Maná: Clavado en Un Bar

Manal had finally done it. With the release of Falta Mode in nineteen ninety. They became the most talked about rock band in Mexico and started to gain traction outside their homeland.

They paid their dues in the underground, got dropped from three separate labels, and had two bandmates call it quicks before finally finding their home at Warner Music Mexico.

The road had been long and bumpy. After a decade of reduction, they were now in demand for concert bookings and TV ad campaigns to the tune of millions of dollars.

Wow. Manna had gone this long without a manager, but big deals meant big risks, and they needed someone to make sure they got big rewards.

And that's when another member of Mana decided.

To leave the group to become the band's manager. Because nobody in the right mind would dip after getting million dollar.

Offers, wouldn't you know it. The one to step away from the artistic side of things was Gayerros, one of the three founding brothers of Sombrero Verde, one of whom had called it quits just before man Not popped off.

This meant yet another lineup change, bringing my not down to just two founding members, Ferrolvera and Juan Caerros. Yes, Joseph, there's something we forgot to do last time.

Oh wait, you're right, Okay, you know it's different covering a band, all right, Sometimes the lead guy isn't clear till later. And we're talking, of course about fer Olvera born December eighth, nineteen fifty nine.

A sage son, the first one this season. Can you believe the challenge for this sage is to seek their own sense of authority, learning from the role models without copying them.

Police exactly admire Sting, but don't try to be Sting.

This is not a person who's here for the drama. Trust is key, and respect comes before loyalty. But only by staying true to who you are inside? Can you be a leader who can send that trust flowing both ways and set yourself up to do good for the world?

Fed on Veda's desire to do just that was clear enough from the name of the band, mana good energy. The bread that falls from heaven.

Maybe a bit cocky too, though, like where God's gift to Earth, I mean.

A little cocky, but still, if Manah was making bread, listeners were eating it. The band would never stray musically from that good vibes heal the world energy, making for two of their biggest albums.

But good vibes can't always cover up bad blood.

I'm your host Lilianavosquez and I'm Joseph Carrio and this is Becoming an icon a weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous latinv stars have shaped pop culture.

And given the world an extra lebble.

Sit back and get comfortable.

Because we are going in the only way we know how, with buenas bida, buenas riesas mchies, and a lot of opinions as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic.

So we're back to the early nineties. Lisi's the former guitarist, is now managing the band, and in this place comes Cessa and Vampidro Lopez, so named for his nocturnal sleeping pattern.

Vampido would sleep all day and wake up in the late afternoon early evening and go straight to playing his guitar.

Big older brother who never leaves his room vibes.

At first, Vambido was brought in to fill in at a few concerts. When he was formally invited to join the band, he hemmed and hawed.

That's because Vampido had his own thing going on, a band called Boleta.

Isn't it cute when musicians think they can do their own thing.

Right, like join the band that's getting coin and do your thing later.

At first, Van Beetle did actually play in both bands, but as Manak continued to blow up, got the sombretto vert of the treatment.

Why are all these bands color coded? It's like giving peewee football team.

Or Cela superhero. Oh anyway, Vombido became a fan favorite band member. At live shows, Fair cued his fiery guitar solos with the iconic shout atro.

I was just telling you how you said it. Thank you. But if any of the rock bands in the show have taught us anything, it's that band members come and go.

Except for us, we're forever and ever and Yeah, don't get too attached to Vampido or the new keyboards who was brought in along with him, Ivan Gonzalez.

I don't even really like rock, and I know not to get attached to.

The keyboardist Still, this lineup would be crystallized in Manna's first album to debut in the Billboard Top ten, nineteen ninety two's De Who Got On Those Ninos? Where Would the Children Play?

The titles giving Bleeding Heart, Sade Energy, and.

This album gives bleeding Heart for the days.

