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This past week I had the pleasure of meeting one of the members of The Brothers StarRace. This band will be taking part in UIC Radio’s first ever battle of the bands March 19th. It’s a free event. If you can you should come out and check out UIC’s musical talent. I met up with Richard Juarez a.k.a. SwitchHard StarRace. He plays the guitar, and provides vocals for the band.
We met up at Café Jumping bean in Pilsen. We talked about a lot of things. The topics varied from things like the band to growing up in a rough neighborhood like Little Village. Richard gave me a good inside to the band and I really appreciate him coming out and doing that. So let’s begin.
How did you and your brother, Raul, begin the Brothers StarRace? And then how did you guys become the group you are today?
My first year at UIC I did a play, I studied theatre and performance, and I met Justin, our guitarist. I was living on campus that semester. We started writing music and it was just so fluid. It was ridiculous how easy it was. I had never had that feeling with anyone before, not even with my own brother. My brother and I liked to fight it up and that’s how we’d get music done. But with me and this guy, we intertwined, it was beautiful.
Then for a while we had a little falling out, we were still friends but I wasn’t living on campus anymore so I didn’t see him as often. I started living back at home for a while then got my own apartment.
Every summer we would get back together and write music. We wanted to start a band and we kind of did but it didn’t really work out. We got my brother as our drummer but then I realized that it had to be my brother and I. We needed to start this band and then go on from there. So I told my brother and we did. It was just the two of us and after playing a couple shows, open mics things like that people started liking us. Then we were like, “alright let’s get a band going”.
We called up Justin, he was down and he brought Scott with him (the drummer). Scott was Justin’s roommate. Becca, who plays the bass, had been my friend since 7th grade. We were friends as kids and then we met up again in college. She was like, “DUH! I play bass!”. She was really down. It’s funny because I posted a status on Facebook saying, “Does anybody play bass?” like all lame.
We started going from there and started making music. We’ve been together as a band since this past July (July of 2013) and it’s been going great. We’ve been playing some good shows. We have someone who’s producing our music and paying for everything. It’s great.
How did you guys come up with the name, The Brothers StarRace?
It’s based off my own name. Years ago, probably two years ago, SwitchHard StarRace was my band name. It was my alter ego. And it was just a thing to bullshit with people. It was really just for a fun thing. And then as that progressed it was cool and I liked it. Some people called me “Switch”. I kind of just left it at that for a few years.
I told my brother, “You know the most successful thing that’s going to draw people is brothers”. It’s like there’s this idea that family is the most attractive. The brotherhood. People want that. From The Brothers Grimm to Vazquez Hermanos Circus. You know, it’s what people trust. And so let’s start it we have to be The Brothers StarRace. My brother then adopted his own StarRace name. And at first we were like, “Okay let us be the Brothers and if other people join the band we’ll give them their own name. Like The Brothers StarRace and……”. But then when we got the other people playing with us, I was talking to my brother about it and I said, “ We gotta just make them our brothers. We gotta make all people our brothers”. It’s this idea to put aside your differences and just adopt a brotherhood. That’s what it is and that’s the only way we can succeed.
Especially you and I as minorities (referring to me) latino men, it’s not easy. I can say my grandpa played music but when my dad came here, he was a kid, music wasn’t something to do. It wasn’t realistic. And it’s this idea that we don’t have to achieve a definition of success that isn’t our definition of success. I feel like a lot of times we adopt another cultures idea of success and that’s not who we are. That’s not who we are in our blood. It’s like okay we have to adopt this brotherhood and accept each other and have our own success.
The Brothers StarRace in the end became this idea to put aside your differences on Earth and start focusing on things that beyond us, heavenly things, the stars. A race to the stars.
Are you the only member of the band enrolled at UIC?
No all of us are at UIC except for my brother. He’s studying film at Columbia.
Since your brother is studying film, did he take any part in directing the music video for the song “Familiar”.
Actually no, my brother didn’t have anything to do with that. A friend of mine from UIC (Neil Fontano) who was just really excited about recording the video for us did. And that was the first time my brother and I felt like, “okay this is for real now this is actually happening”.
I wanted to ask a little bit about the Jacket you wore in that music video. I went through the pictures on your band’s Facebook page and that same jacket came up in a few pictures from shows you guys had performed at. Where did you get it? Does it have any significant meaning to you?
