Excerpt from transcription, audio
recorded on Sunday, August 10, 2025
Jesús: My name is Jesús, and I play the bass.
Carlos: What's up. My name is Carlos, and I play drums.
Cristian: I'm Cristian. I'm the vocalist.
Jackie: I'm Jackie. I play guitar.
Jordan: I'm Jordan, and I also play guitar.
Ameer: So, first question—how did the band get started?
Cristian: Oh, dude, it's really funny. It was us three at first, but we all kind of sucked. We weren't too good at our instruments. We found him (Jesús) at the skate park, and he completed us. We went from a really shitty band to a band with potential.
Carlos: Yeah, we were just talking about needing a bassist at a local skate park, Jenkins, and we were talking very loudly about it. This guy was eavesdropping, and that’s how that came about.
Cristian: He basically saved us. It was all up from there. Now we know what we want to do and have a more refined sound.
Jordan: We would have been nowhere without Jesús. Starting a band was just an idea, and Jesús really set it into motion.
Carlos: He was the only one who knew how to play music.
Jesús: I was in band in high school. I played trumpet, and then they had a jazz band. I really wanted to be in the jazz band, so I learned how to play the bass. I learned all the important fundamentals of music, music structure for bass, and just instruments in general.
Cristian: Jackie's super new.
Jackie: Yeah, I lowkey spawned in. They were like, “Do you want to join?” I was like, “Okay!” Yep, now I'm here.
Jordan: That's literally how it happened. She would fill in for us a little bit.
And then we're like, “Yo, you just play.” She's like, “Yeah, okay!" now we're here.
Jackie: I learned the drums, the bass, and then the guitar, so I know all.
Carlos: We wouldn't add anyone else to the band but Jackie.
Jordan: Yeah, we talked about it for a long time—adding a second guitar—and we could not find the right person. For the OG fans, you'd see sometimes Cristian would pick up an instrument, and we'd play it that way. But there's just no aura in that. It's not as fun.
But yeah, Jackie would fill in whenever we needed her: “Oh, Jesús missed a show. Jackie can play bass.” “Oh, Carlos missed a show. Jackie can play drums.” And then we just curated her to play guitar. We're like, “Yo, now you need to learn guitar.”
Jackie: Yeah, I did not know bass. I did not know guitar. I only knew drums, so this was all new, but super fun. I love everybody here.
Ameer: How did each of you individually get into the scene?
Jesús: When I joined the band, they took me to this awesome show that changed everything. It was with Strange Joy and Juice Box at East End Barber in 2023. I was blown away.
Carlos: I got into the scene through Jackie because she was in another band named The Bugsuckers. Just from coming to watch her play, I got interested in more shows, and from there, I started going to more stuff like this.
Cristian: Same. I knew Jackie, and their band was pretty good. Came to their shows every week or every other week, and then started coming to other shows.
Jackie: In 2021 or 2022, I had a little indie band called The Bugsuckers, and that’s when I was in the scene. Then all of them started to come to our shows, and we all became super tight.
Jordan: So, my story is a little bit different than everyone else's. I used to know a band named Jaid, and I knew them pretty personally, so I was really cool with them. They were throwing shows in their garage and backyards before they were really getting put on bills. I was going to their shows in 2021, and as they got on more bills, I found more bands that I liked and followed them on Instagram. From there, it just spread. I've been going to shows since 2022.
Ameer: What was the inspiration for the band? When you were first starting out, what did you want to sound like?
Cristian: It was all over the place. At first, we were gonna do OG 80s punk, and then we thought maybe a little bit of skate punk. But we finally decided, we all like hardcore, we all like punk. Let's just make good modern hardcore punk, and that's what we're going for.
Ameer: What is something that you all would wish to see, just in general, from the Houston scene?
Cristian: Well, like we talked about before, more mixed genres and inclusivity for everyone. And more benefit shows, obviously.
Jordan: And fucking stop these goddamn breakdowns, bro. Y'all come on, bro.
Not everybody can be big off the same thing. Everybody's trying to be TikTok. Everybody's trying to do breakdowns. We need to educate the youth—y'all are two-stepping and throwing down at the wrong time. This music is not made in a certain light, but there are definitely certain parts for certain moves to dance to. And I'm glad people are dancing and having fun coming out. But you don't need to break down every song.
I'm not calling anybody out, but y'all know who you are. Stop making breakdowns for every goddamn song.
Cristian: You don't need to beat up people for every song either. We make fast music for people to go side to side, push each other around, stage dive. I don't want to see people beating the shit out of each other at Growing Minority shows. I really don't.
Jordan: Yeah, we don't make music for that. Beating each other up is fun in the right hardcore spaces, but you don't need to be at a Scramz show, jumping over six people's heads and slamming on them.
Cristian: The thing about Scramz, too— not all Scramz bands need breakdowns. This is like a joke, I forgot who said it, but you either die Scramz band or you live long enough to see yourself become a deathcore band. You don't need a breakdown every song. I swear, you're fine without a breakdown.
Jordan: It sucks because they're making breakdowns trendy. This shit’s been around since the '80s. Not everyone needs to be hardcore. Everyone does not need to be hard, and that comes back to making music that you want to make, not music you think is gonna get you attention. Don't follow the trend. Growing Minority doesn't follow the fucking trends. We just make hardcore punk, and it's not the biggest scene, but it's a fun scene. It's fun music. It's the music we want to make, so just stay true to yourself.
Ameer: So, final question: future plans that you can share with the public?
Cristian: We might make an album sometime soon. We're working on new music. We already have two new songs we are playing live. We're gonna make more—playing less, making more. That's what we're gonna do.
Jordan: Catch us when you can because we're gonna really focus on just making music and then playing when we can. We all have real jobs and stuff, yeah.
Carlos: We are also making t-shirts soon.
Jordan: Yeah, we're working on merch for you guys. So buy a CD, buy some shirts, buy whatever else we have in the future, because we're figuring it out.
