Los Mocochetes on Music as Education and Activism | Spotlight

Mocoso roughly translates as “snot-nosed brat.” A machete, of course, is a long-bladed knife used as both an agricultural tool and a weapon. So what is a Mocochete? The term came from a joke that came up when the early lineup of Denver-based Chicano funk band Los Mocochetes — which then featured guitarist/vocalist Elias Garcia, multi-instrumentalist Joshua Randy Abeyta, and multi-instrumentalist Diego Florez-Arroyo — took a trip to work on Garcia’s grandfather’s land and discovered that Garcia and Abeyta were distant relatives whose grandfathers migrated to the U.S. together.

“If you’ve ever been in New Mexico in the springtime if you have any allergies, then you know you’re going to have a hard time,” explained the band’s percussionist and vocalist Jozer Guerrero, who wasn’t in the band yet when this story but who seemed much more talkative about it than his bandmates. “And that’s where that joke came from. These guys are walking around Walmart, [which is] like the mall of that county, and they’re walking around with Kleenex and machetes. And what are you going to do with the machete mocoso? And that’s how mocochete was born.”

Guerrero’s might be a name you recognize from his acting work, or from the Denver poetry slam scene, or maybe even from his TED Talk, “You are not the father” / “Mi Abuelita.” “My initial interest was always music, but I never had access to music lessons,” he explained. Strangely enough, it was his connection to the poetry scene that connected him with the members of Los Mocochetes, with Abeyta working for a poetry-based non-profit at the time Guerrero met him and Guerrero mentoring Florez-Arroyo in the Denver Minor Disturbance youth poetry project. But it was all his work on stages, both as an actor and a poet, that helped prepare Guerrero to take on his dream of being in a band. “The poetry was the first step into lyricism. But ultimately that was my dream since I was a kid, is being in a band. Being on stage as an actor helped me thrive as a poet, and then the poetry gave me confidence.”

Having been together for over ten years now, the band has been releasing recordings, like February’s double-single “Huaraches”/ “The Sun Will Shine,” which have been a long time coming. In the case of this particular single, both songs are more than a decade old and have been fan favorites at their live shows for years. “We’ve been pretty behind on recordings,” Guerrero explained. “I think that’s a big part of who we are. We’re out on the streets. We’re out here performing.”

While Los Mocochetes have developed a reputation for their exhilarating live performances, they’re equally well known for their advocacy and activism. Some of their most recent shows have included a benefit to support unjustly detained immigrant’s rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra and a benefit for immigrant mutual aid nonprofit Sanctuary for All. Their lyrics are often political, such as their song “¡Que Viva Revolución!” which has been noted for its anti-Trump lyrics. “It’s hard to sit down and write a song about how my life is happy when people are in danger,” proclaimed Abeyta.

“A lot of our communities are being targeted,” said Garcia, “and this is a chance for us to stand in front of the changing current right now. This is a place where we can talk about politics and talk about our message with our community and our friends and put that into something that can become more than just a recording; it’s a piece of history.”

For Abeyta, the music is as much about education as entertainment. Speaking about Guerrero’s song “Cuarenta y Tres,” which is about the disappearance of students at Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Mexico, Abeyta said, “When Jozer brought the idea of that song to the group, I didn’t even know about that. And so even me, who has listened to Rage Against the Machine since I was growing up and knows about Mumia and Leonard Peltier, and all these people who are political prisoners or victims of a political agenda, there’s still so much more to learn. I feel like you as a journalist and us as musicians, we’re all doing the same thing, just with different paint brushes.”

With the band hoping to release their debut full-length by the end of this year, there will soon be a way to bring even more of the band’s educational entertainment, that piece of history, directly to your speakers or headphones.