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Sample Track 1:
"Squatters' Song" from Semilla Caminante
Sample Track 2:
"Manzanilla" from Semilla Caminante
Layer 2
Interview

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April 14, 2012 Katalina Miletich of LoCura: it's crazy what fate prepares for you Gary Schwind LoCura is a flamenco rock band from the San Francisco area. By phone, singer Katalina Miletich discussed her first time singing in front of people, the range of influences of the band, and what she would be doing if she weren't making music.

There was a party where you took the microphone and started singing. Take me back to that night. What inspired you to start singing and what feeling did you get from doing something like that? It's funny that's the one thing that stood out to you. A lot of musicians were the child surrounded by musicians or their parents wanted them to play the piano. I didn't have any of that around me. I didn't have any sense of music, but I've always loved theater and literature. In high school, I joined the drama group. I really felt passion about that experience of interpreting characters and stories. I didn't geek out on it too much, but that was my earliest experience with performance. Then I show up here, and I was visiting my grandma in the hills with my dad. I thought I was just passing through because it was this tiny gold-mining town that I visited as a child but I never imagined myself living. I'm a city girl. I grew up in Tarifa and Madrid. I'm getting really bored living with my grandma then I see this fire and hear this, I don't even know what they call it, psychedelic music. I followed this road out and I go to this show. here is a bunch of colorful people in crazy costumes having a party on stage. I went home with them and the next night they had their own party. Everybody's just messing around and it seemed like a comfortable space. I wasn't nervous about trying something that I had never tried, which is singing in front of people with a microphone. Everyone was having such a good time and it was a positive space. I was into performing, but had never sung. I just started messing around and playing with my voice. I was saying things in Spanish and making stuff up. I was really feeling it. That's when the main guy in the band looked at me like, "You are what I've been looking for!" He said, "What do you do? Are you sticking around this town? Can you stay and play with us?" It seemed like an amazing opportunity because this band was just starting out. They were a professional band I had to become a professional singer. It was a great space to start going musically. That was a really long answer to your question. Even when he said that's exactly what he's been looking for, did you ever imagine that night would lead to where you are now with LoCura? No. It's just crazy sometimes what fate or the forces of the world are preparing for you. If you had told me 15 years ago that my path would take me to being an artist in the music realm, I never would have imagined. I've talked to some artists who don't like to recognize their influences. You really seem to embrace your various cultural and musical differences. How does that affect the way you make music with this group? Wow! There's just no way to separate that. The earliest days there weren't any musicians around me. I listened to the radio and they played the Spanish pop and the Spanish classics, and all the American pop. I heard Tracy Chapman, Lou Reed, and Madonna. I still remember the songs being played so much. When we went to visit my family, we'd hear rumba and flamenco, like Gipsy Kings. Coming here, the Bay Area, it's just amazing how many people come from so many different places and celebrating their culture the way they can. In our band, we have people from all different backgrounds. It's not like we all went to the same school of music and studied one style. Bob comes from the hills, and grew up with oldies, country music, jazz, and rock, and fell in love with flamenco. Sergio our percussionist is from the Mission. He's really passionate about Cuban music and yoruba culture. Then you have Avi from Washington state with a klezmer and Afrofunk background. Everybody is coming from a different space and now we're all here. There's so much music here. There is no way we can create our music without being influenced by what we hear. We have a passion for the Spanish vocals and the Spanish feel, that's my upbringing. Then you have the passion for rumba and flamenco. We don't play flamenco music. We play music that is influenced by flamenco. The other sound in the band was Rachel. She unfortunately is not with the band anymore. We were a trio for a long time. She kind of was the rhythm and percussion when we started writing and she was influenced by Cuban music. All our sounds are such a mix of all our influences. What does it mean to you when you get to share the stage with someone like Ziggy Marley? I don't know so much of his music, and I haven't really followed him. But just to play with somebody who is carrying the legacy and cultivate seeds his father planted, it's inspiring. It's awesome to have the opportunity more and more to play at festivals with artists that are affecting and moving so many people around the world. We got to play one time with Ojos de Brujo, which is one of our big influences. It was so awesome because we've followed them and been inspired by them. Then we got to see them play and hang out with them backstage. It's awesome to connect and share the space with artists you look up to so much. What would you be doing if you weren't making music? I'd be doing what I'm doing now, but more professionally. I love food, cooking and creating different dishes and remedies. I'm trying to get to the point where I grow a lot of things that I eat. I'd be doing something with food, growing it, sharing it, teaching about it. Semilla Caminante, the new album from LoCura, is available on Tuesday 17 April. LoCura plays The Mint in L.A. on Friday 20 April.

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