Meet Marco Barajas

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marco Barajas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marco below.

Marco, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
It’s very common to not know your worth and think that you don’t deserve to be where you are at or receive the accolades that come with being a musician. It took us a while to understand that the only way people would take our band seriously, was if we ourselves took the band seriously. The big one for us was knowing how to charge for our services or thinking what we were receiving was enough because we were just “starting out.” The only way we were able to cover come that way of thinking was to say “hey, we are a very hard working band, and we sound incredible. So why aren’t we asking for more money or asking for bigger better gigs, not just dive bars every weekend? And to tell you the truth, even now they we are in a better position, we still sometimes have to check ourselves and make sure we aren’t cutting ourselves short, because we might think what he receive is enough.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Paloma Negra started off just being a safe place for my brother and I to express ourselves creatively. It later turned into a form of therapy where we would use the band to rewind, destress, and reach some sort of tranquility. By being true to ourselves and showing that through our music, we have gained a community of people who think like us or are going through the same struggles. It is nice to see that there is a community out there for everyone, so essentially you are never alone, you just haven’t found your people yet. We pride our band on our expression of our latino culture. Our new EP release “Pan Dulce” is the latest artistic exercise where we take a couple of songs of our childhood and give them the Paloma Negra sauce. We are very excited to share these reimagined covers, which will be released on September 15, 2023. We will also be throwing a release show with our friends Quinto Sol, Del Sol, and Robaflor the same day at The Sardine in San Pedro, CA! We will have exclusive merch only available the day of the show.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Collaboration and open-mindedness is really what has helped us out the most. Our best songs have been an outcome of our team working together and throwing ideas around. Songs just don’t always sound full when it’s just one person working. Another part of the process is to be patient. You can’t rush things, sometimes when we have a great idea, we just have to sit on it and let it slowly grow, instead of just putting out the idea and making final right away.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
Our parents were very influential in our music. They are who first introduced us into a lot of the music we listen to like, Maná, Los Panchos, and Los Bukis. They are sounds that molded the way we think about music and create our sound.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Eduardo Barajas, Marco Barajas, Martin Marin, Walter Jones, Jacob Abinante, Dorian Astroga

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