Zeros’ Javier Escovedo returns with original lineup

In the mid-1970s, no one expected San Diego’s mostly-Hispanic suburb of Chula Vista to turn out of one of punk rock’s very first bands. But it did. With members from Sweetwater and Chula Vista high schools, the Zeros formed in 1976 and, by their own admission, escaped the original music void that was San Diego County at the time, piling into the van and making friends with a then-burgeoning punk rock scene up the road in Los Angeles.

One of the founders of the Zeros, Javier Escovedo, comes from a family that’s arguably known as punk rock royalty these days. And while he’s gone on to record both with older brother Alejandro (in Austin’s seminal True Believers) and little brother Mario (of San Diego’s favs, The Dragons), Javier holds a special place in his heart for the original lineup of the Zeros - especially since they inspired a short-lived but critically acclaimed local tribute band, Wild Weekend. The original lineup-including Robert Lopez, aka El Vez, the Mexican Elvis-returns to play their first San Diego show in more than a decade, this Thursday, June 25, at Bar Pink in North Park.

SDNN.com: When did you know you were going to be a musician?

Javier Escovedo: When I bought the New York Dolls record, when I heard that, I thought I could probably do something. I know that my guitar playing might be limited, but I could form a band, and I could write cool songs and I could do it. Listening to the Dolls and T. Rex, to some extent.

SDNN: But you come from quite music family…

JE: My dad taught me a few songs, actually, bought me my first couple guitars. Alejandro, at the time, had a band called The Nuns, and he was living up in Northern California and we were living in Southern California. So every once in a while he would come down and would always be challenging me with, ‘What have you written lately?’, that kind of thing. So I was always trying to get ready for his next visit; trying to get better, writer cooler songs. So, yeah, that inspired me.

SDNN: Your little brother, Mario, is a good friend; and I’ve heard quite a few stories, off the record, about the competitive Escovedo spirit…

JE: Our whole family is like that. We’re all very competitive with each other. I think that’s why it was kind of hard to be in the same band. But it spurred us on to be competitive with each other. I’ve been labeled kind of sensitive one, I guess. But I was just as competitive as anyone.

SDNN: The Zeros got tagged as the “Mexican Ramones.” How accurate was that?

JE: Not really. To be perfectly honest, I was really inspired by Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground and The New York Dolls. When the Ramones came out, the Zeros had been going for a while, and before that, I had a band called the Main Street Brats, which was me and Robert [Lopez] and another drummer named Ray Wise. So it wasn’t like the Ramones inspired us to form or write songs or anything. But we definitely loved the Ramones, we thought they were a great band. They were as inspired as we were by the Dolls, etc., so I kind see why we were compared to the Ramones. But I saw an interview recently with Phast Phreddie, where he says the Zeros should have been called the Mexican Heartbreakers. We wanted to sound more like Johnny Thunders and his guitar playing, which really inspired me. Johnny Ramone’s guitar? Not so much.”

SDNN: These days, it’s almost expected for kids in suburban San Diego to start a punk-inspired band. That must sound crazy to a bunch of kids from Chula Vista in the 1970s.

JE: It’s funny, because we didn’t think about it at all; but somebody mentioned later that we were the first suburban band [from San Diego] to drive up the road to L.A. and start playing. And I guess maybe that inspired some other bands, I think Middle Class, they came just a little bit after us. I didn’t think about it at the time at all, but there was a band called the Dils, who where from up the road from us, in Carlsbad. And they had already played with my brother’s band, the Nuns, and he had said to me, ‘You know, the Dils, they’re from down there around you guys.’ So that also gave us some inspiration.

SDNN: But you did try to get out of San Diego as soon as possible, right?

JE: Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a scene in San Diego at the time. I mean, even with the Main Street Brats, we tried to get booked into some gigs [in San Diego] at the time, and it never really worked out. Back then, you basically had to be in a cover band. People didn’t really book original bands at the time. You either hade to have a record out-which, you know, was an impossibility-or you had to be able to play covers for two hours. And we just weren’t that type of band.

So I’d go to the library, and they’d have the Los Angeles Times, and I’d ready some review of, say, Venus & The Razorblades or some Kim Fowley-backed project-or even Van Halen, before they were signed-and I just thought, Well, that’s the only place to play original music.

SDNN: And when you got to the L.A. scene, you felt more like you belonged?

JE: Definitely. Punk rock was definitely an outsider thing. Not to slag FM rock at the time, but we weren’t a part of that thing, and didn’t want to be a part of it, and didn’t want to hang out with those kids. So once we got to L.A., and found a bunch of people who felt like we did-you know, about glitter rock, and the early, pre-punk rock stuff-it was like going from black and white to color.

SDNN: Could you ever have imagined having a tribute band, like Wild Weekend?

JE: Um, no. That was pretty surprising. And it’s really flattering, when something like that happens. It reminded me of our first tour of Spain, we went over there and there’s this club called Rico More, after one of our songs, a song that Robert wrote. I mean, it doesn’t get any more flattering than that.

Will K. Shilling is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He’s written about San Diego music for 15 years at SLAMM magazine and SD CityBeat; and served as program editor for the San Diego Music Awards several times.

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