Meet Lynette Ríos and Samuel Padilla of Famblood in South Bay

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynette Ríos and Samuel Padilla.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lynette and Samuel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Famblood is short for family blood. We are cousins raised in San Diego, though we also spent time across the border when we were young in Tijuana, Mexico. Growing up, we shared similar interests naturally. We enjoyed listening to the same music, and we would occasionally jam out with instruments we had. Looking back as a band now, we want to focus on our family bond to channel our influences when creating music.

Famblood’s humble origin was a digital music project. We started making music by sending music projects back and forth on our tablets. We actually submitted our first demo album at CTX fest in Echo Park, celebrating the ten years anniversary of the record label Captured Tracks, which featured a music submission box from anyone. We jumped on the opportunity and validated the reality of our music project.

Since then, we were really driven to improve so we could create a new blend of electronic music. Around a year ago, we quickly evolved our project to produce music reminiscent of the dark wave music we love. We began investing in different synthesizers and more gear to better craft and refine our work. We’ve also had the opportunity to play several shows across Southern California, mostly in Los Angeles and in our hometown. But during this time, we’ve also met so many people who have helped and supported us along the way. They’ve been a big part in helping us achieve our artistic vision.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We only started performing live on stage this year, our first shows were actually booked in March. Between then and the end of August, we tried to maintain a consistency of booking at least one show each month in Los Angeles and San Diego. We got lucky and were able to keep this goal for a while. During this time, however, we found our hardest struggle has been juggling time between Famblood and our daily routine. We are actually based in different cities, so traveling between San Diego and Los Angeles adds another stress factor to our already busy lives. It can be frustrating since it takes away time we to work together.

Another fun challenge was overcoming our comfort zones of producing digital music on our phones and tables. We had to transition our production to begin using live hardware synthesizers. It’s been a weird transition, but we found ways to blend both digital tracks and analog gear for live performances. Overall, just trying to adapt our music for stage was a unique challenge. But we’ve achieved ways of doing so and are curious to see how we can expand our ability using music hardware to pull off the best performance.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
What sets us apart from others is probably the fact that we are a bilingual Mexican-American darkpop band. Some of our favorite artist are also Mexican, and we feel like it’s important to amplify the voice of our culture by finding ways of incorporating it into our work. With our debut album, we achieved this not only in writing lyrics in Spanish but by also honoring the traditions of the holiday Dia de los Muertos or day of the dead. For our album cover, we literally made an altar dedicated to ourselves. We included the belongings and food we each love, the things we hope others will remember us by. Being able to express our identity with an audience through this method of cultural exchange makes us proud as a band – but also of who we are and our origins.

At the end of the day, what we specialize in is producing music we love for others to enjoy. We plan to continue exploring our creative vision and seek to grow within the artistic community.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is hard to define when it comes to artistic endeavors. We both find pleasure and enjoyment fulfilling a role in entertainment providing our music to whatever audience we can have. However, being able to share our experience with others is key to the success of our project. Along with our experience in music production, we aim to produce with intention and open honesty to create songs rich in meaning. Also being able to explore common themes in life through music is a big part in helping us connect with others.

Contact Info:

• Address: 14727 Mansel Ave
• Phone: 8585312722
• Email: lynetters26@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_famblood_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Famblood-357124134902328/
• Other: https://famblood.bandcamp.com/

Image Credit:
Photo by Paolo Echeverria

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