It's giving a heart that's getting transfusions in real time just so it can keep on bleeding for its entire fifty warm in net runs geez don. De Who Got On Those Ninos was recorded at the late Great Devonshire Sound Studio in Hollywood, and the artists who've recorded here run the gamut from Billy Joel Bing, Crosby and the Jackson's to Nirvana, Suicidal Tendencies, Green Day and Ozzy Osborne.

Uh I wonder where math Nah falls on this very wide spectrum.

Well, look no further than the most iconic song on the album, Oh Yeah Memore, an aching nineties power that caused a phenomenon in Mexico.

Yo.

If you were a teen girl in Mexico in the nineties, someone at some point either sang you this song, gave you a cassette tape of them singing it, or played it outside your window.

Like John Cusack.

Basically, if you saw the Barbie movie, it was like the song that all the Kens sing around the fire.

Oh my god, it is.

Pop quiz Joseph, damn you what? I hope you drank your coffee and went on your run and did your hot girl walk because your brain needs to be sharp for this one. When was the first time you fell in love with Oya maamore? And do you remember where you were?

Oh my god, I was smoking a cigarette. I do remember that. And I was at this place.

It was called Barbadou in Houades, and I remember everybody knew the song but me, and I felt so stupid because it's so catchy.

It's the catchiest, it's so catchy.

And I just felt so stupid because then I felt like I was so unfessa and I felt poor, ugly and fat.

That's all, okay, First all, you are none of those things. You've never been any of those things. And I will say this to you. One of my biggest regrets in life is that you and I did not know each other during your watt Is days, because we would have had a time buff.

Like no, honestly, we would have had We used to cut out little like boards and make them of our hottest nights and just have like a board like I guess how you would imagine a vision board like a scrap book, but like posters of our outings and cigarette butts and like Coria.

And what was the cover art for on your on your vision board?

From what? I didn't?

Dare you no? Because you know since since it was made in ninety two. This is also like I think I was in what is Like in ninety nine? So so where were you?

So I was not familiar with the song when it came out because I think maybe a little different than you. I didn't really listen to a lot of Mexican pop rock or rock, and we're not going to get into that argument. When I was in high school, I didn't really listen to any Spanish music that was not driven by my parents until I went to college. Oh wow, so similar timeline. I heard the song in college. I was in DuPont Circle in Washington, d C. At a gay club, and yeah, and it came on and I was.

At a straight club, so what the fuzz?

I know, we should have such places and the crowd went wild. Now this is also a club that had a big Latino presence because DC is a super international city. But you know, this song is really forever just one of those guilty pleasures like I'm talking like drive by Incubus, the reason by who was stank? I mean anything from Matchbox twenty. It falls for me right in line with those songs catchy and cute.

But I'm not roud. Sorry, mind blown. I'm mind blown with that comparison.

But it's not to say that there was nothing on the album to recall Mina's roots. The song moved They would emerge as a soft nineties counterculture anthem where Alex the drummer takes a mic to sing about wearing his hair long and listening to what he likes to.

Listen to and checking that Sagittarius Box might not also released vv T Scene Ida, an environmental anthem that asks what would it be like to live in a world where their air is unbreathable?

Like tell me how I'm supposed to breathe with no air?

Vv Scene Idea would earn the MTV Latino Video Music Award for Video of the Year, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Don Deinos would debut at number four on the Billboard Latin chart and stay on the chart for ninety seven weeks. Over the years, the album would sell ten million copies, making it the best selling album in the history of Spanish language rock and that.

MTV Video Award winning video. It helped Mana break through in Argentina and Spain, tool markets that are typically not so friendly to outsiders, and two stops on Mana's biggest tour, yette A two hundred and sixty eight night World Tour.

I am tired just thinking of that.

Shiz Mana were officially a global force, well beyond the confines in their home country and a far cry from the repressed of CD bars of yr, but that didn't mean they were beyond rock star Shenanigans or sudden bandmate exits. In April and nineteen ninety four, A van Bidel decided to disappear.

In the middle of the world tour, and on top of that, he said, I'm taking the keyboardings.

Why do you sound exactly like Jennifer Coolidge right? So many skills?

