Meet Raul Garcia | Singer/Songwriter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Raul Garcia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Raul, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I was born in 1993 and am originally from Mexico City, but have been living in the San Fernando Valley since 1999. I grew up going to schools around the San Fernando Valley and ended up going to Pierce College before transferring to California State University, Northridge in 2013 to complete a BA in Music with an option in Music Industry Studies and a minor in Business Management. Since I graduated in 2016, I’ve been working full time in the music industry.

My parents split up while I was in high school and so my role models ended up becoming my mother, my grandmother, and my sister. We all still live together since my mother’s economic situation has been difficult throughout the years and my grandmother is getting older. Now that me and my sister have both graduated college and work full time, we both work hard to help my mother financially as much as we can. She is the reason we have both been able to succeed in everything we’ve done up to this point. I came of age by watching my single mother work hard to give me and my sister a stable home to live in while being in school. Since I haven’t had citizenship, it’s been tough to relate to many friends and acquaintances that I’ve met throughout high school, college, and work. Luckily me and my sister have always been there for each other and have found an inspiring network of fellow Dreamers and Allies along the way. My sister was lucky enough to be able to apply for her Green Card through a very long and emotionally difficult process that I unfortunately did not qualify for. Fortunately, her case was approved mid 2021. I’m so proud of her accomplishment and look up to her so much. I am still hopeful that I’ll be able to have a pathway for citizenship in the near future and regardless I’m thankful that I’ve been able to work full time since graduating college with a work permit through Deferred Action.

I feel so humbled and thankful to have been a first generation graduate from college in my family and consider that an amazing accomplishment. I’ve also played music with many different groups of people throughout the years. I’m a singer/songwriter and most recently, I independently released an EP digitally and on vinyl as well as a music video. It’s been out since November 2021 and it’s been very fruitful! The name of the EP is the Thank You EP and it’s titled that way because I’m so thankful that I even have the luxury to work on a project like this with love and support of family and dear friends. I played a sold out release show at The Smell in downtown LA early December of 2021 and have since filmed a live session with my live band, The Loved Ones, at the Long Beach Radio Station KLBP (99.1FM). I’m currently working on a full length LP and am excited to see where my dreams will take me next!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Developing my songwriting has been a long, beautiful, and worthwhile process. I began writing my own songs around 2014 while I was in college after an old band of mine ended and I started trying to play them in front of people soon after. Since, then the songwriting process has been a mix of writing the songs at home and then playing them in front of people either solo or with a band to further craft them until they feel like they’re at their most natural state. The goal so far has been to write the songs so that they can be played either solo or with any arrangement of musicians and still communicate the same feeling.

I’m so proud and excited about the last EP that I released titled “Thank You”. I can’t believe that I was able to follow through with the whole process of independently releasing the EP digitally and on vinyl after it was recorded, mixed, and mastered. The only way I was able to develop the songs into the arrangements that are heard on the record was with the help of a lot of dear friends. I was so excited to include a song called “Whisper” that me and my dear friend Josh Abramovitz wrote around 2016 while we were both still in college. I do want to give credit to my friend Tyler McCarthy for producing and arranging the songs on the new EP. He helped me develop the songs into the form that you hear on the recordings and I thank him dearly for it because he was the main reason why the song arrangements and production came out as amazing as they did for the release. Tyler’s a very inspirational person to me who just has that ear for musical arrangement and anything to do with making a record and he’s also an out of this world guitar player. Once the arrangement ideas were sketched out, we brought in my friends Josh Solomon, Alonso Figueroa, Paul Slater, and Austin Drake to record bass, drums, percussion, and trumpet one by one so that the arrangements would come to life (keeping the pandemic in mind). It was a really lovely process that I hope to do many more times.

Once the music was finalized, it was off to the races with figuring out how to get the vinyl pressed. I had commissioned my friend Stephanie Godoy to make the artwork and had to slowly figure out how to get the art photographed and edited. Brenda Lopez helped me with the layout for the files that needed to be sent to the pressing plant and my friend Josh Jalil helped me with some Photoshop editing of the photographs that Rafael Cardenas took of the paintings Stephanie made. I put out “R.U.S.” as a single along with a music video directed by Isaiah Jackson in November 2021 and then the full EP was released at the end of that same month!

Since the release of the EP in November of 2021, I’ve done a few performances around LA. The most notable of these performances was the record release show at The Smell in early December of 2021, which was done with a 6 piece band that included a lot of new friends that I now consider very near and dear to my heart. I loved the process of assembling the live band because it was assembled little by little by going out and hanging out with people and asking around to see if any of my friends or acquaintances recommended any musicians around town. The band eventually developed into “The Loved Ones” which consisted of Josh Solomon, Matthew Perez, Ryo Nakamura, Sam Ramirez, Cesar Hernandez and myself. It was a beautiful night full of amazing art and friendship. We did a live session at KLBP, which is a radio station in Long Beach shortly after and you can see that performance on YouTube! Huge shout out to Wolfgang Alexander for filling in for Josh on bass while he was out on tour for a couple of recent performances!

The most important takeaway I’ve had from this whole experience has been to speak things into existence and to go with the flow. When you ask, the universe will answer. This whole experience has made me feel like part of a bigger community of artists and musicians in LA and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love this question because I totally had this exact experience with a cousin from Mexico right before the pandemic. In terms of food, the main place that comes to mind is Salsa and Beer in the San Fernando Valley. I would also check out any shows that are going down at The Smell, Teragram Ballroom, Zebulon, 2022 Arts and Archives, or Resident! I would definitely tour this friend around the local record stores including Record Safari, Permanent Records Roadhouse, Arroyo Records, and Amoeba! I’d also try to organize a beach day and get a fish burrito at Lily’s Malibu to take to Point Dume!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Tyler McCarthy, Josh Solomon, Josh Abramovitz, Paul Slater, Alonso Figueroa, Tyler Mackinga for playing with me throughout the years and helping me record all songs I’ve done throughout the last couple of EPs.

Thank you Matthew Perez, Ryo Nakamura, Sam Ramirez, Cesar Hernandez, Wolfgang Alexander for being an amazing live band.

Thank you mom, abue, Melon, Brenda Lopez, JoAnn Brahey, Isaac Maimon, Stephanie Godoy, the moon, Jim Smith, The Smell, Pauline Lay, Pehrspace for all the love and support throughout the years.

Website: https://www.raulgarciamusic.com/

Instagram: @raulgarciayo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raulgarciayo

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeRSxz4vMP8

Other: https://raulgarcia.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
David Fearn, Cesia Lopez, Rafael Cardenas