requena Ramos and Rafael Reyes in the music they create, along with their bandmates, in The Mariachi Ghost. “The Mariachi Ghost is a man who does not know if he's dead or alive,” explains Ramos. “A rider that comes in the night and finds people who are unjust, who are unfair, who are criminals, who are sinners.” The band mixes the sounds of traditional Mexican music with searing rock and four-part harmonies inspired by Mennonite choirs. In this conversation with Countless Journeys host Paolo Pietropaolo, Ramos, who was born in Mexico, and Reyes, who was born in El Salvador, talk with host Paolo Pietropaolo about their experiences as newcomers to Canada, trying to navigate a music industry that often routinely pigeon-holes non-white artists. “The Mariachi Ghost is an entirely Canadian experiment. We were able to create something that was multicultural, a reflection of the city that we live in with influences from Mennonite four-part choir singing to Chicha and Francophone songwriter influences, and Jamaica influences all happening in one place in one band in the basement, in a minus 48 winter day in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the suburbs,” says Ramos. “It's a very, very Canadian experience and we're very proud about that.”
THEME MUSIC:
Paolo Pietropaolo (PP):
The search for justice in an unjust world - that’s a theme that never gets old.
Teachings about justice form the bedrock of the Bible, and the Koran.
A steady stream of superheroes battle it out for box office glory every year.
Greek myths and folklore are positively bursting at the seams with stories of justice and vengeance.
And it’s the search for justice that inspires Jorge Requena Ramos.
Jorge Requena Ramos:
The Mariachi Ghost is a man who does not know if he's dead or alive. A rider that comes in the night and finds people who are unjust, who are unfair, who are criminals, who are sinners.
PP
Requena Ramos was born in Mexico and is a founding member and lead singer of The Mariachi Ghost - an 8-piece band based in Winnipeg.
FADE IN MARIACHI GHOST CUT
PP:
The band mixes the sounds of traditional Mexican music with searing rock and four-part harmonies inspired by Mennonite choirs.
It is a wild mash-up of culture and sound that according to its creators could only be made in Canada.
REQUENA RAMOS
The Mariachi Ghost is an entirely Canadian experiment. We were able to create something that was multicultural, a reflection of the city that we live in. It's a very, very Canadian experience and we're very proud about that.
PP:
That’s Jorge Requena Ramos. Here’s his band mate, lead guitarist Rafael Reyes. Reyes grew up in El Salvador during that a devastating civil war.
Rafael Reyes
It was very dangerous to even get caught with a record or cassette or, uh, or listening to a clandestine radio station that would broadcast this music.
Very politically charged words had a lot of meanings. And the governments were afraid of people with voices.
PP:
I’m Paolo Pietropaolo. Jorge and Rafael of The Mariachi Ghost join me next on Countless Journeys from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
TAKE OPENING MONTAGE
PP
The Mariachi Ghost was formed in Winnipeg in 2009. When they get on stage, they are something else to look at. They look sharp in Mariachi-style embroidered suits, and skull make-up on one half of their faces, inspired by the Mexican celebrations around the Día de los Muertos - The Day of the Dead.
That’s just the way they look. And their sound? It delivers a jolt to your soul.
Progressive rock meets Mariachi, with explosive riffs, soaring guitar solos, and harmonies inspired by the Mennonite choral music their Canadian-born band mates grew up singing.
They have two albums, their award-winning self-titled debut in 2013, as well as 2019’s Puro Dolor.
And I can testify that a couple of hours spent on YouTube drinking in their visually stunning catalog of music videos is time well spent.
Jorge Requena Ramos and Rafael Reyes spoke with me recently from their homes in Winnipeg.
Paolo: Thank you for coming on Countless Journeys to speak with me.
Jorge Requena Ramos: No problem.
Rafael Reyes: Yes. Thank you for having us.
Paolo: It's great to have you. And I want to begin by asking that question that I think anyone who is an immigrant to Canada knows, which is the origin story. We all have an origin story about how we came to call Canada home and maybe I'll begin with you Jorge. And what's your origin story, your path to becoming a Canadian. How did you come to.
Jorge Requena: I lived in Mexico city. I knew pretty much that I didn't want to live in Mexico city. It's a city where you would need to spend the majority of your waking life in a car. But, uh, I ended up coming on a trip to Canada to look at some universities.
And I found the university of Manitoba at a fair in Mexico city. And I, I, I knew of the films of Guy Maddin, because I was an avid cinameteque attendant. And I realized that Guy Maddin was one of the teachers at the university of Manitoba, which was exciting. And I came to Winnipeg to visit in that tour.
