The early days of Joey Quiñones’ childhood in San Bernardino were set on a backdrop of open fields and dirt roads. When he moved to LA around the age of nine, it was “like seeing color for the first time.”
“Walking down the street and hearing hip hop to punk rock to mariachi and seeing the street corner musicians, it was just such an eclectic kind of feel, just on my way to school,” says the frontman of LA-based Chicano soul nine-piece Thee Sinseers.
That melting pot of sounds served as building blocks for both Thee Sinseers and retro soul outfit The Altons, both LA-based groups sharing several members and co-headlining The Black Sheep on Oct. 24 as part of the groups’ Club Heartache tour.
The Altons’ latest album, Heartache in Room 14 — released Feb. 14 via Daptone Records and produced by the famed cofounder of the label, Gabe Roth, aka Bosco Mann — is driven by smooth harmonies of vocalist Adriana Flores and guitarist and vocalist Bryan Ponce, moving tenderly between warm, soulful melodies; bolero-inspired, Spanish–language romance and haunted psychedelia.
Thee Sinseers’ latest, Sinseerly Yours — released in March 2024 via the Loveland, Ohio, based soul imprint Colemine Records — is backed by a full brass section and anchored by the sometimes crooning, sometimes wailing voice of Quiñones for an album full of yearning, heartbreak and an eventual surrender to sweetness.
“It's a lot about loss, It's kind of also kind of in denial, like, it's not necessarily all my fault,” Quiñones says. “At the end, it's like surrendering and opening back up to that, and maybe looking back, which is what this next record is more about.
“I keep having this image of some kind of flower, or a cactus, or something growing.”
‘Grandma’s house’
The scene where the musicians blossomed and honed their crafts was homegrown and built on a respect for “the whole package of dealing with the gear and putting on your own performances, putting on your own events, creating your own artist spaces,” Quiñones says.
“When we were younger, and we were kind of forming music tastes, we're too young to go into bars; so people would have house parties and backyard parties, and everyone wanted to play,” says Flores, who also sings with Thee Sinseers. “There was like, an electronic band, a rock band, a rap group, like, all sorts of musicians just trying to find an outlet.”
“You would get together at somebody's grandma's house or parents’ house when they were gone,” Ponce, who also plays with Thee Sinseers, adds. “Anybody that had a band, or anybody that was affiliated somehow musically, would get together, and kids of all types would just come up and show up to the parties.”
Quiñones, a former marching band kid who plays over a dozen different instruments, plugged in wherever he was needed, with punk, ska, reggae and wedding cover bands among the acts he dabbled with.
“You start playing these covers of these soul songs that are like, ‘Oh, I know this song,’ because it’s an old ska song, but then you realize it's just R&B, and then your mind just gets exploded, because you realize it's all tied together at some point.”
He eventually toured with acts like the California Honeydrops and the Aggrolites, an experience he credits with teaching him what makes a good live show and a good frontman. (It wasn’t until more recently that Quiñones stepped into his own as a singer. “It's frustrating because I realized I didn't have to buy anything at all,” he jokes. “I should have just started singing.”)
“When you sit down and write a song for the first time — for us, at least — it came out naturally like soul, and that’s what we’ve stuck to ever since.”
Today, the musicians of The Altons and Thee Sinseers have listening habits that remain as varied as the scene they came up in. Flores has been listening to the likes of Paramore and Olivia Dean as The Club Heartache tour wraps up and she prepares for getting in the songwriting headspace for The Altons’ next project. As Ponce similarly prepares to get back into the writing groove, he’s been listening to everything from boleros and Mexican music of the 40s and 50s to the Everly Brothers to Turnstile.
“We're just we're just sad boys and girls at heart,” Ponce says. “As much as I try to write real fast and aggressive music, it comes out kind of slow and sweet.”
The Altons’ percussionist Caitlin Moss has been listening to more modern, “drummer-focused stuff” that blends the sounds of hip-hop and jazz. Chris Manjarrez, bassist for both groups, has had The Police, Fugazi, Dead Kennedy’s, Turnstile and Ozzy Osbourne in his headphones.
Still, those foundational, soulful sounds remain home base.
“A lot of those artists that we've all mentioned, if you ask them about music that they kind of grew up listening to, it's gonna come back to stuff that happened with jazz and stuff with Motown and stuff with Stax,” Flores says. “I feel like that's why I lean towards that older sound. It's been around for so long, because it continues to resonate.”