We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Polanco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Polanco below.

Polanco, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I am the middle brother of three boys. We lost our mother when I was 10 yrs old. My father was always a hard-working person trying to make enough for our family to live a good life. When our mother passsed, we started spending more quality time with our father which lead to him talking to us more about music. I’m sure he always did that but we payed a different kind of attention now. He was into bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Yes, America, and I’ll kinds a good classic rock. We needed something to stay entertained while he was busy working and we were out of school so he bought us our first skateboard. I know you might be thinking, what does a skateboard have to do with music? Well for me it had everything to do with it. We got so into skateboarding that we spent everyday watching skateboarding videos to get motivated and go skate for hours with friends. Little by little we started noticing very good rock music in these skateboarding videos such as Janis Joplin, The Beatles, and many more. It also caught my dads attention and he had the awesome idea to gift us a drum set and a guitar and amp for our birthdays. Less than you think, we had already formed a band with our friends and started covering some punk rock songs that we got into. You could tell my dad was very proud of us and ketp motivating us by taking us to live concerts in our town. That made us love music so much and my dad was a big part of that.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into music through skateboarding. My dad bought us instruments when we were around 11 years old and we just never stopped since then. we had our own little music room in our house where we started our first punk rock band. My brother, me, and a couple other friends playing punk rock covers at around 12 years old, it was very cool. I noticed since then that I had a very good ear. I was always very strict when it came to playing a cover song. I made sure each band member played their instrument exactly the way it had to sound. When rehearsing in our garage, it caught the attention of our neighbors which they thought it was very impressive. They were always telling my dad we sounded great and he was super proud. All of a sudden, we were 14 year olds playing really good local shows. People really enjoyed our punk rock band and we were accepted in the scene pretty well. We then made the jump from punk rock to punk ska which involved a lot more instruments like saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and percussions. This band was called Mokochangos. We were already among the best ska bands from the state of Sonora. Promoters started hiring us to play shows even out of state, all expenses paid. It was a dream just some 15 year old kids traveling doing what they loved. As years went by, we moved on to form a pop punk band called She Likes Daylight. The listeners response to this band was always amazing. The cool thing was that we never looked at it as a job, we really loved doing it and things just kept getting better. We played all kinds of festivals in Hermosillo Sonora and in other states. We also had our first international tour with several shows in California. We played shows in House of Blues and the Gibson Showroom which was incredible to us. All this happened while we were still in school and I guess it was a tough time because we all kind of wanted to have a degree to have that “plan B” secured. I remember we were in Santa Monica at 4th Street Recording, a very well known studio where bands like Incubus, Linkin Park, and many more had recorded. Being there was already like a dream and then they ask us if we wanted to record a couple of songs there for free. I guess we didn’t realize the magnitud of what was going on back then. But we ended up saying “no” because of school and stuff like that. Whenever I am asked if I have any regrets in life, I always say that having turned down the huge opportunity to record in a studio like that for free is my only regret. We continued with the band though and had many more great shows. Until everyone kind of started to part their own ways either with school or their jobs. Eventually, this lead to the dismembering of the band. I had a pause on writing music for a bit and started working as a session musician. My father passed away and I was going through a very tough time in my life. Then I met my wife. She came to my life when I most needed it. My first son came in the picture, all my sadness turned into pure happiness and joy. I had so many emotions in me and it was then when my solo project “Polanco” started. It was the most genuine feeling for me at that time to just write whatever was in my mind. Lyrics came out naturally and I was loving every part of it. I started producing and recording my first song and just shared it with my social media friends and family. This song is called “Mamacita”. It is a song about just appreciating and loving every detail about your partner. People really enjoyed it and it even got to ears of people from all over Mexico. I guess my background with previous bands had some folks pay attention to my new music. I wasn’t really doing it for fame or money, I was just expressing myself in the best way I knew how to. Then, my next song “Sin Pensar” came out. Another love song with a deep and sincere meaning. This one really brought me a lot of attention from many people. I can still say it is one of my favorite songs because to me it’s one of those in which music and lyrics just intertwine beautifuly. I continued writing, recording and putting out songs without really thinking if I was ever going to play these songs live. Then I was invited to play a show. It was Polanco’s very first solo show ever. It was the first time I had ever played by myself or as a “frontman”. I was a bit nervous to be honest. And when the moment came to present my music in front of people, I realized everything just flowed so smoothly because the music and lyrics were so sincere and honest, it was really just being me. I loved the experience and since then I worked on designing my live sound the way I want it to sound. The project has kept growing since and I’ve enjoyed every part of it. I feel nowadays social media has pushed artists towards creating music so fast that the essence sometimes is lost. I invite people that want to listen to non pretentious, honest and real music, made with heart to give a listen to Polanco.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I love doing music. Being able to mold and portray an idea in my head is just amazing to me. Layering up, adding and removing instruments or sounds, the song kind of starts communicating with you what it wants to make it complete. It is a journey and I love the feeling of people reacting to the final product.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The way artists put themselves out to the world via social media is constantly changing. It may get hard at some point for artists to keep up with how social media wants your product to be consumed. It might feel insincere when recording yourself maybe just to put out a short clip with your song on top, but you have to let go of that and remind yourself who you are and your goal. I recommend staying up to date with the social media trends. Put out your content its never too much.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6J5p2gmfDxY1pZxzCtdQ44?si=cQiREEAYS8GIOVM7R8lFNA
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lepolanco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/polancomusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTzz2MUffLkbeyJdOV0M-bA

Image Credits
Emmanuel Esquer Francisco Vega