Rising Stars: Meet Saraí Tirado of Redlands, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Saraí Tirado

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in Mexicali, Baja California, listening to Mexican rock and pop, my favorite artists growing up, who I consider formative to my sound and writing style were Julieta Venegas, Shakira, Maná, Reik and Belinda. My family immigrated to the United States when I was 13, we moved to Redlands, where I’ve been since. I always enjoyed singing and performing, using my family’s video camera to make short sketches, ads, etc, and I loved making up songs and singing them on the way to school. I started learning to play piano when I was 6, but I soon dropped the interest and pursuit. When I was in high school I began having an interest in performing and creating, asking my dad, who has a background in Mexican “rondalla” to teach me to play guitar, which never ended up happening. I had access to my dad’s nylon string guitar, but my hands were too small and the action on it was too high so every time I tried learning how to play guitar I wouldn’t be able to make it through the frustration of repeatedly failing at playing a clear chord.

My first year of college I took a class on Punk history, learning about proto-punk, punk, riot grrrl, post-punk and hardcore music, culture, and community. My main takeaway from this class was that music is a powerful tool to build community and organize people to care for each other and reflect on their lives, it was striking to me how powerful music communities could be. Me and a friend from that class, Lucas, and a couple of other friends in town, made a band that quickly fell apart when Lucas dropped out of school and moved away. My self and the people remaining put together a three-piece drum and bass project that we named Burning Beauties. My friend Avery played the bass, Stephen played the drums and I just held the mic and sang. We wrote all of our songs jamming in my parent’s garage. The songs were bad but we had fun and I got a lot of practice performing songs and developing my own songwriting style. At the time we were fortunate enough to be part of a burgeoning, colorful scene in the Inland Empire. Businesses in Riverside were regularly holding a block-party style music festival called Saturation Fest, with plenty of day-time music and all ages venues accessible to us, our favorite being Back to the Grind, an incredible three-level venue that would host shows in their basement, sometimes in the café area too. Some of my favorite bands in that scene were Summer Twins, Naive Thieves, Eva and the Vagabond Tales and there were MANY more, it was a magical time. Our regular stomping grounds were a local vinyl store in Redlands called Katz Alley and the long-gone Augies Coffee, both of these businesses would host weekly all ages shows that were often free or very cheap. We played as much as we could and met many people who I consider my friends and mentors even today, Modern Traditions, Moro Amour, I’m Glad It’s You, Shalfi, Tee Ah Millatoona, Bur Gur, etc. I consider this a very important time in my life because I was able to experience a very healthy, well-supported and accessible all ages local scene. Burning Beauties was a band for about two years before we dramatically fell apart due to all of us being 19 and behaving like 19-year-olds. The end of the bands was such a mess I decided I would NEVER be in a band again, it was too much work and too much stress.

When I was 21 my dad started working at Fender guitars and gifted me a Telecaster, which had a much thinner neck and lower action than his nylon guitar, which on its own was immediately encouraging to me, I could finally reach across the neck and press the string down to play some basic chords clearly. I learned chords and song structure by learning a bunch of songs by The Strokes, Frankie Cosmos, and Girlpool, and then proceeded to write my own song by completely ripping off Frankie Cosmos’ chords progressions and song structures. At the time, I was super interested in anti-pop, simple, sincere and earnest song-writing with minimal production, and Frankie Cosmos was doing exactly that, so their songs were the perfect reference to guide my writing style. I referenced Angel Olsen, Mitski, Julieta Venegas, and The Strokes when I started writing. I was posting my music on YouTube and Instagram for a while, I was going to open mic nights regularly, at Back to the Grind, and I was lucky enough to get booked a couple of times for really fantastic events, I worked for a year to put together an “album” of the songs I had been working on, Love Letters, which I later revised as demos. My roommates at the time and I were even hosting shows at our home pretty regularly.

Then the pandemic started. At that time I joined a subreddit called Indie Music Feedback. The rules were that for every 2 review of other’s song you left you were allotted a review request. It was a good community to meet other people online working toward similar goals. Sometimes the feedback was great and sometimes you could tell that people would leave review just to earn a review request. Indie Music Feedback also started a Discord where I was able to meet A BUNCH of great people and even collaborate with strangers across the world on songs. This is when I started experimenting with fuller sounds for the songs I was writing, with the help of instrumentalists, producers ad engineers from Indie Music Feedback I was able to imagine my body of work as songs for a band.

