By
Stephanie Amerena
Editorial photography by
Annabella Mireles
Additional photography courtesy
Mike Hernandez
With over two decades of musical expertise, Mike Hernandez is not only a multi-talented musician: he’s also an inspiration and guiding hand to the future of El Paso’s music scene. Hernandez’s journey toward music is a unique experience filled with diverse opportunities that lead the way to the next milestone.
The first note of this composition was struck when Hernandez was four and would hear his uncle playing the drums in his garage rock band every Saturday. “I didn’t know what it was,” he says. “It was loud and impactful. It was enough to remain a pivotal memory.”
Hernandez was determined to play an instrument as well.
His first choice was to play the drums like his uncle, but his mother was not about to have him playing something so loud in her house. In the meantime, he waited until he could get an instrument from his school programs. In the meantime, he did find a creative outlet through visual art, even winning various awards for his drawings throughout elementary and middle school. On his 12th birthday, he received his first guitar and all of that creative and artistic energy transferred into music.
By the time Hernandez entered middle school, he was so far advanced that he caught the attention of his guitar teacher who would become an impactful mentor for him. He was the one who handed Mike his first vihuela, a traditional stringed instrument used in mariachi bands.
There was not much literature on mariachi music while he was in school, so Hernandez had to learn everything orally and audibly. Despite these limitations, he mastered it in a year. This impressive feat earned him an invitation from his teacher to play with the high school’s mariachi group and have the opportunity to learn from the best, like Mariachi Vargas in Mexico City.
“It opened my eyes to how important this music is,” he says.
While Hernandez showed such success in mariachi, his passion did not stay in one genre of music.
During this time, while he played mariachi at school, he also played punk rock at home with his first band, Six Under Par.
Once in high school, he continued with mariachi but learned of a bizarre rule his school had.
Since the school was losing so many students to professional mariachi groups, the rule was that if a student musician was recruited into a professional group, they were no longer allowed to play for the school’s mariachi group.
Hernandez immediately broke this rule and started playing professionally.
While he had success at the mariachi events, Six Under Par was also becoming well-known.
Hernandez and his band became so popular locally that they would be frequently featured in the newspapers and receive compliments in class from his teachers who saw them perform.
“We were one of those first bands at our school that were DIY focused because we knew no one was going to do it for us,” says Hernandez.
Being DIY, he began his brand’s branding operation at 16 by walking into a local t-shirt store to make Six Under Par shirts. Then after he sold enough, he would go back to the same store to make more in time for their next show.
Rinse and repeat.
Many of his friends were also forming bands at the time, and several of them created a coalition called, Super Friends.
Those bands, along with others, witnessed Hernandez’s success with his shirts and became inspired to make their own. The shirts would become so iconic that some can still be seen now at the El Paso History Museum. Several are proudly displayed within the museum’s Musica Sin Fronteras: Twentieth Century To Now exhibit that Hernandez helped put together, as well as a feature display of the Super Friends Era.
With members wanting to pursue their own goals, Six Under Par broke up shortly after high school.
Hernandez’s goal and vision only had music in it.
This led him to travel to Houston and audition for a prog-punk band called Heist at Hand to tour throughout South Texas and the West Coast.
Ever true to the DIY structure, Heist at Hand gathered the means to make and distribute their records and albums. The band did their research and found a producer in Arizona.
However, to finance the project, Hernandez worked retail at the Houston Galleria Apple Store.
He started as a stock boy in the back of the store but eventually became a General Manager for the Apple Specialist stores in Louisiana and Arizona. When the band reached its goal, their first album was made in 2006.
But, the next couple of years were a struggle.
“I kept sending the album to all these labels,” said Hernandez. “I got all positive responses back, but at the time was told music wasn’t moving in that direction.” None of the record labels were willing to invest in innovative prog-punk music, but that didn’t stop Hernandez and Heist at Hand from keeping to the grind and touring in Mexico, the East Coast, and even performing at one of the Collage Meia Journal Festivals in New York City.
When the time came, after investing so much into the album, Heist at Hand disbanded and went their separate ways.
Shortly after, Hernandez moved to Phoenix to manage an independent Apple store. At the time he was working, he was playing with the band Tugboat but began thinking that his future in music was looking more distant by the day.
Then one of his old buddies from the Super Friends coalition called him about their band The Royalty and that they were signing with the Chicago-based Hardcore label, Victory Records. His friend had asked if he would want to fill in on the summer tour with them. Hernandez jumped on the opportunity.
“This was the first level to everything else that was coming,” he says.
Once The Royalty began touring full-time, music became Hernandez’s full-time job for the next two years. The Royalty traveled all over the country and Canada to perform their unique retro influence, 1960s rock to 1970s soul style that made them stand out within the label. They released their album Lovers in 2012 and became one of the biggest bands from El Paso during that time.
