Hello and welcome to "Applause Performances," sampling the sounds of Northeast Ohio.

This is Hello!

3D.

Jake Fader, Ed Sotelo of Hello!

3D.

Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure.

I want to talk a little bit about the style of music.

Jake, it's cumbia and a bit of psychedelic vibes mixed in there.

Can you talk a bit about style of the music and how it all came together?

It all came from hearing some classic Peruvian psychedelic music from a compilation called Roots of Chicha and hearing this cumbia rhythm that's baked into there.

Traditional cumbian music comes from Columbia.

I'm no expert on it, but from what I understand, traditional cumbia music comes from Columbia and we came to it through this Peruvian style as psychedelic cumbia and yeah there's a lot of that undertone although we're not strictly... we're not a cumbia band strictly we're you know as you said we play stuff from all around the globe but that cumbian rhythm finds its way into most of our songs I would say.

There's like rhythmic underpinnings to a lot of the music that we do, or the guys bring in different tunes, and that are from all sorts of different places, but it's funny, I don't think that any of us, when we're bringing in things in the band, or any of the, when folks are bringing things in, if they're really like, even that self-conscious about referencing a style, rather, they're looking at the entire big picture of like, what emotion or what movement do we want the song to evoke.

And we just happen to be really interested in a lot of music from a lot of different cultures and it finds its way in and but I think that we're you know to use the phrase an American band.

It really does mix together so well.

And Ed, I know that you have a background playing in punk and hard rock bands.

This gives you a chance to really explore your South American roots for the first time.

Yeah, yeah.

Talk about that?

When I was growing up, when my parents came here in 1970 from Argentina, it's actually interesting.

One of my earliest memories of listening music at home was actually country music and rhythm and blues and soul because that's the records that were gifted to my parents when they came here.

But they also had some traditional Argentine music, whether it was like folklore or tango.

But it wasn't until years later as an adult, I kind of came into that in my own way.

And so this was a way to kind of reconnect to something that I hadn't really been looking for until much later in my musical and personal life.

So it's kind of neat to be able to do that, you know, and expand on everything that I'd already been playing.

And Jake, I know that the band, shortly after it formed within a year, you got to open for a very popular band in Peru called Los Mirlos.

Yeah, so that the aforementioned compilation that Roots of Chicha they're featured prominently on there and they might arguably be one of the the largest bands or most important bands of that of that movement in Peru.

And they You know, it was our very first show ever we we got together casually and started to play and then and then um, I believe that through Neil the percussionist and and Ed had this offer, Los Mirlos was coming to Cleveland.

And first of all, we couldn't believe that.

And then it was like, okay, so our very first show ever is going to be opening up for them, which was, it was equal parts exciting and terrifying.

And that's what the show ended up being.

Mostly excitement after we were done playing.

After we were playing, the terrifying part went away, but it was an interesting trial by fire.

But what I will say is that the community that was there to support.

Whereas there might have been some skepticism when we first took the stage.

They were really, really warm and really amazing.

And seeing how that kind of music and that kind rhythm can transform a room.

And we've been really lucky that I think over our time playing since then, that was 2019, right?

mm hmm We got to watch that on multiple, on many nights, where we see that this rhythm that we're playing our version of, it brings people joy.

And Jake, I know that you work with bands all over the world, but you really wanted this band, Hello!

3D, to be local.

So talk about forming this band.

How did you find the musicians to get this together?

The first intention was to just really play covers of these songs I really loved and just to get together with some people.

And so I called or I sent a message to Ed and we had an online conversation, would you ever want to do this kind of music?

And then after Ed, we talked to John Galvez, who John couldn't be here today, unfortunately, but John, who is Peruvian, and he, his family's from Peru, and had never heard this kind of music.

But really took to it.

I knew him to be a great guitar player and a great writer and he took to and then everybody kind of came into the fold, Cutty the keyboardist came into the fold and Neil (Chastain), percussionist on congas and that was the group at first.

And then Joe Tomino, our drummer came in and we were super happy to have him.

And then recently Tim Lane has joined us and we're so happy to Tim and to have, I always joke that it's a little unfair that we have three of the best drummers in the region, like, you know, all on stage at once.

Like, we're being very greedy with drummers because they're so fantastic and they work together so well.

And I want to talk more about your relationship, because you two were basically acquaintances before this happened.

What does it mean to come together and share this love of cumbia music and be able to play it and record it together?

I think it's just this learning experience, because you said we're acquaintances, right?

So everybody still think we've gotten to know each other very well from playing together.