Vampido and the keyboardist Yvon Gonzalez demanded that they get a share of the song raining credits and royalties from the album that put Manna on top of the world.

Gossip shows also speculated that the two upstart bandmates were just plain sick of fair Olvera the fame had got into his head too, claims which at the time were hearsaide, but which the guitarist would later back up. He said, you spend so much time with people. You're young and don't know how to set your limits, and any insignificant thing becomes big. So there came a point where none of us could stand each other and we needed a break.

It's Santana all over again. Why can't these boys keep it together?

Olivea and drummer Alex Gonzalez refused to meet their bandmates demands, and so in the middle of an international tour, Vampido and Evonne split.

So, for those keeping track, we've gone through a drummer, a guitarist, another guitarist, and a keyboardist.

To save the tour, the band would call in a couple of favors from some old friends original so they're the guitarists Gustavo Rosco and Shila Rios, the.

Lady rocker who linked the band with Beppa Hollywood. Together, the quintet finished out the.

Tour but their old friends would be invited as permanent members.

I'm sorry, wouldn't you want Hila in the band like she made you? Yeah?

But she could have had other things going on. Maybe she was playing in another band, right.

So Sheila left to continue playing with Naranka, Lambara or whatever, and after the tour laps.

Fair, Alex and Juan launch a worldwide search for a new guitarist. Over eighty guitarists from Mexico, Chile, Argentina and the US audition, but none of them seem like the right fit.

So the band calls up who else, Beppa Hollywood, who gets on the phone with Luis Miguel's guitarist, Quiko Cebrian.

The guitarist Kiko Sebrian didn't know anyone offhand, but he said some Mirando had just come by and dropped off a cassette demo.

Maybe he's good, uh promising?

So Geegle sends the tape to Beppa Hollywood, whose name is Bepe Kindana by the way, in case anyone forgot, We're just joking here, and Bepe listens in the car on the way to work.

Cars had tape decks back then. See Liliana, I do not about cars.

By the way, you take ubers all the time. You never ride the subway. Of course you know about cars. Okay, back to the tape, Beppa Hollywood hears an extremely versatile guitar is playing everything from bossa nova to heavy metal.

He calls our leading man, fed Or Vetta and says, do you know what that sound you've been looking for?

Well, listen to this.

He puts the phone up to the speaker and gives Phair a listen, and Fair says.

Thanks, I hate it.

Brutal Bebbe, disappointed, takes the tape into his office and tosses it in the slush pile, a box of rejected demos that are ultimately bound for the dump truck.

Where they'll reenact the end of Toy Story three, but with music in setatois.

Okay, wait stop, don't make me cry on the mic. Okay, that's like not cool.

Sorry boo. Anyway, the search for the guitarist goes a lot like their search for the drummer back in Simbreo Veda the era.

Aka impossible demands make for a totally fruitless search, and one day Fair calls up Bepan and says, screw it. Let's go with the guy from the tape.

FML and Bebba Hollywood has a full on panic attack.

He rummages around the reject.

Box, digging through the trash.

He does eighty on the mayback and races home to turn his home office upside down looking for this damn tape.

And finally he finds it, presumably after chucking the tape in the rejects box. After showing it to Fair, he had a moment of better judgment.

This is the guy who went to bat form Na in the first place. After all, Bebba Hollywood does have an ear.

And after Bebbe played the tape for other members of monot, it was decided the band would welcome its new permanent guitarist, sedjil Vai, and.

In nineteen ninety five, the definitive Mana lineup debuted with the album Guandoos Angeles Joran When Angels Cry.

Mana's third album with Warner Music Mexico was yet another worldwide success, and it even led to their state side breakthrough.

The band played seventeen sold out shows in Boston, d C, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Miami, and Moore. The anglosphere took notice.

The Rolling Stone time, and people covered the tour extensively. On top of that, Francis Ford Coppola tapped the band for a film soundtrack of Smielski uh huh, and the band was invited to play on the first tribute album to led Zeppelin and Comium alongside several American artists.