“This was my first experience with publishing, licensing, interviews on TV/radio, and our music on MTV,” says Hernandez “and a lot of the places we would go to the audience would know the name of the songs. That was a real trip.”
With the success, however, came the financial and physical taxation that is usually overlooked in the music industry. The group sat down and had a moment of clarity.
“We loved playing together,” Hernandez says. “We loved writing the music. But when it came to sitting down with the label, which was asking about the next cycle, we couldn’t do it.”
With burnout and debt weighing down on them, The Royalty did not renew with Victory Records.
One of their final shows was at El Paso’s Chalk the Block.
The Royalty opened up for LA’s one-of-a-kind Mariachi El Bronx. Hernandez was a huge fan of Mariachi El Bronx because, like him, they picked up the genre to not only master it but also to start creating their music.
After the performance, he met the group backstage.
Versions of this conversation vary depending on who you ask, but one detail stayed the same, where at the end Mariachi El Bronx’s guitarist and co-founder Joby Ford, who is still a close friend with Hernandez to this day, said to him, “Let me get your number.” He did, and Joby put it in his Charro pocket. Shortly after that Chalk the Block show and one tour later, The Royalty parted ways.
Hernandez returned home and began reflecting on how he did not have any skill sets outside of music. He couldn’t even get a job in retail or bartending at the time. With no other options, he went back to school. In the pursuit of a degree in music, Hernandez had to start at a community college to be accepted into UTEP’s music program. He had to overcome the alien feeling of being the older student in the classroom next to 18, 19, and 20-year-olds.
“It was good for me because I learned a lot about my craft,” says Hernandez. “But it was also challenging because I had to make the grades to earn the means to live.”
Then on a trip to LA, he received a call from someone familiar, Joby from Mariachi El Bronx.
The conversation went roughly like this: “I don’t know you, but we met in El Paso, and we need someone who could play this gig in Australia. I remembered you and all the instruments you said you could play. I looked for your number and it was still in my pocket. So, do you want to come to Australia?”
Hernandez immediately accepted and asked for the details.
“We want you to play the guitarron and the songs have to be memorized. No rehearsals. Just on stage and boom,” Hernandez happily accepted.
It wasn’t until he got home did he start to panic. Hernandez owned a guitarron but had never played one in his life, and had two weeks to master it.
“It was the hardest thing to do,” he says. By the time he got on his flight to Australia, Hernandez entered into a space where he felt he could pull it off.
The next day with extreme jet lag and even more intense nervousness, he went to sound check. The band asked if he had a preference on what song to play and – ever the cool guy – said, “I’ll play whatever you guys want.”
They proceeded to play the hardest song in their collection. After they played, Mariachi El Bronx looked at Hernandez and praised him for his skills.
After Australia, Mariachi El Bronx kept calling him to play shows. During the long time they toured together he says, “They showed me how to be in a band because they were all the sweetest people. I learned a lot about keeping a band together.”
Through the joy and learning, Hernandez had a realization: “I love everyone, but I was a hired gun for the band,” he says. “I always wanted to be in the band, but I knew I couldn’t because there was no room for me.”
The next best thing was to create a new band.
Taking from all he has learned over his career; Tribes was formed in 2018.
“I wanted to do my own thing and I knew I could do it differently,” said Hernandez.
While working on his current band, as well as filling in for members of Mariachi El Bronx from time to time, he was able to pass down his knowledge through teaching.
Since 2020, Hernandez has served as a mariachi and music production teacher at Franklin High School in El Paso. With a fully functional recording facility within the school, he’s been able to teach his students to not only compose music but to also produce, engineer, and understand all the technical aspects of the music industry.
Wanting them to get the full experience, Hernandez invites his students to watch the recording sessions in person or feature them in the Tribes’ music videos. In addition to his teaching career, he is also the music director for “You Rock! Music Camp,” an inclusive El Paso youth-centered music and empowerment camp dedicated to girls, ages 9-17 founded by Jim and Kristine Ward along with the El Paso Community Foundation.
One of his motivational lessons for his students is “School is a place that you make it. If you don’t make it interesting for yourself by getting into what you discover you like, it’s going to be a hard time.”
Hernandez has also been writing songs for his upcoming album. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he had a lot of time to write and compose.
He’s been writing songs since the seventh grade and honed his creative process along the way.
Starting with the music side (to find the right chord progression) and then taking inspiration from different genres of music. The same can be said for his lyrics, which he takes from his everyday life.
He then uses a layering effect to build onto each other. The process begins with one idea that then expands. The people in his life have even helped polish the lyrics, vocals, and melodies.
“A lot of my bandmates and people involved helped me do this,” he says. “They are super supportive of me and my vision. They love it. They care about it. They care about me.”
Hernandez explains that once he wants to listen to the song over and over again, then he knows the song is done. Now that he can put these songs on track, he is keeping this album true to his vision.
With eager anticipation, Tribes’ newest album is set to be released next spring.
