For Maná drummer Alex González, the twin milestones recently reached by the long-running Mexican rock band don’t feel entirely real.
In February, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made Maná its first-ever nominee who performs primarily in Spanish.
A month later, Maná announced four nights at the Kia Forum in November, which when completed will bring to 44 the band’s total number of arena shows in the Los Angeles area, passing Bruce Springsteen’s 42 to become the act with the most in the region.
“It’s mind-blowing,” González says on a video call from his home office in Guadalajara, where Maná was born in 1986. “I remember the first time we played in Los Angeles in 1993 and we saw the reaction of the fans.
“It was in a small club for, I think, 800 people,” he says of what was then the Palace, and today is the Avalon. “Right in front of the Capitol Records building.
“We got a sense that if we continued to play in the United States, knowing that there’s a huge Latino community, singing in Spanish probably we could connect with the fans. And that’s basically just what we did.
“We would tour and tour, play, play, play, play, and doing it all in Spanish.”
Now, 39 years after Maná formed with the goal of being one of the most popular rock bands in Mexico, the quartet which includes singer-guitarist Fernando “Fher” Olvera, bassist Juan Calleros, and guitarist Sergio Vallín, are one of most popular Mexican rock groups in North America and beyond.
“I was looking at all the artists that are on this list that have played in Los Angeles, and to see Maná is going to break the Boss’s record,” González says. “I mean, we love Bruce Springsteen, and he’s such an iconic legend, artist, composer, writer, musician. It’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’
“But again, Los Angeles is our second home,” he says. “We started our career in the United States in L.A. and we love that city so much. And just the love and support that we’ve received, not only from the Latino community but the Anglo community as well.
“We really share it with our fans. They’re part of our history, you know, and everything that happens with us, the fans are part of that history.”
From Miami to Mexico
González was born in Miami in 1969 to a father from Medellin, Colombia and a mother from Santiago de Cuba in the Oriente region of Cuba. He took up the drums at 5 and quickly showed talent beyond his years.
He laughs when asked how a Cuban-Colombian American kid ended up in a hugely popular Mexican rock band.
“I know, it’s nuts. I’m going to have to write a book about it someday,” he says, explaining that when he was 14 his mother remarried and they moved to Mexico City.
González packed his black Tama Swingstar drum kit – “I wanted a Tama because Stewart Copeland from the Police was using a Tama,” he says – but at customs in Mexico, the set was taken away and sent back to the United States because he lacked the proper permit to bring them into the country.
While on a spring break trip with friends to Guadalajara, his mother checked the newspaper classifieds for a used drum set. A week after his return, she showed him a different ad.
“She told me, ‘Hey, Alex, there’s an ad in the paper that there’s band looking for a drummer between 15 and 21 years of age with more than nine years experience,’” González says.
“The crazy thing about this story is that when I was in Guadalajara, I was asking the kids and the girls, ‘Hey, are there any rock bands here?’” he says. “And the name that would always pop up was Sombrero Verde, ‘Green Hat.’ I said, ‘What a terrible name for a band,’ but everybody would mention them.”
When he called the number in the ad, Olvera answered. After a question or two, González realized he was talking with the leader of Sombrero Verde, and “totally freaked out,” he says. “I was saying, ‘Oh wow, I’m talking to the lead singer of one of the most important bands in Guadalajara. I did not know that they were also well known in other parts of Mexico.”
González quickly returned to Guadalajara, auditioned, and got the gig.
“Man, I don’t know if it’s destiny, I don’t know if it was meant to be,” he says of how quickly things happened. “I moved to Guadalajara, 15 years old, living in Fernando’s house – back of the house where the rehearsal space was.
“But it was awesome. I’d been dreaming about, all my life, wanting to be in a well-known band, living the dream, doing it in Spanish.”
Discovering LA
González made his Guadalajara debut with Sombrero Verde opening for Quiet Riot in Jalisco Stadium in front of tens of thousands of fans.
After two years, when one of the band’s guitarists left in 1986, Olvera suggested they reform as Maná – the Polynesian word means “positive energy” – and add more Latin and Caribbean elements.
“We tried it and it didn’t seem to work out,” González says. “But again, trial and error. Then we started getting these sounds and grooves, and, ‘Hey, this sounds pretty cool,’ you know. ‘Let’s mix a little bit of salsa with this and a little bit of here and reggae here.’
