Think LANY, The 1975, and The Band Camino all combined into one. That’s what I think of every time I hear the California Pop style band Hotel Apache. This trio, consisting of Jared Ramos (25), Steven Darling (27), and Ryan Garcia (28) was formed back in 2016. Hailing from the Central Valley of California, they have found their happy medium creating music together for themselves.
“Steven and I have been writing music together for about 8 years. The last band we were in was signed to a small indie label who had also signed Ryan, under his solo project. We became good friends but never really worked on anything together until we both had a falling out with our label. Steven and I were in kind of a strange place with music. We sort of gave up the whole band thing and decided on just trying to write songs to sell. Steven had the idea of asking Ryan for help with some melodies to some instrumentals we had been writing. We sent him a song and he loved what we wrote. He sent us a melody and as soon as we heard it we knew we could start something together. That song became our very first single ‘Cigarettes’ “
Their music is synth heavy with thought-out drum beats that add to the danceable tone of the music. With soulful lyrics that tell stories, you will be loving their music from the beginning. Their sound has evolved as they have honed their skills and worked together over the years.
“Well at first it was a little different. We were mostly experimenting with different styles. Steven and I have more of a rock background and Ryan was an R&B artist, although he grew up listening to rock just like we did. So it was about finding a healthy balance of those styles at first. We would usually start with drum samples and see how it went. It wasn’t until our Prince cover that we really started finding a sound. I think it’s because we were able to pull influence from that time period and that’s what we all grew up listening to. I do think it’s been a journey with discovering our true selves in this band. It wasn’t until this new music that I really feel we finally developed the true ha! (Hotel Apache) sound.”
“We all actually share the same influences which we always thought was cool. Prince, Michael Jackson, The Police, New Edition, Van Halen, we could honestly go on forever.”
They have all been around music since they were younger and grew up with different influences and music scenes. One things for sure though is that music is something they always wanted to do.
“I had a 4th grade teacher who gave me a set of drumsticks and a tambourine during a choir class. (I guess I wasn’t the best singer). Ever since then I’ve wanted to drum.” -Jared
“My grandma had a piano in her house that no one knew how to play. I just remember wanting to figure out how to play and I’ve been playing since.” -Steven
“My oldest memory would have to be me watching my dad sit in his room, playing his 80s steinberger bass practicing old gospel songs and trying to show me how to play them.” -Ryan
Their name is actually inspired by a well known casino in Las Vegas from the 1940s called Apache Hotel and Casino. They tried it out as a band name and liked the sound of it and have been using that alias since then. They usually refer to themselves as “ha!” for short.
With their success coming pretty quickly for how long they have been together, there is a lot of potential for this group to blow up. California pop is still very much alive and I’m hoping you can take something away from their music like I have. In regards to their future, here is what they had to say.
“Releasing as much music as we possibly can. Touring as much as we possibly can. Writing music for other artists. Just being able to do this for this long has already been such a blessing. Doing it for another 10 years would be a dream.”
Today, they released their newest single Dialtone. Check it out!
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