New York’s talented all-woman mariachi band Flor De Toloache, celebrates Women’s History Month with the release of “Florecita Rock-ERA”, a compilation of unforgettable anthems inspired by the great rock classics, which left their mark on the group’s sound. Produced by Shae Fiol and Mireya Ramos, the album was recorded remotely by the band while they were separated in New Zealand, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Washington during quarantine.
Playing a never-before-seen tribute in rock music, the Latin GRAMMY Award winners, re-invented iconic songs through Mariachi lenses by adapting them with the unique Flor de Toloache style. HOLA! USA had the opportunity to talk to Shae and Mireya and they shared some amazing stories of their time performing in subways around NYC, opened up about the magic and power of being an all-woman band, and more.
Were you working on the album before the pandemic or was it truly born during quarantine?
Shae: Yes. It was conceived and born during quarantine.
What was the biggest challenge about making music, virtually in separate cities?
Mireya: Well, I was in New Zealand so the time difference was an issue, as you can imagine, cause I was like 18 hours ahead. And so coordinating that was a little hard, but, we were just really excited to be able to create and have the opportunity to even record and collaborate with each other being so far apart and for so long for the first time ever. So we were excited, but it was really, you know, of course, it was weird. We’re so used to being together in the studio and, bouncing off each other, like with ideas and arranging everything together. So that was kind of a sad part that we weren’t there with each other to do that.
You are both talented instrumentalists. So did you feel like your relationship with your instrument kind of evolved during quarantine? Since that was maybe the only thing you had to spend time with sometimes?
Shae: It was definitely more than my instrument actually, it was kind of just the process of recording myself, and how that kind of evolved. Learning how to record myself, learning how to record my instrument, including my voice. I’m still learning. But yeah, I think that’s kind of what grew for me because we had to record, and I have a three-year-old, so I didn’t have a lot of time to do that. Obviously, she wasn’t going to daycare and my husband was working from home, so I was engaged in childcare a lot. But making this album was definitely something that I did have to put a lot of time into and, yeah, I explored a lot of different rhythms and stuff.
Mireya: Well I was in New Zealand and at first we were in lockdown. So, it was a drastic change from touring nonstop to nothing, and being in a different country. So that was all a lot to take in, but, it did give me a lot of time to write new music for my solo project. And I started picking up the guitar cuz I wanted to accompany myself. I didn’t have Shae to accompany me and like to collaborate with and sing with and she always plays the vihuela. And I didn’t have my band for my solo stuff to accompany me so I wanted to do like IG lives and still stay connected and so I picked up the guitar and I took some online lessons and that was interesting and really cool and inspiring. And it kept me going through the pandemic and I definitely spent more time practicing violin, which I don’t do as much as I should.
I would love to know how you picked up your first instrument, how did they come into your life?
Mireya: My father was a mariachi singer and he would take me to his gigs with him and I actually had a crush on the violinist and so I was like, ‘I wanna play whatever he is playing.’ And I would call it the small guitar, so I would tell them, my parents and my grandma, like, ‘I wanna play this small guitar,’ and they put me in lessons when I was seven years old and I fell in love with it. I love the sound of it. I love the fact that you can sing basically through the violin. And I’m naturally a shy person so for me, it was a good way of expressing myself without having to confront people. But also singing for me, just it’s that kind of thing. And I’m connecting with people in that way and falling in love with music, watching my dad and my mom have so much passion for it and seeing my father perform too and seeing how people would connect with him and experience music in that way was just beautiful. So I definitely wanted to do that in my life.
Shae: I also come from a musical family and before I made it to the vihuela I played piano because both of my grandmothers and my mom, all played piano. So they taught me a little bit over the years. And then I got into the junior high band, playing the flute. I love that instrument. It’s so beautiful. I have one that I just like to mess around on every now and then. But then guitar came in high school, you know, it was like kind of the perfect time for guitar, like you’re just so much more social. At least I was, and I wanted to start expressing myself, but got a little bit of peer pressure for my friends to like start performing and singing. And so I was like, okay, I gotta do this guitar thing. And my dad played guitar. So he taught me some and then the vihuela came into the picture, in my late twenties when Mireya asked me to join the mariachi. So that’s when I started playing vihuela.