We just started throwing things but they made sense, you know. People like what we were doing.”
In 1987, the band signed with A&M Records and released a self-titled debut as Maná. That same year the band visited Los Angeles for the first time, González says.
“It’s incredible that an American record company was interested in a Latin band when the Mexican record companies weren’t interested,” he says. “They were looking more for bands that were singing in English, and here was the opposite.
“I remember I always dreamed about going to Los Angeles, because to me, L.A. is the rock and roll capital of the world,” González says. “The history of the studios, the bands, every band, even from England, that has played there. It’s just like the mecca.
“So when we got to Los Angeles in 1987 I fell in love with the city automatically,” he says. “Because it’s like, wow, you could be yourself, you can play any style of music, you can look any way you want. It’s just a cultural melting pot, and it still is. So L.A. was, and still is, a very important city in our history.”
That first Maná album did not succeed and the band soon left A&M for Warner Bros. Records. A second album, “Falta Amor,” arrived in 1990. As the rock en español scene brought more and more Spanish-language acts to the United States, Maná’s 1992 album “¿Dónde jugarán los niños?” broke out as a critical and commercial success.
“When we started playing the Palace (in 1993), that tour, ‘¿Dónde jugarán los niños?’ lasted almost two and half years,” González says. “So that was a huge jump – from playing a club for 800 people to going to the Universal Amphitheatre and playing multiple nights. It just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
El Animal in the Rock Hall?
Given that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has only four Latino inductees – Santana, Ritchie Valens, Linda Ronstadt, and Joan Baez – and they all sang primarily in English, Maná was not expecting the call its members received in February.
“I was here in my house,” González says. “I wake up at eight in the morning. I look at my cell phone and see a message from my manager saying, ‘Congratulations, Alex, Maná’s nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.’
“So I got up, my wife is next me, and I go, ‘Holy (bleep),’ we’ve been nominated!’” he says.
“It was unimaginable,” González says. “I mean, all our idols and all the bands that we love and musicians that we love are in there. It’s just unimaginable that a band that’s always sung in Spanish all of a sudden would be nominated.”
The Rock Hall is expected to announce sometime in April which of the 14 nominees, a class that includes artists such as Soundgarden, Mariah Carey, Billy Idol, and the White Stripes, will be inducted later this year.
“We’re very thankful to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame committee,” González says. “And the people that turned their head the other way, like saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s this band that has been doing this for almost 40 years. They’ve had this huge impact in the music industry in the United States and also a huge impact with social issues. And they’ve done it all in Spanish.’
“That’s very revolutionary in a sense,” he says. “It’s very punk, in a sense that the record company offered us the opportunity to sing in English. We had offerings and money to sing and English and we always said, ‘No, we want to sing in Spanish, and we want to share our culture.’
“It’s great because I’ve met teachers from universities, colleges, junior high, high school, elementary, that teach Spanish with Maná songs,” González says. “I find that mind-blowing. That’s so awesome.”
Maná will bring its Vivir Sin Aire Tour to the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Nov. 14-15 and Nov. 21-22. González says it will be the band’s biggest tour yet in the United States, with stops in cities such as Nashville, Detroit, St. Louis and Baltimore where Maná has never played before.
On past tours, Maná has incorporated philanthropic components to raise money for student scholarships, Dreamers and farmers. . For the new tour the group has created with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation the Maná Latinas Luchonas program – the name translates as “strong Latinas” or “hard-working Latinas,” González says – to help single mothers better provide for their families.
Sets will mix favorite hits with deep cuts, and will be as powerful and energetic as Maná fans know to expect, promises the drummer, who long ago earned the nickname El Animal.
“I grew up with the Muppets, and I grew up loving Animal,” González says. “I mean, who, as a drummer, doesn’t love Animal? But in reality, I always do a solo, even when I was in Sombrero Verde, and when Fehr say me, 15 years, 16 years old, he’s going, ‘This guy’s an animal. He’s just going all over the place.’
“But I love that resemblance with Animal,” he says. “A lot of fans give me, when I go on tour, little Muppet Animals. There was a point where I had my dressing room full of Animal Muppets all over the place.”
Arena rock champions. Rock Hall nominees. A dressing room full of Muppet drummers.
“It’s great,” González says. “Almost 40 years later, this is where we are now. It’s a long road, but it’s paid off, and it’s just incredible.”