• Interviews

• All
• Music
• Cinema
• TV
• Comic Books

Feb 14, 2025 Web Exclusive By Mark Moody Photography by Suchit Upadhyay

Some four years and 400 miles from his boyhood home of San Francisco, Marinero’s Jess Sylvester finds himself in the middle of Los Angeles’ most horrific wildfires in memory. Connecting with Sylvester over Zoom at the mid-January peak of the devastation, he shares that he’s approximately 15 miles from the perimeter of the Eaton fire. “We’ve been pushed to prepare ourselves to leave on a moment’s notice. You’re looking in your closet and going through your clothes. Saying to yourself, ‘What do I need? What’s really important?,’” Sylvester says. But life goes on as well. Sylvester shares that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures offered free admission over the weekend and the Lakers played a home game the night before we talked.

Though Sylvester has been involved in other projects, Marinero is his main gig of late and La La La (a musical nod to his adoptive LA home) is his third full length album released under the moniker. Sylvester signed to Sub Pop’s Hardly Art label for his sublime farewell to the City by the Bay—2021’s Hella Love. The earlier album focused on profiling different parts of San Francisco with a bent towards nostalgia for things left behind. “When I moved to LA I was watching movies and listening to music during the pandemic and trying to figure out my next move for an album. I didn’t want to empower myself to be an Angeleno, like up top, but I wanted to [focus] on themes that tied into the city,” Sylvester explains.

So aside from more personal topics, large parts of La La La are given over to a love for what Sylvester describes as the nation’s “cinema Mecca” as well as the Latin influenced musicians that call LA home. Not to mention, in a more tongue in cheek moment, his penchant for street tacos on the brassy, salsa inspired “Taquero.” As lively as the song is, its accompanying video puts some of Sylvester’s co-conspirators right in the mix. Long time LA musician, DJ, and road manager of Chicano Batman, David W. Gomez, plays the title character who Sylvester defends in all manner of attempted assassinations. The funniest of which finds Sylvester bumping off Chicano Batman bassist, Eduardo Arenas, via a hot sauce poisoning outside of the city’s iconic Mandarin Noodle House.

“My songs were very sentimental on Hella Love, but I also have a sense of humor. I felt like leaning into that a bit more and having fun from a writing standpoint,” Sylvester says. “Filming the video [for ‘Taquero’] was a lot of fun. My friend Eduardo, who played bass on the song, was the noodle guy in the video. When he looks at the picture of the taquero (who he is supposed to kill) that expression is real. David [Gomez] and Eduardo are friends, but also as close as brothers so when he saw him in the picture he was like, ‘Fuck this guy,’” Sylvester explains.

On the more serious side, two of La La La’s most beautifully orchestrated songs, “Sea Changes” and “Dream Suite,” turn to those close to him that have struggled with addictions. “On ‘Dream Suite’ I had this pretty Marvin Gaye sounding song in my head and I just wanted to get more vulnerable and specific. I honed in on friends or family who were struggling with addiction [that became worse during the isolation of the pandemic]. There’s not a lot you can do for people when they’re not ready [to get sober]. And there’s not even a lot you can say. I find the best way of trying to connect is just doing what you’re doing and staying sober yourself. It allows the opportunity for someone to reach out and ask for help without having to tell them, ‘You need to do this.’ No one likes being told what to do. The song is less floral lyrically and just straight to the point. I’m just trying to talk to the listener directly,” Sylvester says.

But the album’s theme that gets the most airtime is definitely that of Sylvester’s love of the movies. Towards the end of the album, the songs “Cinema Lover” and “Hollywood Ten,” bookend one of La La La’s catchiest songs—a faux James Bond theme “Die Again, Yesterday.” “The song was inspired by a conversation with coworkers at my old job who were also musicians. I joked that we should all write a James Bond song. You need the chorus, a musical theme, and a certain chromaticism. [The Bond songs] are like their own genre. There’s always some chords that are a little out of key that make your hair raise just a bit. Like something’s about to happen or it’s just tripped out a bit. It’s buttoned up because it’s a big budget United Artists movie. Big orchestra, big soundtrack, but at the same time a bit out there,” Sylvester explains.

Again flipping to a more serious subject, the last of the cinema-inspired songs, “Hollywood Ten,” shines a light on one of Tinsel Town’s darkest moments. To a percussive rhythm that mimics the “click-clack of the typewriter,” Sylvester pays homage to the screenwriters, producers, and other industry types who were blacklisted during the post World War II Red Scare. “I think there are aspects of the Red Scare that could be applied to today. People posting ‘facts’ without knowing the facts themselves or cancelling someone without even knowing [what a person might have done]. I thought we could look at history and refresh our memories and learn something from the past,” Sylvester says.

“When I first moved here I met someone who had experienced the effects of being blacklisted. People would tell me, ‘You can’t talk to that guy. He’s a ghost.’ And I would ask them what happened and they didn’t even really know. ‘Just stay away from that guy. We don’t really know why,’” Sylvester says while also laughing about the absurdity of it.

More than anything, La La La, and Hella Love before it, express nothing but deep admiration for Sylvester’s surroundings whether they be people, places, or tacos. He reels off Tacos Arabes, Mariscos Jalisco, and a recently opened outlet of Tiajuanazo as some of his favorite spots. Mentioning that he went back to the latter the day after he first visited. As Sylvester puts it on “Sea Changes,” he’s left behind “no more gray, only days filled with sun and palm trees.” And with ideas to delve further into filmmaking or soundtracks, LA isn’t a bad place to be. “It’s been a cool process making this record,” Sylvester says. “It’s turned me from just a lover of cinema to being empowered to make these [music] videos with my friends. Maybe I’m going to be the Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone all in one.”

www.maringuero.bandcamp.com

Read our 2021 interview with Marinero.

Subscribe to Under the Radar’s print magazine.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.