I recently caught up with Adrian Quesada, the mastermind producer and founding member of Black Pumas, as they gear up for their September 16th show at Maymont. We dove into what excites him most about this tour, how their new album is shaping up live, and the ever-evolving creative journey of Black Pumas.
What about this current era/tour is really exciting you right now?
Right now what’s been great, we toured for so many years on the first album that we’re actually playing the new stuff, the new album and seeing how these songs develop live. Like I said we toured so much on the first album that songs kind of took on a life of their own in the live show. They became kinda different arrangements from the album and right now the songs we are playing from the new album are kind of morphing into the same thing which is always exciting.
That’s cool to see them take shape in front of you.
Mhhhm!
With your live show, what would you say is your main goal?
The main goal is to make people feel better than when they walked in. We realize there’s so much stress in the world. Some people come to have a good time, some people come to leave their problems at the door and if we can elevate people for a short bit of time and make your day better it’s good for us.
You have an incredible amount of producing credits, it’s evident in your own albums, how does it change how you perform live?
You know I think the two are hand in hand. Producing and being part of a band, being one of two creative forces in the band, the band is like your canvas and you want to get musicians who can bring things to life on their own, with a little direction. You know it’s kinda very similar on stage to do something like that.
I know you were in Grupo Fantasma for a long time, that was a much larger group, less individually based. What freedoms do you find working in the intimate duo you are in now as compared to the bigger ensemble?
Oh yeah there is a lot more freedom, that larger ensemble, you’re kind of married to, especially just stylistically and musically with it being Latin music there is a little more formula that goes into it all. With Pumas I think the sky’s the limit with what we want to do creatively, sonically, and not limited to any particular genre or musical style.
Absolutely. What do you think was the original idea for Black Pumas, and how do you think it has developed from that original seed?
Originally we didn’t have that much of a plan to tell you the truth. We’re just getting together for fun and recording music. This started in 2017 and we would just kind of get together and work on music. It started out that simple we weren’t really gonna be a band per say, we were just having fun with it. Nowadays it has really developed. When we started I was just all the handling production, and Eric the songwriting, lyrics, and singing obviously. Nowadays it’s really evolved to Eric having a big role in production of this new album. The roles have sort of morphed and grown a little bit. We hardly knew each other when we started working, and now it’s like- the musical relationship is a bit more intense.
Would you say you have morphed as well into songwriting? Have you delved into any lyrics yourself
*Chuckling* no I actually leave that to Eric, I wouldn’t even pretend to try to do that.
What sort of nonmusical inspiration are you finding right now?
Funny enough I have had this conversation with a few people about the similarities between cooking, Chefs and what they do and musicians and music. It’s kind of a similar art form and one of the most closely related. So I have been finding a lot of inspiration in food. It’s similar to production; how do you say more with less without just slathering butter on everything? How do you have every little individual flavor shine without cluttering, and where do you remove things to leave people wanting more while still keeping them fulfilled. I think there is a lot of similarities and I have been really inspired by food lately.
That’s a really cool comparison! I just have one more question, do you have any memories about playing in Richmond?
I hate to not have an answer for that but I would have to look up where we have played before, 150 shows a year blend into each other!
Main photo by Jody Domingue, Eric Burton (left) and Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas.