I was in a mariachi right after high school. I went to Curie High School. I was in a mariachi and I played guitar. That was the jacket they gave me. It was really cool and I felt that when I started making my own music I needed something that represented what I’ve been doing and who I am. Hipsters eat it up. It’s funny. It’s like, how much can you preserve of yourself before you become a gimmick? I don’t think I’d ever wear it if I weren’t in a Mariachi.
It’s also kind of a tribute to my grandfather. He played trio music. My grandpa would be in all these restaurants playing in trios. It was really beautiful music. He didn’t wear a spazzy jacket though, they would wear more like guayaberos.
Is the Brothers StarRace working on an EP? Album? Or new music?
Yeah we’re going to Rax Trax up north on Belmont and Greenview. It’s this studio that Smashing Pumpkins recorded music in and Plain White T’s recorded a lot of their music in. A lot of bands around the city have also.
The owner, Rick Barnes, works at Columbia. He’s a teacher at Columbia.
We want to put out a 5 song EP. We recorded 5 songs in one day and now it’s just mixing and stuff like that. But 2 songs were just, they didn’t sound right. We recorded “Familiar” as a band but we liked it more as this acoustic kind of thing. We still play it as a band.
So we have 3 songs and 2 videos that are live recordings, so we’re also going to put those songs on the EP.
Do you have an estimated time for the completion of that EP?
March 2nd I go back in and get everything done. It’s done. That’s the last day. I told everyone, “It’s been too long! People want to listen to our music”. The only way we can progress is if we have recorded music.
We go back in March 2nd. We’re going to be there for six hours and get everything done.
Have you been recognized around the city? Maybe by someone who was at one of your performances before?
People who are friends of mine have told me really funny things. No one has recognized me on the street, but this one girl I know was telling me this once she said, “I was with my roommate and she’s like hey listen to this song I posted on my blog”. And the song she played sounded familiar to my friend so she said, “Hey I know those guys!”.
And then another friend of mine was playing one of our songs in his dormroom. Someone walked up to him and said, “Hey I know that song did you write that”. My friend replied, “No my friend did”. And that guy then said, “You mean the Brothers StarRace?”. And it’s just like Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Like where did all this come from?
We’ll see. That would be really cool if someone noticed me on the street. That’d be nifty. That’d be cool.
Has living in Little Village (La Villita) influenced the way you write music or the type of music The Brothers StarRace puts together?
Definitely. My father has lived there since he was 14. He lived in Kansas City Missouri when he was 7 then moved to Chicago when he was 14. So I’ve been there my whole life. Living there you have family who are gang members. You start learning and start understanding different social q’s and everything like that.
It’s weird when I went to high school. When I went to Curie you tell people where you’re from and they’re like, “I don’t even wanna go there, I don’t go to 26th street”.
I’ve seen some things. You know coming home from school you see blood on the floor and cops everywhere and you think, “What the hell happened here?”. I remember once my parents were having a front yard sale. The guy across the street from our house was a gang member and somebody had broken the windows on his car. As soon as that happened the cops showed up. They took the guy in their squad car and later on that day someone threw a Molotov cocktail in the car with the broken windows and it blew up. I’m like 7 years old and I’m looking at this like, “That’s crazy” but I’m not affected by it. I wasn’t screaming or anything it was just like, this is life.
That definitely influences kind of like our sound or like some of the context of the things we’re writing about and some of the songs we’re putting together right now. But I think what really defined our music is, like there’s two types of music I really like. I like anything catchy and I really like alternative rock music. And I also love like cumbia and salsa. I guess all that blending has an influence.
I’m half Puerto Rican and half Mexican. And that for me was really interesting. And then there are guys like Justin and Scott. They’re both from the suburbs. They’re from a suburb called Lemont. It’s gorgeous. It’s like the suburb I’ve never been to. You know you go to places like Joliet, Aurora or all those other places and they look the same. Same stores, same places and its just like ugh bored out of your mind, but over here there’s like hills and mountains. It’s green. It’s beautiful. Those guys have always been so down to Earth and I’ve told them, “you guys don’t seem like you’re from the suburbs”.
Then Becca she’s from up north. She went to Lincoln Park. She’s “Fancy Foo Foo”. She’s also just a big music fan. She’s a big goof too.
