By Ron Evans

Over the past 20 years, there have been many incarnations of The Michael Carlos Band. So many, in fact, that I’m not sure how I was never a member at some point. “You are one of very few Wenatchee musicians who haven’t!” Carlos joked as we sat down for drinks at Hellbent to chat about an evolution of sorts.

The most recent lineup of the MCB has been Carlos on piano, guitar, and lead vocals, Domingo Gonzales on bass, and Aaron Parrott on the drums. “Having played with so many people over the years, I can say that this group really worked well from the get-go. And because of that, we started realizing that we were more of an actual band, a group that all had things to contribute. And it seemed like it was time to retire The Michael Carlos Band and relaunch as this new thing,” Carlos said.

Parrott and Gonzales were also present for the roundtable chat – here’s how it went.

EVANS: Would you say that this is a bit of a rebirth, or is it more about growing into a thing born of the last thing?

ALL THREE AT ONCE: Both.

EVANS: So you still have at least one foot in the MCB?

CARLOS: Very little, honestly. It’s funny because the MCB literally existed right up until forming this new group, so it’s kind of a strange thing.

PARROTT: (Joined MCB around 14 years ago) We have looked at a lot of the music from the older band – you know, there are three LPs under The Michael Carlos Band. And we have talked about, well, maybe this song makes sense to continue, and if we re-work this one. And Carlos was getting tired of being the namesake, tired of writing all the songs. And with Mingo and I in the band, he no longer had to do all of it.

CARLOS: When we really started thinking about that was last year at Holiday Spice. We performed for that, but Mingo was singing. We were billed as The Michael Carlos Band, but I wasn’t the singer. So it was like…what do we call ourselves when I’m not the one fronting the band? So we started trying to come up with names.

PARROTT: We had a spreadsheet and notes and a lot of back and forth. We really went deep before settling on the name, and Mingo was the one to really pull it together.

EVANS: And that name is Calaverdes. What does it mean?

GONZALES: (Joined the band just before pandemic shut-downs) Well, it’s sort of a combination of the word “calavera,” which is the Spanish word for skull, and “verde,” the Spanish word for green. We were talking about taking the music more toward a punk sound, and I was trying to think of the most punk color ever.

PARROTT: It doesn’t get more punk than bright green.

CARLOS: We wanna go more punk and more Latin.

EVANS: So with a few exceptions, you are looking to write mostly new music?

CARLOS: Yeah, and now we have a situation where Mingo is gonna be writing, and Aaron is gonna be writing, and we will all sort of figure out how to make it mesh.

PARROTT: Michael and I do a lot of the initial meshing, and then Mingo comes in and spices it up. It’s all working great like that.

GONZALES: It’s always about what can I say in my own voice, how do I bring that to the table?

CARLOS: There was one day where we were literally just sitting around with a notebook, and it was like…ok, what’s the next line? What’s the next line after that? All of us writing together literally all at once.

EVANS: That’s gotta be a big change for you, Michael. After so many years of solo writing.

CARLOS: It’s a huge change. It’s a completely different process. And it’s a refreshing change. Like Aaron said – I was ready to make changes in how all of this would go. There are still times where I’ll be the principal writer on some songs, but maybe I’ll just bring 70% of it to the group and we finish it off together. Whereas before, I would feel like I had to basically bring a fully finished song and say, “OK, here’s how it goes.”

EVANS: So what’s the plan for the immediate future? Are you focusing more on live shows – planning to record?

CARLOS: We need to work on having more songs.

PARROTT: We already had some MCB stuff in the can that we hadn’t yet released. So we decided…this is stuff that’s worthy of Calaverdes. With a bit of a re-working.

CARLOS: Then we will be looking at doing some recording, but we gotta figure out where we are gonna do that.

PARROTT: Yeah, because Chad Yenney (Earth To Emma Studios) up and moved on us, so we need to figure that out.

EVANS: It sounds like it’s pretty equal in terms of contributing to all the aspects of the band.

PARROTT: Yeah, and I’ll likely never write a whole song, but I come up with all sorts of what I’d call bare-bones stuff that we can all build on. I’ll be in the shower, and a melody or some lyrics will come into my head, and I gotta towel off and run to my office to get it down so I can send it to these guys.

CARLOS: I wanted this band to be equal not just in ideas but in stewardship. We all own the band equally.

EVANS: Have you played as Calaverdes live yet?

(They all laugh.)

CARLOS: Yeah, we played Wally’s the very week after we played our last show as The Michael Carlos Band.

PARROTT: Did you miss us??

EVANS: That’s hilarious. You could get meta with this and have MCB open for Calaverdes.

PARROTT: Hey, I bet we could actually pull that off. We kind of did if you think about it. We changed the drum logo over from MCB to Calaverdes at the end of that show.

CARLOS: We will be playing Wally’s again in January (Jan. 11) around my birthday. We used to play these birthday shows there, for years.

PARROTT: Don’t you share a birthday with David Bowie?

CARLOS: No, that’s the day before. But I do share a birthday with Dave Matthews, Jimmy Page, Joan Baez, and Crystal Gale.

PARROTT: All notable punk musicians.

EVANS: And all one-time members of The Michael Carlos Band. So how many songs do you have ready to roll right now?

CARLOS: Nine.

GONZALES: And that was including a couple of MCB leftovers.

EVANS: That’s a set.

PARROTT: Yeah, we have a set, but we will have something new soon. Likely for the Wally’s show coming up.

EVANS: Anything online yet for Calaverdes?

PARROTT: Not yet, but there will be soon. Until then, you can follow us on Facebook and IG – you will see any pertinent updates.

Calaverdes w/ The Timely Tragedy and

Deep Green Sea

LIVE at Wally’s

Jan. 11