And, uh, I really liked the pace of Winnipeg.
Paolo: A different pace from Mexico city.
Jorge Requena: Very different, but I left the airport and I think I saw three cars and it was 6:00 AM on a Saturday. Where in Mexico city I used to go exercise at 6:00 AM on a Saturday and there was already traffic. So, it felt like my brain grew a couple of sizes in terms of like the space that was that I was allowed to have for myself.
And so I came in a very privileged way. I was very, very privileged to pick the place that I was going with pretty much no trouble and just landed here. And it was easy.
Paolo: Rafa your, your, your journey to Canada, it's a different story from Jorge’s., I wonder if you can tell me about, about your origin story?
Rafael Reyes: Yeah. Um, so we came here in the late nineties with my parents. We were, uh, we grew up in El Salvador with my mom and my dad and my brothers. The nineties were a period of uncertainty in El Salvador. A post-war place, a lot of people with no jobs and a lot of violence. So we were not impervious to some of that.
And unfortunately we had to have a, a family tragedy for us to decide, you know, that, it was for the, for the best of what my parents think of their children to, to take us away from that. So we applied to come to Canada as, uh, landed immigrants. And it was a long process and took a couple of years to get there, but finally we were approved and we thought that Canada was a fairly short distance - everything is a fairly short distance. We come from a small place. Right. You can drive across the country in a couple of hours. Uh, and, and so we thought, well, you know, let's, let's pick a place that's close to family. We had some family here already, uh, in Vancouver, Edmonton.
So we thought you know what? Winnipeg seems like a good place. You know, we had no idea what the city was like, and we just knew that it was right in the middle of Canada. So we just wrote down Winnipeg on the application and, and then yeah, we ended up here on a cold February day.
Paolo: Wow.
Rafael Reyes: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a very, um, you know, the process itself it's, it's, it's scary, you know, to, to make that change. Our change was absolute. Um, there was no going back, at least not immediately. So it was a brave thing, uh, for my parents to do they, they had careers. My dad was, he was an engineer and he was also a teacher. And my mom she was a finance advisor at a bank.
So you know, they have jobs and we had friends, we were in school. And so it was, it was an uproot and a replant. Yeah. And, and coming here, I mean, the first thing you gotta do is try to find a job. They give you a bit of a break at the beginning, but you gotta start paying a lot of those fees for landing in Canada, because it's not free.
A lot of people think it's free. People pay their way here. You know, and the government of Canada is generous. Allows us to take the time to pay back and to build that life here. So, yeah, it was, it was a slightly different approach, but we're here . Happy we're all here. And we can create music and be artists..
Paolo: How did you two meet?
Rafael Reyes: I've been around, um, playing music in Winnipeg for a while. Uh, but by the time I met Jorge in the band, um, I was at the time playing in a Beatles cover band, playing the local pubs. And a friend of mine who was working with Jorge at the time in Mariachi Ghost , he was the guitar player.
He came to see me and he says, you know, there's a band that you probably will fit better than me. So that's how I met Jorge.. We became really fast friends, right away, talked about music and talk about music that we liked and talked about, uh, what we wanted to do and it fit perfectly to what I wanted to do.
Paolo: Jorge what did you talk about? Tell me about those conversations when you first met Raphael.
Jorge Requena: My brother was living in Winnipeg at the time and my brother and I, we're doing the interviews for the band. And I was listening to “De-Loused in the Comatorium”, or maybe “Frances the Mute” from the Mars Volta, in the car. And then we closed the door of the car and walked into Rafa's house and he was listening to the same song.
Paolo: No way.
Jorge Requena: And so I was like, oh my God, it's meant to be, this is pretty interesting. And we just had a long conversation about that album and a couple of other Pink Floyd albums, um, and what Rafa wanted to do, uh, in the band.
Um, and it was pretty, it was pretty clear right away that, that we should do it. And so, it just, it went, it went without a hitch very quickly.
Paolo: That's so cool. I want to ask you, uh, about the Mariachi Ghost, but in a minute, because I first, I want to hear about these influences and these musical backstories that you have Pink Floyd, the Mars Volta, traditional music, uh, woven into all of these influences that get woven into, you know, the new music that you end up making.
Uh, Jorge, tell me about, about your musical background, how you grew up, was your family into music. How did music come to play such a large role in your life?
Jorge Requena: Yeah, my mom is a choir teacher. And she instilled, um, very forcefully singing in our house. And my grandfather spent his entire afternoon, every day playing guitar. He never got better at it playing guitar and playing old corridos. I spent the summers at his house and we used to spend the morning on horseback and the afternoon watching him play and would sing with a very raspy voice totally out of tune, songs that he used to sing for my grandma, who by then had passed.
