We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marcos Rocha a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Marcos, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?
What my parents did right was show me what unconditional love and support looks like. They came from a humble part of Guanajuato, Mexico, and have never been big city people despite briefly living in LA with my older brother shortly before I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, which was more their speed. Neither of them had even a high school education but wanted me and my brother to have better opportunities than they had. I don’t know too many other second generation immigrants in my field with parents like mine who weren’t people of means and really just took this huge shot. That alone is inspiring to me, and I think that’s a kind of optimism that doesn’t exist anymore and for good reason.
Back when my dad was granted residency, Reagan was the President and the Republican Party had what I firmly believe the same people today would call an open border policy. My dad insists he never personally experienced racism but having witnessed him existing in our world as a child who could understand the language and read the situations a little better sometimes, I really begged to differ. I’ve seen him get arrested for speeding when I was 7 years old and they accused him of throwing drugs out of the windows when he was getting pulled over. My whole family was there, and the police were lying, and I didn’t understand why. He was released the following day when nothing turned up in his system. He never really showed any anger about it or about anything else for that matter. I definitely didn’t take after him in that way.
My mom was more present in my life because my dad would go all over the country doing roofing jobs, so I’ve known her stories a little more thoroughly and for a little bit longer. She didn’t have a green card till I was five and that was when I finally got to visit where my parents grew up for the first time. It was a much simpler life out there than what I was used to, and even as a child I thought there was something really beautiful about it. I haven’t been back in so long, and I miss it so much.
Anyway my mom started working again in the public school system as a cafeteria worker when I was going to school, so both of my parents were working while I was growing up. They’re very proud working people. I think I got my mom’s loudly backhanded confidence that declares that I may come from nothing, and I may not be very smart or skilled, but goddammit I can work!
I’ve spent a lot of time unpacking what I saw as they struggled to exist barely speaking the language in this alien world we call the US, what it did for my development, and how that brought me to where I am now. In most ways I’m exactly like them, and it breaks my heart that there were some barriers they couldn’t overcome simply because of where they were born and what that offered them. They’re not nearly as angry about it as I am, and I think that has everything to do with a lack of agency and power they had just to make it as far as they did, but they did make it after all. Both of my parents are now full US citizens who can vote whatever that’s worth anymore. Anyway I think understanding who they are is important to understanding who I am, although that’s just true about anyone else and their parents too obviously.
Marcos, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
About me, my name is Marcos Rocha. I am a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and producer. I’m an independent artist as a solo act by the name of subcommander, I also play bass in a Brooklyn-based shoegaze band called Ringing, and I’m a founding member of a collaborative project formed in Austin, Texas, called Luvweb.
More things to know about me, I went to the Art Institute of Austin and learned Audio Production before I ran out of financial aid and was forced to drop out. The Art Institute lost accreditation while I was there, and after I left the federal government sued the institution for preying on low income people and offering little return. Long story short, I’m saddled with $70k in debt, no degree, and no connections in that field, but I did learn how to produce my own music. I sold weed for several years on top having day jobs while living in Austin to help pay rent, buy music equipment, and to sustain playing in bands locally and going on tour. Needless to say I’ve only ever known an extremely busy life. In some ways I like to think of myself as a soft, indie Jay-Z, but he’s a billionaire, and I’m a communist. Side note, my student loans have supposedly been forgiven but as of today that still hasn’t reflected in my FSA account.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Something really important to me is that I want to push back on some of the myths of being an artist and a creative person. As someone who has had hardships and struggled with mental health, I despise the idea that you need that for your art to be worthwhile. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think some people have something to say and others are in it purely for self-aggrandizement, but I don’t necessarily think the starving artist archetype is what sets them apart.
I also exist in constant conflict with the capitalist mode of production and what internally motivates me as an artist. I hate stats of any kind when applied to art. I hate Spotify listener counts. I hate counting Instagram likes. I don’t even like rating movies on Letterboxd. I think our culture has an obsession with making art competitive, and I’ve tried desperately to exist outside of that sphere, and you just can’t, so I live to disrupt it as much and as often as I possibly can until hopefully one day it’s completely destroyed.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
This is a very political question at its core and for me goes hand in hand with the previous answer. I think if society wants creative people to thrive then we need to allow all people to thrive, period. I think we’ve atomized existence to a degree that we’re desperate for connection, and historically we really need art to cut through that widespread alienation in times of social unrest.
Consequently, I think we erroneously assume that tragedy, whether broadly or personally, makes the artistic ecosystem better and more meaningful like diamonds formed under immense pressure, but I think that’s one of the most toxic myths plaguing the creative world. A lot of my favorite artists were people with hard lives and tragic stories, but there were just as many who had privileged backgrounds and almost invariably had much greater commercial success than their more hard luck counterparts. The barriers are just too high to achieve that for most people who don’t have rich parents, and I have no aspirations to die young and leave behind some kind of morbid, mythological legacy like Kurt Cobain or Jimi Hendrix, as much as I’ve personally idolized both of them. I don’t think holding people to some kind of standard of how much suffering makes you a real artist is respectful to their memory at all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://subcommander.bandcamp.com/
- Instagram: @sbcmmndr
- Twitter: @sbcmmndr
Image Credits
Daniela Gomez-Hancock, Ky Vöss, Britney Flippo, Chris Lopez