So all those things are combining. Even my brother and I have different styles of music. My brother’s a big progressive rock fan.
Has music ever been like a competition between you and your brother?
Well you know we’re so close in age. It was a little competition I guess when we were in 8th grade, 7th grade, 6th grade. I was one year older than him. He doesn’t wanna live in his brother’s shadow. I didn’t want to carry around my pesty brother around you know.
We love each other but we would fight. It would get real real bad. In like 8th grade when puberty start to hit and emotions and hormones are high. So my parents were like for all three of us, we have a little sister too, “you kids need to go to different high schools because you’re not gonna like going to the same one as one another”.
Now that we’ve come together we’ve had our arguments. Especially now that we’re in a band we’ve definitely had our arguments. We kind of learn that I need my brother’s support and my brother needs my acceptance. We fought and it was bad news. But we’ve learned how we work together. Okay before we practice let’s meet up 30 mins before and discuss what we want to do so we’re not arguing in front of everyone.
He’s my younger brother and I’m always going to accept him. I’m always going to take him in. Sometimes regret it you know. And it’s like since we were little. Some stuff like, “Hey can I have a bite of your Banana?” and he’d eat the whole thing. Or like, “ Hey can I go to your party you never take me anywhere”. Yeah okay then he tells my parents we were making out with girls all night. And it’s just like, “What are you doing man!!”. He’s always going to be my little brother but I need that. I need to show him that I love him and I love him. One thing I really like about him is his respect for me. For him to trust me.
It’s been interesting writing music together but I don’t feel I could have gone this far without him and I don’t feel I’ll ever be successful in the future without him next to me
You describe your music to be Rock/Minority Rock. What exactly does that mean?
Yeah minority rock, that’s what we put it on. Scott was telling me, “Hey man people have been asking me what kind of music we play and I haven’t been able to tell them”. We were thinking about it and came up with minority rock. What is that? It’s alternative rock music with Latin undertones. It’s music that’s made by people who are neither Mexican or white American. They’re American with Latino background. Our sound has been developed simply by our culture.
I want this idea of minority rock to pick up.
What are your thoughts on Chicago music?
The O’My’s
I was checking out The O’My’s yesterday actually. They have a really good funk sound. They have a real great sound and I was listening to the song they have with Chance. It’s really interesting. Just this Chicago music. It’s booming. It’s the CPS sound. The Chicago Public School sound.
One of the producers who has worked with Chance, I was in band with in high school. I was just like Whaaaaaaaaaaat? This is awesome. It’s so interesting. I would love to meet those guys but I would want to meet them in a situation where it’s just like, “Yeah at look where we have come”. I know people that know Chance but I’m not going to be thirsty to meet him.
It would be cool to meet all of the people that are coming out. I’m really digging this because there have been so many Chicago bands that aren’t really Chicago bands. There’s this great new sound coming from the city and I’m really excited to see what’s going to be happening. We’ll see. I’m excited about it.
When you perform in front of an audience, what goes through your mind?
I like to feel off the audience. I’ll look at them. Smile with them. Make them laugh. Tell bad jokes you know. They come out to see us so like I’m not playing music at them I’m playing music with them.
Sometimes I really want to focus on what I’m singing. Because sometimes you need that as an introspected ideal so people can witness what you’re going through. Just being there with the crowd. It also depends on the show.
New Year’s Eve we played a show at The Elbo Room. People there didn’t come out to see us really they came to drink and have a good time and that’s fine but when you catch certain people that are with you. Let me just keep giving you what I got. That’s what I love.
Sometimes I’ll get nervous but that all depends on the audience.
Are you looking forward to participating in battle of the bands? Are you nervous, excited, anxious?
Yeah I’ve been having some dreams. It’s really cool because two of the bands that are going to be part of it as well I know because they’re in theatre at UIC. Brigade, Chelsea and I were in a play together. I went to their show recently and they were just killin it. And then One Man Down is also in theatre.
I gotta tell you though when it comes to competitions I can either make it or break it. I’m like that guy in Scott Pilgrim Against The World.
The Brothers StarRace will have a free show March 12 at Schubas Tavern for anyone that might be interested. Brigade, another band participating in our battle of the bands, will be performing as well. It’s an 18+ show. Go check out their show.
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