And I learned to be disciplined about it from my mom. And I think when I met Rafa, I was at a point where I had been in Canada long enough to miss Mexican music. I really wasn't interested in Mexican music when I was growing up. Especially because I cared about the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and, uh, you know, new wave and Depeche Mode.
And I didn't really want to be uncool and get a mariachi suit and get on there. But, I knew all the songs. I knew all the material. I knew all the music and my grandpa played it. And so when I, when I moved to Canada and was here for a couple of years, I really missed it. I really wanted to listen to it. And so I started playing it.
Paolo: Rafa, let's talk about your musical origin story and my understanding is that, that in El Salvador you were growing up in an environment where, where music was politically charged. It wasn't just music and you could get arrested for, for playing certain songs or listening to certain artists like Victor Jara.
Rafael Reyes: Absolutely. In the eighties, my dad actually played in a band in our town that played some of this protest music and, uh, but it wasn't until it was safe to do. But previous to that, it was very dangerous to even get caught with a record or cassette or, uh, or listening to clandestine radio stations that would broadcast this music.
Uh, very politically charged words had a lot of meaning. And and, the governments were afraid of people with voices. Yeah, absolutely.
Paolo: Was that something you were aware of as a child that sort of the fear that existed around being caught, listening to the wrong music?
Rafael Reyes: I would worry more now, uh, knowing that's a very real thing.
I mean, as a child, you don't really connect two things to a very, uh, doom, ending, you know, but I was aware that, you know, my dad listened to a radio station only at certain times of the night. So very quietly, he had one of those portable radios. We listened to some of the news and, and some of the music that came from South America, from Chile, from Argentina, you know, a lot of protest music from Cuba as well, with Sylvia Rodriguez and Carlos Puebla and a lot of those other artists who, who had a voice in their country, some of them were exiled. Some of them lived in Italy and Sweden and places like that. And that's where they released their music.
Paolo: And when did your musical journey begin?
Rafael Reyes: I remember being a baby. My first memories as a little little one is listening to Close to the Edge with my dad cranking it on stereo.
Paolo: Yes!
Rafael Reyes: Absolutely. Yeah. And, and so that's, you know, and my dad was a guitar player. He mainly focused on classical music.
And he was really good at it. He just never had the opportunity to, to develop that, that musical part of him, he was a busy guy. He had you know children, he was going to university at the time. And he was also working as a math teacher, but he, he listened to a lot of that stuff. He listened to a lot of progressive rock, a lot of which was all mixed with everything else.
I mean, he could one day by listening to Duran Duran. Um, and then the next day we could listen into, um, to Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden, um, and all of those things. So I grew up with that, you know, and, and to find somebody that liked to like this kind of music in El Salvador is fairly rare.
So when I grew up and I started making, you know, friends of my own in high school, I met, uh, I met a friend who his uncle lived in the United States. And he would send him CDs, uh, from there, you know, bands like Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots, Crash Test Dummies, and the like - Pearl jam.
And so, and so with me and this friend, we explore a lot of that music and we decided we wanted to be in bands. However, we wanted to play in a rock band. We didn't have, uh, no way to get an electric guitar or drums or amplifiers or anything like that. So one day it clicked, we were going to join a choir, uh, at the church so that we could have access to instruments. And so we, you know, we perform our duties and church to, to play. But then after we will tell the priest we will say, "Father, we need to practice a little more. So you go and we'll close up." And, uh, yeah, that's when we got, you know, our Offsprings and Green Days out. So we'll sneak those instruments out and we'll go play up at the dance hall and back it up and take it back again. So, you know, we were pretty sneaky that way.
Paolo: It also sounds like for you at one point, music was also a part of an expression of, of community singing in a choir, being in this tightly knit community, and then your family arrives in a brand new country. Uh, tell me a bit about your early experiences apart from, you know, the February weather shock.
What was it like for you to, to arrive in Canada, and experience this different culture?
Rafael Reyes: I bounced around a lot and in a lot of bands and a lot of cover bands and lots of stories and of touring as a poor musician, you know, um, we encounter some prejudice along the way, but, you know, it's, it's part of, was part of the times, I guess. And, uh,
Paolo: What kind of, what kind of prejudice did you encounter? Is there a specific story that you can remember?.
Rafael Reyes: There was one particular incident, uh, that we were very tired of driving and we were very hungry for, to get to a gig in, uh, I'm not going to mention the town, but it was not Winnipeg. We were playing one of those, uh, you know, Irish bars that are with hotels.
