Rulitos, the solo project of Daniel Sanches Chicaguala, mellowed out the studio during his groovy set at the KVRX studio.
With influences like Elliott Smith and Nick Drake, Rulitos crafts a live presence that is at once intimate and vulnerable. On stage, he performed a mix of tracks from his upcoming album, while pulling from his 2024 EP, EP 01. Utilizing a perfect blend of English and Spanish lyrics, nostalgic synth, and mesmerizing vocals, Rulitos transported us out of the station into a dreamscape of our own.
Rulitos and Co. joined us in the booth for a lively conversation about cheese, musical influences, and the Austin music scene.
Read our interview with Rulitos below:
Q: Can you introduce yourselves, your role in the group, and, of course, your favorite appetizer?
Daniel: Hey, I’m Rulitos, everyone else calls me Daniel. I sing, play guitar, and make other people do other stuff. My favorite appetizer…It’s hard to go wrong with chips and salsa.
Andrew: I’m Andrew. I play bass, I play keys, shaker. Lots of things; I do all Daniel’s dirty work that he’s too afraid to do. This is not a cop out, but if I see a sampler platter on the menu. You don’t have to pick one, you get, like, three.
John: My name’s John; I play guitar. And try to add moral support, comic relief. I love an egg roll. Give me four to five egg rolls, and I won’t even need a meal.
Nika: My name is Nika, and I sing. That’s it. Favorite appetizer is cheese. Like straight up. Give me brie. Give it to me. Who needs a spoon when you have hands? Brie, goat cheese, any kind of cheese. If you have fig jam nearby. Don’t bring a cheese board to me at an event.
Q: For people who haven’t heard your stuff, can you give us the vibe in five words?
Daniel: Oh I got this! Music, you, can, nap, to.
Q: How did this project start, or how did you guys meet?
Daniel: I had played around in other groups, and it wasn’t until last year I started taking this more seriously, like my own self. So I asked my good friend Andrew if he could finish recording some stuff I had and make it better. I’ve known Andrew for a long time. In the past year, I met Nika and John just playing at the Cactus Cafe. I asked John one day if he wanted to jam, and he was very friendly. Nika was a Hail Mary. I asked her if she wanted to sing. Everyone is just really nice to me is the best answer.
Q: What acts do you take inspiration from, especially as a bilingual project?
Daniel: Sometimes the songs come out in Spanish, sometimes English…I would say the artists I’m ripping off aggressively are Eliot Smith and Nick Drake, like guitar-wise. What I like to say at the end it’s as if they had grown up listening to ambient electronic music. I like textures. Like this cool, I’m playing acoustic guitar but what if there was a synth behind it, just kind of droning? It’s never been done before, of course…
Nika: If I was going to pick one person, it would be my mom. A lot of my singing that I learned was from her. She was in a band way back when in South Africa, so we grew up singing together. Every time we would do the dishes, we would sing together, and she would teach us to harmonize; that’s how I learned harmonies.
John: I think It’s just trying to keep up with Daniel because he’s really the songwriter. We’re just trying to latch on to what he’s doing, he kind of leads the charge there, you know?
Daniel: I’ll push back on that just a smidge, I think I might put the bass as the foundation. But I’ve been really specific about who I’ve asked to help play because, for example, John has his personal style in his own music, but the overlap in the Venn diagram is really interesting to me. With Nika, I know she can cover up every time I miss vocal notes; I have plots for her in the future, too. And Andrew is the real character in the room, and I’ve always told everyone this. His ability to play a million instruments and recreate a bunch of stuff is a little cheat code that I can exploit.
Andrew: I really like 90s, New Age stuff. Heavily synth driven, like Yamaha DX7, crazy sample bank stuff. A lot of people call it elevator music or whatever. It is very corny, but I think it’s fantastic.
John: Playing with Daniel is kind of a stretch for me in some ways, and it’s very fun. I like that we find a groove. But if we’re talking influence personally, Randy Newman. He’s the best songwriter that ever graced this earth, so I like those storytellers. Townes Van Zandt of course, I like old Blues guys.
Nika: With guitar and storytelling, I love Simon and Garfunkel. I think my roommates would tell you I have a problem. Sometimes it’s really subtle and sometimes it’s not, but it’s got that softness to it that I love. I also really love newer Americana stuff, like Brandi Carlile. If I could sing like her, the universe would be complete. My favorite thing about music is that you can tell a story with it. And you can take down that barrier of entry with vulnerability. If I’m going to get on a stage and tell you my whole life story, that would be crazy, but I can put these really vulnerable things into music, and we can all speak the same language. If you can take your soul and bare it to someone else, that’s inspirational, and that’s good music.
photo by Rachel Green.
Q: How did you guys form this ambient, laid-back sound? And has that changed over time?
Daniel: There’s an album coming out a little after South By, so do with that information what you will. But that album is a little more rounded out; I feel like this first EP was more of me playing with styles and figuring out what my vibe is. I used to play electric guitar and a bunch of other, heavier, stuff, but I realized I liked the acoustic guitar. With the electric, I was just trying to make it sound like a synthesizer.
Q: How was the process of making EP 01?
Daniel: I started writing those songs after I had just moved in with my girlfriend, and I was getting tired of playing electric guitar because it’s kind of repetitive. So, I started playing songs in our little studio apartment that had no furniture in it. I had a lot of time to kill, so these were the first songs that kind of popped up. I recorded part of it at Memo Guerra’s studio called United Oscillations of America; he produced and mastered the EP too and he added some nice textures. That’s where I first was like, “oh, what if we leaned in more to keys and synthesizers.” He’s a little synth wizard.
Q: How was your reaction to the reception of your EP?
