Jorge Cortés is like a cornerstone in Peruvian metal and rock music and this is the interview on the radio program “Metal Warriors” (Peru) where he talks about his third album “Hechicerías” (“Spells”) and future plans
Cortes formed the heavy rock band “Óxido” back in 1983 and also “Mazo” in 1987, having played in a few other heavy rock and metal bands along the way.
–We have the great Jorge ‘Coco’ Cortés, icon of Peruvian metal and rock. He has formed emblematic bands such as Óxido, Mazo and today we will talk about his recent project as a soloist called ‘Gatoebrio’...
-Hello Metal Warriors and thanks for the invitation. I played bass for Óxido and then bass and vocals for Mazo. Nowadays I have this personal project called “Gatoebrio” (Drunken Cat)
– That’s right, Gatoebrio is your most recent project and you have 3 albums already, so what can you tell us about “Hechicerías”?
– It’s got 14 songs in there and some of them are a few years old and others are brand new so it’s rich in the sense that it picks different times of my life and I must point out that I enjoy writing songs just for the hell of it but feel they have to be shared…. So there
-These 14 songs sing about mysticism, death and love, what else?
-It’s basically that along with an introspection of sorts and always oriented to stuff that matters to me.
This all becomes a lot easier because I’ve been writing since I was 16 so I have a good number of songs in “storage” if you will, so then I have to pretty much choose from there which ones to use
Although, my brother Julius “Ñaka”, who is the main lyricist for Mazo wrote 4 of the songs in here, since we always work together
-We can’t help but notice that you have some top notch collaborations on the lead guitars, tell us more?
-Yeah, it kicks off with Joe Stump on “Libertad mental”, we share the stage playing the music of Deep Purple with our band “Stormbringer” so I gave him a couple of songs that kind a go in that direction. The man (also guitarist for Alcatrazz and professor at Berklee in Boston) plays like a bastard so there’s never a question in my mind about his performance.
I also have Peruvian jazz guitar master Jose Allende on “Espada y corazón”, where I got my daughters sing some backing vocals too.
Eloy Arturo from legendary band Kranium plays “Vid del Dios del trueno”. My friend Joni Chiappe (RIP) does keys and arrangements on “Al sur del destino”.
Manuel Rodríguez from Mortala and Spectral Souls shreds on “Hedor cíclico”, then we have “El ángel de la muerte” (Angel of death), song I wrote when I was 17 and we recorded with my first band Óxido back in 1984, so I got the great Javier Mosquera on that lead guitar.
“Imbecil” has the talent of Rafael McKee from “Sacra” and “M.A.S.A.C.R.E.”; John Whitcore, master guitarist currently playing in Boston band “Iron Tiger” does magic in “Ni negocio ni concesión” and last but not least, Mazo’s ex guitarist Andrés Parodi goes mental on “Rompe”.
The reason I have all these collaborations is because I don’t do well enough with good lead guitars, plus I think it works nicely as it adds color and stuff from different souls…
-What can we expect from Gatoebrio? Maybe a live show sometime?
-Although Gatoebrio was designed specifically as a recording project, I’m not opposed to playing a few songs if we manage the right way.
Most of the songs have a lot of unusual instrumentation like flutes, strings, keyboards, bells, etc…. So we would have to pick the easier ones.
-This album includes “Angel of death” from Óxido, what memories does it bring and why did you include it?
-Indeed it’s a special song for me as it was the first one that I wrote music and lyrics together and it also resumes a style that would stay with me.
I decided to re-record it because I wanted to capture the same feel I had that wasn’t captured in the studio when we did it and although, both versions are amazing in their own way, I just had that nagging need to re-do it.
-And now that we see bands from the past coming back, is there the possibility of getting Óxido or Mazo together?
-Well, with Óxido is a bit tricky as the drummer and the singer are self removed from the music world as far as I know, but with Mazo is different because we will be there forever
In fact, trip to Lima to do our usual show is long overdue!
– Cortes, you are considered a big reference and cornerstone in Peruvian and Latin American metal, do you have any favorite bands and what are your thoughts on the national metal scene?
-Thanks for the kind words and I’ll try my best as I don’t consider myself to know a lot about the scene and such but, from what I heard, I’m very impressed with bands like Metal Crucifier, Reino Ermitaño, Anal Vomit, Volcano, Satanicos Marihuanos, Los Santos and Titania, to name a few, not to mention the ones we grew up with in the 80s (Kranium, Mortem,etc)
The thing is, I like to listen to a lot of different music (flamenco, gypsy jazz, classical and of course my favorite: medieval music) and unfortunately time is always tricky
Dear Coco, thanks a lot for your time with this interview
-Thank you and everyone involved, it’s been a pleasure and we can do it anytime
Cheers!
GUERREROS DEL METAL