And we were just about to start our first set after maybe nine hours of driving and we played our first set and some customer complained to the manager. It was around the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And this gentleman complained and the complaint to the manager was that there was a “slur”, uh, person in the band . And he, and he is a good customer and so the manager deferred to him. And so she
Paolo: Really?!
Rafael Reyes: Yes. She came and talked to us and says, "You guys, thanks for coming. I'll pay you for the night. And, uh, you know, I'll put you up in the hotel, but your, your, your contract is canceled." Right. And we're just like, why, what happened? What did we do? Were we late, you know, what is going on?
"No, this is what happened." Right. And that's when we were, it was pretty deflating to have that happen. Right. But, you know, looking back, nobody made a big deal of it. You know, it was, I guess maybe it was one of those things that you don't really, you don't have a, you're not tuned to yet, you know, or perhaps it's just shock .
Paolo: Jorge what, what about you? Have you had those kinds of encounters in Canada?
Jorge Requena: The most notable was, uh, I was with Rafa on stage, at another Irish pub and we've played the venue before a number of times. This is a venue that it was a regular venue for many musicians in Winnipeg. And, somebody started uttering, um, slurs at us and, I asked them to come to the microphone to apologize.
And they just kinda did it again. And so, I was about to jump off the stage. A lot of audience members stepped in, and you know, the musicians all kind of, we calmed each other down and security dragged them out. But I made a very public sort of plea on our social media. To talk about that.
Like it's, it's unacceptable now. It's not like it's, you know, I think it was 2014, maybe it was, it was, we drew a line. It's like, wait, this is not acceptable anymore. It's time to, you can't go to a show and utter racial slurs at the band. That's just insane. Unfortunately it happened and as Rafa mentioned it was a deflating experience cause I mean, I wasn't expecting it.
And the problem is only Rafa and I who are visibly Latin American. The rest of the band is white. And so it was really at Raffa and I, that these slurs were being uttered, and no one else.
Well, we turned it around and we kind of, we, we did a sort of an aikido of the mind and we, we turned it into a community building experience for ourselves.
Paolo: That it takes a certain amount of courage and wisdom to be able to do that both.
Jorge Requena: I don't think that the courage or wisdom came from Rafa or I think we were both pretty angry and I think rightfully so.
Um, I think the other members of the band, um, who had like a different perspective and point of view helped us kind of channel our anger into something that was more productive.
Paolo: I can imagine the anger and, and how that must've felt.
Short music feature
Jorge Requena: The music industry is not an inclusive place. The creative industries at large are non-inclusive places. And I mean, the problem is that in our industries, there's a lot of people who are liberal, who consider themselves as liberal, woke, but still carry a lot of colonial programming with them.
They're not maliciously shielding uh, shielding from people, people of color and indigenous people from opportunities. But they're still shielding people from opportunities.
Our band has been recommended to apply for the world music category, um, at the Junos and at the, and many other awards, um, instead of the rock category at some of the awards and it, at one point in our career, we were big enough that we should have applied for the rock category and we might have actually won. But we, we were recommended not to do so. And so basically what, what, what happens with that is that the world, the world music category is a ghetto…
Paolo: Yeah.
Jorge Requena: Where brown people are put so they can compete with each other and no one else. And so if there's two Mexican bands, they're only going to give it to one Mexican band, obviously.
Right. And so, if there's like somebody from Africa doing Afrobeat and The Mariachi Ghost, how can you assess the quality of both music in the same category? It makes no sense. And so these are all things that are, that are discrimination. They're not uttering racial slur at us on the stage. But they are checking us into places that we don't choose.
And so now when Rafa and I, and the rest of the Mariachi Ghost, we're using our platform to enable and empower change and to leave an industry for the people that are like us - 10 or 12 years ago - now, so that there is a place in the industry that is dedicated to them - an unracist, inclusive place. An unoppressive place for them where they can shine where their voice will be heard.
Paolo: Take us back to those early days of The Mariachi Ghost and just, and this character that you've created, uh, for folks who don't know, I mean, you have a certain look onstage. You, you, have a certain way you make up your faces when you get on the stage, give me the beginner's guide to the Mariachi Ghost.
Jorge Requena: Ah, totally. The Mariachi Ghost is a man who does not know if he's dead or alive, is a fictitious character that is inspired by a traditional story, a traditional Mexican story called Charro Negro. El Charro Negro is a rider. Charros are people who do charreada. It's a traditional sport in Mexico that is related to horses and actually the cowboys in the U S learned their skills from charros that were migrating to the states. And a Charro Negro is a rider that comes in the night and finds people who are unjust, who are unfair, who are criminals, who are sinners. It's very Catholic. And, uh, he cuts the heads off the people who are perpetrating these injustices.