Daniel: It surprised me a little bit. I had finished it and had sat on it for years because I was scared. It’s easier when you’re writing stuff for a band versus when you’re doing it with yourself. When I finally got to the point where I wanted to take this seriously and see what people think of little ol’ me. Rulitos, Daniel. People were into it more than I thought.
Q: Where does Rulitos come from?
Daniel: It just means curly hair. My mom started calling me that because I used to have very straight hair, and then I hit puberty and it got really curly. I had some bad, other project names, but this was better.
Q: Can you reveal some trashed names?
Daniel: One was pachucos. I was like “let’s hang the Latino flag as high up as possible.” It’s a little on the nose. Not that, just another Spanish word is different, but. Okay this one’s bad, but I promise I’m a nice guy. Dick Lonely was another one. That was a long time ago, you see why I pivoted. This is why you always listen to your mama; they’re doing their best to steer you straight.
Q: What’s your favorite part about the Austin scene in general?
Daniel: First tour is actually coming up in April, right after SXSW. We’re doing Texas for three weeks. That’ll be our first proper tour. And the weird thing about Austin is that it’s a city, but it’s also not the biggest. So there’s a lot of crossover; a lot of folks I’ve known now for years and still play with. I’m very thankful that there’s a sense of a creative community here. I know Austin’s changed a lot, for better and worse, but there is still a bit of an energy here that I feel we take for granted.
Q: Are there any venues you’ve played at that you really enjoy?
Daniel: I’m going to do a hard plug for Cactus Cafe. I’ve met some really nice people there, and that’s where I started going. I thought that if I can’t kill every single time I’m up there, then I can’t push to other venues. That community was really supportive and encouraged me to push more, and take this more seriously. There are all levels of musicians there; it’s where I met John and Nika. Jake Farr, who runs it, has been a bit of a mentor and really encouraging. Don’t take that spot for granted.
photo by Rachel Green.
Q: You mentioned an LP soon, how did the songwriting for that happen?
Daniel: The majority of the songs on that album we actually just played live. I started recording again with Memo, but there was this big thing, like four or five years ago. I don’t know if y’all were around but a lot of people were getting sick, you couldn’t leave your house. We had started recording the album, and then we had to stop. We started again and had to stop again. I was alone in my house for, like, a year recording it. And I went to Andrew’s house to finish it. A lot of duct tape methods.
Q: How does a song start out for you?
Daniel: I’ve got a running list of lyrics. I’ll hear something in a movie, I’ll read something in a book, I’ll hear someone say something. Or if I’ve got a flaming idea, I’ll write it down. Then I’ll be messing around on guitar, I’m really guitar-driven, and a song will form. So I’ll go back to that catalog. The longest note on my phone ever. I’ll just start picking little lines that match the vibe of that song. I’ve been surprised by how seemingly unrelated lines can be, but together with the guitar track, it really hones in on an unconscious feeling I had at the time. It’s like creativity brings something out of you, it’s really weird.
Nika: Also the first thing I notice about your songs is that you always play with tunings. I remember the first couple times I went to Cactus and asked you what you were doing up there. Like what was that? And you gave me a list of tunings, and that is my sacred holy grail list. If I’m stumped on a song, I pull out the Rulitos tunings, and I get inspiration. So if you want a wacky tuning.
Q: Speaking of tunings, what’s your favorite?
Daniel: I can’t tell you, but I’ll tell you I rip off Nick Drake a lot. So if you ever want to go hunting there.
Q: Is there anyone in Austin, or the music scene in general, that you’d love to collaborate with?
Daniel: Cloud Companion and TC Superstar. They helped me put out the EP and the album, and we kept wanting to do something. It’s kind of a joke, but we’d do nothing but synth drone stuff. They’re great and so kind. They took me under their wing; they’re great performers, great musicians, but they’re good people too.
John: Honestly Daniel was the main one, and here I am. And Matt the Electrician, boom, I’m just going to say it.
Q: Ok now zooming out, if you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Daniel: I can’t hang with certain folks that I would love. I mentioned Nils Frahm, and I would be embarrassed the whole time. Juan Wauters is a huge inspo to me. A major game changer for me was a Local Live show he did back in the day that a friend of mine recorded. I watch it, like, once a month to this day. Ok, and dead…I mean Eliot Smith would be a downer, but it would be cool.
Andrew: If we got the time…The GOAT for me is Paul McCartney. His songs are divine inspiration. Dead, Mozart. He’d be fun to hang out with.
John: I’ll go with dead first: Justin Townes Earle. He seemed so interesting. Alive, maybe a guitarist I really like, someone who could teach me something cool. Jake Xerxes Fussel is really good.
Nika: I can’t pick a number one. A person I would like might be Norah Jones. I’ve always wanted to sing jazz, but I have no rhythm. For dead, I would go way back to classical artists, too. It would be interesting to see if they thought about music in the same way that we do. People 1000 years ago, those really cool instruments, I would love to play with one of those.
photo by Danelo Gonzalez III
Find Rulitos here:
photo by Rachel Green.
Credits:
Production Manager: Emma Kositsky, Intern: Astrid Alvarez; Set Design Director: Anna Havner;
Audio Director: Aiden Sharabba Audio Interns: Jayda Burr, Ethan Rangel; Video Director: Cassie Quintela, Intern: Zoë Thorn;
Photo Directors: Rachel Green, Dina Zeid; TSTV Producers: Michael Norris, Fernando Alvarez; Interviewers: Devansh Thakkar, Rebecca Meyers;
Volunteers: Nathan Crews, Rob Paine, Joel Aguillon Lafargue, Hannah Shaikh, Alex Edwards, Zach Williams