Mana were Rock Royalty, which would soon put them in contact with actual royalty.

Joseph, do you follow the royals?

Yeah? Kind of, I too, well?

Which royals I should probably specify? Do you follow like the British royal.

The British, the Spanish, the Danish?

Okay, okay, got it okay, so said Japanese, all of the royals.

I do, every royal actually.

Except for the baseball team anyway. The Spanish royal family is made up of King Philippe, the sixth, Queen Leticia and their children Leonor and Infanta Sophia. But in nineteen ninety seven, long before any of that royal biz, Leticia was a journalist for CNN living in Guadalajara. Excuse me, that is some compass. You were a reporter.

I noticed story like I would do a story on her because that's just so She has the best blow up.

She is the original making marcoll that's all.

Thank you so much.

Wait, okay, okay, did she interview Mana?

She did, indeed, back in the nineties. Fair in twenty eleven recalled that Lithicia was a tough interviewer.

I know one trusts me.

So she began her sit down with the band smoking a cig and Fair ticked her off by asking her to put it out. After that, her questions became noticeably tougher YO.

Don't know what to get between a bitch and her nicoteen honey.

Not an endorsement for smoking, but facts. After the interview, however, Lithicia and the band went out for a few threats, and, unbeknownst to the public until many years later, she and Fair had a brief relationship. But wait, that's not the jusiest part.

O my spe spell stell spell spell Okay.

So years later, in two thousand and three, Lithicsia officially became a part of the royal family with her marriage to Felippe. And that's when the listening public took a good hard look at the cover of Mana's nineteen ninety seven albums Liquid Dreams Like the Otown song if you

Dude, Like, but but does this proof?

I mean, if you look at a side by side of said woman on the cover, La Mermaid and Lidicia. I'm just saying, there's a lot of similarity.

Wow, wow, wow, I'm kind of like that's juice.

Okay, And by the way, to settle the debate, the woman depicted on the cover is in fact Leticia Ortiz, but Waite Joseph. She did not get all nakey for the cover. She didn't even.

Pose for it. Okay. Is this AI in the nineties?

Basically yes, but a little different. So the artist who painted the cover was actually friends with Lithicia and used her as a reference. After Lithsa's engagement to the Prince of Astutias was announced, the painter shared that he had gone through a bit of quote unquote Lathinmania and used her as reference for several paintings.

So the Queen of Spain didn't have a full Jack and Rose driving like one of your mermaids. Moment was fed and or this artist. But the relationship did happen, right, it did, and it.

Goes to show you the prominence of Manna. By the time we get to the late nineties early offs, the band was a household name in the States, throughout Latin America and in Europe. And they played with another icon that we actually covered this season. In December of nineteen ninety eight, Fair received a phone call. He picked up up and a recognizable boy said to him, greeting's wayward traveler.

I've extended my vibrations to you across the telephonic medium as a form of invitation.

I'd like you to join me in connecting the molecules with the light nad Just kidding. It's Carlo Santana want a jam.

Just to clarify, Carlos Santana didn't crank all the lead singer of Mana, but farah Veda did think he was being crank called and he hung up the phone.

I would do.

Then Santana called him back to say, no, dude, like I really am gardless Santana.

And that's how Mana appeared on nineteen ninety nine Supernatural on the track Guarason Espionavo, the.

Biggest fan of the Spanish speaking world, linked up with a rock and roll legend on what remains one of the best selling albums in history. Let's just say that Manna were set for life.

Sure, except think about Santana.

In the addo, his longtime fans heard radio friendly hits like Smooth and Game Over Love and wondered whether this was the same something out that rocked Woodstock and in.

Mexico, rock fans couldn't escape Oh Yemiamore and other ballads. They saw tabloids filled with would be scandals with Spanish royalty, and they had to ask, is my not really rock music? On the next Becoming an Icon, we're taking a look at what the haters have to say and whether Manang has stayed in touch with their rock breeks. Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Gurda podcast network.