A Homegrown Sound
Boston-based Los Sugar Kings’ roots-rock-reggae repertoire pays respect to the forefathers of Afro-Cuban Son, Salsa and Rumba-Flamenca music, infusing tradition with rich harmonies and top-tier musicianship. Their live sets are similarly spontaneous, passionate, thoughtful, and joyous.
atac: Who are you?
Mik Mersha: I'm the bass player, and one of the producers, for [Los] Sugar Kings. Sugar Kings is a four-piece Afro-Cuban, R&B / Rock / Reggae band from the Boston area. All four of us sing, however Patino Vazquez (guitar/tres) is the primary lead. Tony Curtis Hall (drums) is lead on a number of songs, and I’ll lead a crowd-pleaser from time to time, too. We all write and collaborate in a range of styles from Latin-Rock and R&B/Funk to Ethiopian & Cuban rhythms.
atac: You record locally, yeah?
MM: We were really lucky that Patino has his Fireseed Arts studio in Framingham—a place to go to pull together all this material. We were able to break the Covid quarantine much quicker than most having such a large area to safely write, record and rehearse.
atac: With so many backgrounds and influences in the band, are there any core unifying ideas or techniques that kinda bring you together?
MM: We purposefully stayed away from any production and editing techniques like auto-tune and Flex [editor’s note: Flex Time is a patch for Logic] which are so prevalent in most pop music recordings these days. Our goal is to sound good, and to be able to recreate the record live without backing tracks and the like. We are fairly arranged but allow spontaneous improvisation much of the time. Coming from such different places culturally and musically can be a challenge, but as they say, music is the universal language and once we start playing, we just sound like Sugar Kings.
atac: You mentioned Ethiopia—that’s where you’re from, right? What about the rest of the band?
MM: I'm from Ethiopia but grew up on the North Shore and discovered music in my teens. Patino is the first generation American—his parents are both Cuban. Dan Abreu (sax/keys) grew up in Cambridge and he and I were college roommates at UMass Lowell. Tony Curtis Hall grew up in Mattapan and is of African and Native American heritage. He and I performed together and toured the world in Michigan Blacksnake, an early 2000s Funk band out of Boston.
atac: Back in Ethiopia, were artists like Mulatu Astatke and Tilahun Gessesse a big influence on you? There was a bit of a resurgence of those sounds in Boston in the 2000s with Debo Band.
MM: Yes, both the Debo Band and Either Orchestra with Russ Gerschon were great to see. Mulatu and Tilahun are legends in Ethiopian music and though Sugar Kings aren’t currently known for Ethiopian rhythms and influences, the four of us have been delving deeply into the Ethiopian catalog lately and looking to Khruangbin and the like as a path toward modernizing that sound. All that said, I just had my Masinko and Kirar refurbished and have started writing with them for the next record.
atac: Yeah Khruangbin are not messing around. Texas Moon! So what are your top "stuck on an island" records?
MM: Man, this could be a long list if we included all four of us but here you go... Steely Dan’s Aja, Fear Inoculum from Tool, Maceo Parker’s Live on Planet Groove, Khruangbin’s The Universe Smiles Upon You, Buena Vista Social Club, Zombie from Fela Kuti, Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow and Wired, and Herbie Hancock’s The Imagine Project.
atac: I love Zombie. If you’re DJing and need a 12 min break, just toss that one on and no one will notice you skipped out for a second. What about live shows—all time fav?
MM: Ha, that’s a stereotype that rings true with much of the catalog of African music. Sometimes it’s all about the groove and simmer and the intro to a song could be 4-5 minutes. As for live shows, my favorite is Stevie Wonder at the Garden.
atac: I thought you might go back to Tool for this one. Can you tell us a bit about Stevie at the Garden? Was that the 2014 show?
MM: That was the 2014 show, and had more musicality and emotionality than any show I’ve ever seen in-person. I haven’t seen Tool yet but I bet their show would be up there as well on both musicality and emotionality while being totally different.
atac: I was listening to your work in advance of this chat a bit and wanted to ask about Roxy Music, or other Eno-produced stuff like Baaba Maal. Into any of that?
MM: I haven’t delved into Roxy Music outside of their big hits and their cover of Jealous Guy but I just got back from the UK and stopped by Abbey Road while I was there. I saw much of their catalog was recorded there so I’ll definitely get into them more now. As for Baaba Maal, I know his Mother Afrika record, which was played alot on the tour bus back in the day.
atac: What's the roughest gig you've ever played?
MM: Showed up at an event during a wild Nor'Easter on the Cape. The tent was completely flooded and the event folks wanted us to set up in the puddle (that was a no-go). We ended up paring down our system and setting it up inside. That wasn't the roughest gig... mine was probably when I only brought one bass and broke a string the first song and there was no time to put a new string on. I've brought two basses to most every gig since.
atac: What's some advice you can share that’ll help others get through those rough patches?
MM: Listen more than you play and listen to everyone else on the bandstand more than yourself. And, if you’re on tour, you should always take some time to walk around a town / city you're playing in to check out bookstores, music stores, etc.
atac: Apart from recording and live gigs, what are you up to?
MM: We are dabbling in video and have put together a half dozen videos using tracks from the new record. On my end, I just started getting into boating and got my Coast Guard certification recently. Looking into sailing on the North Shore soon and taking my son fishing but I’ve supported my family as a graphic artist in the past, among other careers.
atac: Is there any relationship between sailing and music?
MM: I suppose so…the way you have to constantly adapt your lines and sails depending on changing conditions is a good parallel to how as musicians we have to adapt our playing to how others in the unit are communicating on a given day. Some of our songs, especially Tony’s songs and a couple of our instrumentals are almost never played the same way twice.
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