SONS OF TEXAS plays The Parish at House of Blues Jun 16, Whisky Jun 17, Observatory North Park Jun 18; photo Chris Phelps
Sons of Texas will headline The Parish at House of Blues Anaheim on Jun 16 then open for Hellyeah at the Whisky A Go Go Jun 17 and again at the Observatory North Park Jun 18. They are currently in the midst of a U.S. tour, part of which was with Fozzy and Kyng.
“The guys in Fozzy were real good to us and Kyng are fun to hang out with,” guitarist Jes De Hoyos commented.
Hailing from McAllen, Texas, De Hoyos notes “that’s about as deep south as you can go in the United States.”
They were naturally brought up with a variety of cultures that all played a part in the music they create, which centers around hard rock and a little bit of metal.
“We’ve got some groove in our music, we’ve got some of the blues and some rock,” De Hoyos said. “I think when you tie it all together it creates the sound that we have.”
As a next generation of bands from Texas, Sons of Texas is a fitting name as their music is often referenced to other bands from the state.
Sons of Texas
“Before we were called Texas but that name was already taken so we had to come up with something,” De Hoyos recalled. “We would play shows locally and we kept getting referenced that we sound like this or we sound like that and a lot of the bands that would be referenced would be Texas bands. So, we just started to call ourselves like a NexGen kind of thing.”
Their debut album, Baptized In The Rio Grande”, was released in 2015 on Razor & Tie and a new one is completed and ready to be released later this year, also produced by Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, All That Remains, Hatebreed).
“It’s been great working with him so far,” De Hoyos said. “You know the first album was awesome. It kind of doesn’t even feel like work sometimes. It feels like dudes hanging out. [laughs] It makes for a good workflow and I think we get things done like that.”
Everyone contributes to the songwriting – De Hoyos, Jon Olivares (guitar), Mike Villareal (drums), Nick Villareal (bass) – while most of the lyrics are penned by vocalist, Mark Morales.
“Typically, I’d say nine times out of ten it starts with a riff,” De Hoyos explained. “Jon or myself will come up with an idea and we’ll try to build on that and if everything flows naturally then we keep going until we’re finished. We just feed whatever feels good, pretty much.”