“Going acoustic and dressing in black charro outfits is probably the punkest move they could have taken; El Bronx negotiate in exactly the same way as The Bronx – they don’t. They fear nothing, explore everything and create from the rawest of emotion, making imperfections the very best bits.”—NME

Punk rock. Mariachi. Two great tastes that go great together – er, right? Well, anyway, the two joined regardless one fateful August day in 2006, when The Bronx showed up to play on a television show. At the time, the Los Angeles-based punks were infamous for scabrous rifferama that suggested a return to L.A.’s golden age of hardcore (it’s not coincidence that the band portrayed Black Flag in the Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret, or went on their first tour with the Circle Jerks). The show requested the band play an acoustic version of “Dirty Leaves” off the band’s second, self-titled album – a request that didn’t sit well. “Going ‘unplugged’ was a ‘90s fad that I had a knee-jerk reaction to dislike,” notes guitarist Joby J. Ford. “We wanted to do something a little bit different.” Indeed, The Bronx took it one irreverent step further, donning uncharacteristic sombreros and arranging the song as a mariachi lament.

The band’s latest album, Mariachi El Bronx (II), finds them exploring new ground – from collaborating with Grammy-nominated Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles (the first all-female mariachi group in the U.S.) to an even greater emphasis on storytelling craft and emotion in the lyrics. “It still has the naïveté and blind excitement of the first record, but it’s more vulnerable,”

Mariachi El Bronx (II) finds The Bronx on the verge of celebrating their tenth anniversary – a landmark that most likely will lead to some unexpected path yet again.