Paolo: Wait, so, so, so justice was a foundational part of the band to begin with. And then now it's evolved into part of what you do.
Jorge Requena: I I guess so. I hadn't thought about that in that way, but yeah, it was. The original character of the Mariachi Ghost has always been a justice bringer.
Paolo: Rafa, Jorge spoke about his relationship to this music and I want to ask you also just about in terms of Latinidad, you know, being Latin American, coming from El Salvador to Canada, and now finding yourself as part of this band, what does it meant to you for, for your identity to be in the Mariachi Ghost?
Rafael Reyes: That's an interesting way to put it because I feel I'm Canadian.
I have been, and I know this is just numbers, but I have been here over half my life in Canada. A place like El Salvador has evolved so much in the last 20, 25 years. And, and I just wouldn't know what to do going back there. Right. I would feel left out. I come from a fairly, uh, open-minded liberal sort of society where you can do whatever you want to do, and no one's going to judge you where, you know, there are places where there's a lot of repressive mentality still.
I'm very proud of who I am, where I come from. Salvadorans are very hardworking people. And they, it seems that they have never had a chance to really develop as a society. There's always been somebody who wanted to rule them one way or the other. So that's no fault to, to, to the population.
Right. And those experiences as a kid over there, they made all of us who we are. Right. Uh, wherever you grew up. So I, I'm, I'm proud of being El Salvadorian and I'm proud of being Canadian because I, I can reconcile both sides of me and, and, mold and take away what is no good and add what's good to it. And, and, be that type of person, um, have that approach to all things.
Paolo: That's a beautiful answer. Jorge I wonder if you have anything to add to that, to that topic, if you would like to respond to that.
Jorge Requena: Um, I've lived almost half of my life in Canada. I've been here for almost 18 years. Um, I have a son in Canada and I have, I, I feel like Rafa. Half of my identity and half of my heart, um, the north pole of my heart is in Winnipeg.. And you know, I have, uh, I have, I have a very deep roots in Mexico and my mom is still in Mexico. My brother's still in Mexico. Um, some of my best friends still live in Mexico. And so I have really deep, really deep rooted connections with Mexico. But I also have really deep rooted connections in Winnipeg.
And I've made a family here. Um, not only with my wife and my child and her family, but the band is, uh, it's, it's an extension of our family. Like we act like a family, we interact like a family. We fight like a family. Uh, we have events like families. We, you know, we are uncles to each other's kids and we're reflecting upon the gifts that, that Canada and Winnipeg have given me.
The Mariachi Ghost is one of those gifts. The Mariachi Ghost is an entirely Canadian experiment. We were able to create something that was multicultural, a reflection of the city that we live in with influences from Mennonite four-part choir singing to, you know, like Chicha and Francophone, you know, singer songwriter influences, you know, and Jamaica influences all happening in one place in one band in the basement, you know, minus 48 winter day in Winnipeg, Manitoba in the suburbs, you know, it's, it's a very, very Canadian experience and we're very proud about that.
And we're very happy that our friends allowed us to put our culture first and showcase our culture. They didn't ask us, “Hey, why aren't you doing my culture?” They were like, “No, no, no, we'll help you do yours.” And I think that's incredibly Canadian. AndI'm very proud of, of, of we are being able to do that.
Um, you know, we've even represented Canada in some international stages. We went to the Canada House in South by Southwest, representing Canada. We went to the Canada House in Tallinn Music week representing Canada. And it was, you know, um, people from the Mexican embassy were shocked to see Mariachi suits on the stage in Estonia, um, representing Canada.
So we're the Mariachi suits that represent Canada and that we're very proud about that.
Paolo: Well, Jorge, Rafael, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. It's wonderful to get to know you guys and to hear your stories.
Rafael Reyes: Thank you. Thanks.
Jorge Requena: Thank you. Really appreciate it.
CLOSER CREDITS
Jorge Requena Ramos is the lead singer of The Mariachi Ghost. Jorge grew up in Mexico. His bandmate Rafael Reyes grew up in El Salvador - and he’s the lead guitarist of The Mariachi Ghost. Jorge and Rafael joined me from their homes in Winnipeg.
(MUSIC UP)
If you’d like to hear more stories like this and help new listeners discover this podcast, make sure to rate Countless Journeys on your favourite podcast app - or leave us a review.
Countless Journeys come to you from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 at the Halifax Seaport.
I’m PP, bye for now.