But I think that's one of the things that's nice is we're still kind of bringing surprises to the element of like composition.

You know, there's like something that like maybe, you know, the three people who write the most, I think, are Jake, John, who couldn't be here, and Joe.

And they're bringing stuff in that maybe I hadn't thought about, but then somebody else in the group would be like, wait, why don't we do it this way?

So I think that really kind of, that really stokes a fire in us to be more creative with every composition and on stage with every improvisational moment we have.

It's cool.

It's cool that you two came together like that and the shared love of something unique to this area.

That being said, Jake, talk about the appetite for this kind of music here.

I know you said that the reception when you played that first show was great.

What's it been like since then with audiences here?

It's been a really fun reaction.

I think that part of it is kind of, like you said, this being unique to this area is a part of that, right?

And I think the other part is that, you know, the reason we're getting together and playing and the reason, I think, that intention has spread out from that.

The fact that we just wanted to get together and make these sounds in a room, I think that that shows, you now, and I think audiences feel that, the joy that we feel.

And it's been, the reception's been great.

It's been really cool.

People consistently come.

Some people are saying, oh, this is my seventh show, my eighth show.

I come and we've had a couple people that have traveled from Columbus or Pittsburgh or something just for a show, which is amazing to me.

Or there's a good amount of people in the room where we don't know many of them, but they're genuinely there.

We're there for the same common purpose to share this music.

And it's all you can ever ask for, especially when you're playing mostly original music.

When you talk about Cleveland audiences and the people who are coming to your shows, I mean, do you think that Cleveland's pretty hip to this kind of music?

It's really amazing.

We played a show with this great, great group from Mexico City, Sonido Gallo Negro.

And we weren't sure, it was a weeknight, wasn't it?

Mm-hmm yeah it was.

You know, we knew that some Hello!

3D people would come out and hang out, but weeknights are always tough, you know?

And it was packed.

And a lot of these people, we brought a fair amount of people, but also all these people came because this band was from Mexico City.

And Cleveland has a way of showing up, like another group that they really showed up for was the Turkish group Altin ün at the Beachland.

You know we took some influence on one of our songs we played here is from that kind of Anatolian psych music.

And Cleveland tends to be really hip with things like that.

They show up.

And I'm always like, oh wow, look at us.

There's more people that want to find these sounds.

And it's fun.

And, you know, I know that that you two are still kind of learning global music.

Always How does that bode for the future of the band?

Where does this go from here and how does it evolve?

You know, the songs that we're playing today are just like a sample.

We have like more tunes in the repertoire and we have more songs that are just unfinished and you know, they'll just go in different places and that's, you know we're looking forward to that.

That's really exciting.

I think what's greatly exciting is that there's no one shape of the box that we can make a song that everybody's very open.

It's not like you come here.

That's not Cumbia.

Like no one in the band is going to say that.

They're not going to worry.

This isn't us.

This is off-brand.

We're not worried about having a brand.

We're coming together with music that we all love.

And what's fun about it is that we also now have our own language inside of it.

So even if we were to play a strict cumbia song, if we would do something that was like that it would still sound like Hello!

3D because we have we've been able to build a language amongst ourselves that isn't necessarily trying to ape something off of a record.

So it doesn't matter what we play, we're going to sound like us and because there's a lot of possibilities, I think that's the exciting part.

I have to ask, what is the meaning behind Hello!

3D?

Oh this is a good one Okay,.

I have to know.

So we needed a name we were at a rehearsal spot I think at School of Rock or something like that or wherever we were and it was in Strongsville I remember that and we needed to name and my son who was six at the time Yeah, six, five or six.

He was coming up with his own video games when I wouldn't always let him play like I would let him place some like a little bit of video games But when he wasn't playing video games, he was coming out with his on like imaginary ones.

And he came up with the name of a game called Hello!

3D, where the premise of the game was that you go up and say hello to people and then run away real fast.

And he's like, it's called Hello!

3D.

And I was like, that's a brilliant name for a band and we needed one.

And I said it to everyone, everyone's like yeah, that's weird, but let's take it.

I said to my son a little bit, I said, I said thanks so much for naming our band.

And he said to me, I didn't name your band, I named my game.

And he then negotiated a royalty rate with me of an upfront payment of $10 and I think I owe him a couple bucks a year.

Oh, that's so funny.

And he told me recently, now that he's 11, that he wants to renegotiate terms.

So your son, now part of the band.

Thanks, Ellis.

Way to go, buddy.

It's so great to be introduced to this band and hear more of this kind of music around here.

So Ed Sotelo, Jake Fader of Hello!

3D, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us.