As the country was slowly loosening up lock down restrictions I started seeking out to perform again, but I missed performing with a band. Even though I decided I never wanted to do it again I ended up making a call on an instagram story, The prompt was simple, “would anyone like to be in a band with me? I have a bunch of songs ready to go.” Pretty immediately I started practicing with some friends from highscool and from the ole’ Burning Beauties days. We’ve been performing as a band ever since. This is when I really decided I would take music “seriously” and by that I meant that I would actually make the effort of promoting the songs and shows we had been working on together. Through that effort I was going to a lot of shows to meet other bands, promoters, bookers, and venue managers. During a Friday 13th show we met Vegan Tuna, a family bands playing pretty experimental, jazzy tunes, who are now the founders and owners of Frets Music in Riverside. Back in 2022 they hosted a show at a small Cafe in San Bernardino that I had never heard of, in the bill were Glitter Ghost, a band of someone who I had recently met as the best friend of one of my roommate’s. I was obsessed with Glitter Ghost and my friend Vegan Tuna were playing too, alongside Dreary and Funds for Jimmy, in summary the lineup for the show was too good to miss.

I went to the show and walked in to an unassuming, small cafe that also distributes zines and independently published comic-books, BirdCage Comics Cafe. I immediately asked Jordan, of Vegan Tuna fame, “how did you find out about this place? Who books here?” I loved the space, I had never heard of it, it wasn’t a bar, it was perfect. I had been struggling to find any local all ages venues closer to us than Pomona, and I sincerely believe that teenagers should have access to music and I was ready to work toward giving back to my community in was that I saw lacking in the I.E. at the time. I found the owner and asked him “Who books here?” he said “no one, Jordan booked this show and it’s the first show ever.” I asked him to please let me manage booking on weekends and I have been doing it ever since! This March 8th myself, Frowny Face Records, Bas Rev and AKA Musique hosted our first music festival to celebrate International Women’s Day at the BirdCage Comics Cafe. We performed alongside so many bands, both local and from out of town and the event felt like it encapsulated all of the work I’ve bee doing for the last 8 years. Right now we are focusing on finishing and releasing the music we’ve been working on since 2022 as a band, including one of out most anticipated songs, Criminals.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not a smooth road. After the end of Burning Beauties I sincerely believe that I would never pursue a band project again. Also as I started working on music again on my own and playing shows on my own I found myself in risky situations and have been a victim of a music scene that is heavily drive by the consumption of alcohol and pretty hostile to women and people perceived as such, including sexual assault at shows where I’ve performed. Navigating booking politics and the general social aspects of booking has been a journey of trial an error. Recording, mixing, promoting and all of the pre and post-production required for a “successful” release (I just want people to listen to our music!) is something I don’t particularly enjoy doing but work and effort that has sincerely paid off.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a singer-writer, I manage porkboii, I manage booking at the BirdCage Comics Cafe. I’d say I specialize in writing songs that are simple but catchy. I am proud of the friends that I’ve made in the process of working on music and performing. I can’t say if there is anything specific that set me aside from others. I am a very passionate person, I know that everyone says that about themselves, especially in pursuit of music, but I am a very hot-headed person. I can’t care about something and keep cool about it. I’m a kind of person that you might like but if you dislike me you REALLY dislike me. I hope that comes across in my music. I am not a cool guy, I can’t act like I don’t care about things. I really really care about other people, I care about my community.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I enjoy co-writing songs so if someone feels compelled to collaborate they can always reach out with ideas or reach out asking for ideas. As a band I think we can always use guidance in the process of production and mixing so people whose skills lie in those fields who enjoy what we’re doing can reach out to us. My favorite form of support is coming to shows to have fun with us and sing along to our music 🙂

Contact Info:

• Website: https://porkboii.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/porkboii/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@porkboiimusic
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/porkboi-i

Image Credits
Tamara (@camelcrushhh on instagram)
Omar (@galleryundead on instagram)
Lex (@poisonous.culture on instagram)