Traveling roughly more than 170 miles from Tijuana, Baja California to Coachella, Mint Field embarked on an epic road trip with destination to their Mecca of music.
The fresh faces beamed with excitement and gratitude, but the young shoegazey trio — composed of Andrés, Estrella and Amor — was still in shock that they’d be playing at the festival for the first time. The biggest moment of their career yet had arrived faster than they had expected.
Mint Field recently released “Ciudad Satélite,” the first single for their upcoming album, which does not have a release date yet, but will drop some time this year.
The tijuanenses sat down with Billboard prior to their performance on Sunday (April 17) to talk about their Coachella-experience and the indie-alternative music scene in Mexico that still needs more of a spotlight.
Welcome to Coachella! This must be a dream come true for you guys?
Andrés: It’s a big step. We never expected a moment like this to happen so quickly. It was a surprise to all of us and to our family that has supported us back home. But we are thrilled because we are representing just a small part of all the talent that comes from Mexico.
Estrella: Especially in Tijuana. Right now there are so many artists that are creating an incredible music scene down there.
When you got news that you’d be playing at Coachella, what did you do next?
Estrella: We literally found out like three weeks ago, so since then we honestly practiced every day! We haven’t been together that long, you know. So all we did was rehearse for the last couple of weeks.
Andrés: We surrounded ourselves with people that really support us and we got together the best team we could to be able to perform at Coachella.
What do you want to take away from this experience?
Amor: We definitely want to learn and grow like artists, individuals and as a band. We are really just enjoying it all and we hope it’s a good memory that we take with us.
Carla Morrison, who also debuted at Coachella this weekend, said it was important that the audience knew she came from Mexico. Is that something important for you guys as well?
Estrella: We are very conscious that this isn’t only about us. We are representing Tijuana and all of the Mexican independent artists.
Andrés: There are so many local bands, we consider them as brothers and sisters, because we are doing things at the same time. And it feels good to be able to have their support in this … We’re also very excited to just be able to perform with other bands we look up to and who have influenced our music, like Beach House.