[Si] TV

“From many energies comes one rhythm.” The Mayan saying is a way of life for TOCA, who took the philosophy and name, to heart. There’s no need to pick a type of music you want to hear, because you can hear it all when you listen to a track by this six-member band that incorporate a heaping variety of musical genres (salsa, pop, rock, rap, jazz) and sounds (percussion, synth, electronica) into their art. The musicians, Daniel Rodriguez (vocals), Thomas Valencia (vocals, keys, percussion), Ceschi Ramos (guitar, vocals, keys, bass), David Ramos (percussion, vocals), Danny Levin (horns) and Max Heath (keys) came together six years ago to create a musical mash-up and have finally released their work to the world. Their fusion results a refreshing sound on their self-titled debut off of the indie label Two Tone Elephants. [Sí] Entertainment had the opportunity to talk to Ceschi Ramos, the band’s “musical mastermind,” to talk about the secret behind TOCA’s all-encompassing sound, why they’re just like Wu-Tang and how they’re breaking boundaries. 

[Sí] Entertainment: Are you making a conscious effort to ensure that you’re not put into one musical genre?
Ceschi Ramos: I think categories are overrated. There’s always going to be people that are going to be between genres…we don’t really go out of our way to do it…it just kind of came natural to us.

[Sí] Ent.: What’s your opinion on TOCA’s sound versus a conventional one?
CR: The difference is that we are [making music] without the industry in mind. When you’re in the industry you’re told all the time that all your songs basically need to sound alike because people hear one single and they want to hear other things that sound like it on your record. That’s what industry heads say about listeners and in my opinion I think that listeners are smarter than that and they want to be challenged sometimes…we never got pushed into making our sound more generic.

[Sí] Ent.: Who are some of your group’s musical influences?
CR: Well, we all have very diverse influences. Myself, I’m really into ‘60s rock, psychedelic rock, like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. I also grew up on salsa and the Nueva Trova movement, including artists such as Silvio Rodriguez, he’s probably one of my biggest influences, all the old Fania, the experimental hip-hop scene in Los Angeles, such as Freestyle Fellowship, and a lot of indie rock.

[Sí] Ent.: How important is being Latino in respect to the music that you and your band mates create?
CR: It’s just important. We stay in Los Angeles, we recorded most of this record in Los Angeles and to me Los Angeles is an extension of Mexico. Obviously it comes out in the music and you see we have songs in Spanish. We embrace that and I just think it’s something that ties us together.

[Sí] Ent.: Are you already in the studio working on something new?
CR: We have many different [individual] projects; we started as individual musicians, and TOCA was a project to bring us together. I think TOCA has to be seen as a group of like-minded musicians, almost like Wu-Tang Clan. They started with their group but they all had their solo albums. As far as TOCA music: we already have a lot of music, we’re just really picky with our records, and so there’s not gonna be a record coming out any time soon. This one just came out after 5 years.

[Sí] Ent.: What would you say to someone who has never heard your music?
CR: I would want them to know that although we’re trying all these different things, we’re not that strange; we’re not that crazy just because we’re meshing genres. It’s not that weird, it’s just that a lot of people have been programmed into thinking that music should be a certain way. I would say give it a chance.