It is a constant dance. Bandalos Chinos dances between rock and pop, between the emerging and the mature, between the professional and the familiar. The Argentine band is made up of six friends from school. Two pairs of brothers. In their eclectic choreography they incorporate the best of all worlds. “You have to learn to live with the fact that one day you eat rice and the next day you eat caviar. One day you are filling a National Auditorium of 10,000 people in Mexico City and two weeks before you were struggling to fit 300 into Washington,” says the singer Gregorio Degano who, together with the guitarist Iñaki Colombo, responds to the interview. Tonight they have a middle ground: they eat anchovies and tortilla on a terrace in Madrid. Their concerts will continue in the capital, Barcelona and Valencia, where they gathered almost 4,000 people.
At a nearby table you can hear the other members who, sleepless but smiling, share a beer: guitarist Tomás Verduga; the drummer Matías Verduga, the keyboardist Salvador Colombo, and the bassist Nicolás Rodríguez del Pozo. They are all around 35 years old and are from Beccar, north of the City of Buenos Aires. They crossed the Atlantic after touring 28 cities in South America, Mexico and the United States, to present Vandalstheir fourth album, released this year. While the young people of the Argentine urban genre attract the attention of the world, this reference group of the indie Latin America of the last decade takes advantage of the wave and is committed to expanding in Europe.
The singer and both brother duos went to the same school in the suburbs of the capital. His little big dream was to play in Buenos Aires. They started in 2009 with a punk band, and the group consolidated its formation in 2014, when they recorded the EP I was never here. In 2018 they launched Bachwhich opened the doors of Mexico, the first country in which they toured away from home. It was the first of the trilogy of albums that Adán Jodorowsky produced at Sonic Ranch, a studio in the Texas desert where artists like Leiva passed through, followed by Paranoia Pop (2020) y El Big Blue (2022). From the beginning, they were not signed to any label. Being an independent and self-managed band allows them to dance to their own rhythm.
Like any family, they have friction; theirs happen in a rehearsal room, a sound check, or a tour van. The oldest brother of the Colombos confesses: “It is intense, because there is a relationship of great trust and that opens a direct, raw communication channel, and you tell each other everything: the good and the bad.” The blood bond is harder to break, but can further tighten the thread. Thus, they began group therapy. Degano explains: “We had seen it in band documentaries and during the pandemic, when everyone’s world went haywire, that space appeared that extended the useful life of the band, gave it longevity; people changed and it was time to set common goals again.”
While the trap exploded in Argentina, the Bandalos took three years of recording silence to rethink where to go. Iñaki Colombo remembers: “We felt that we had found a formulated, albums that were projected to us internationally, but everything started to sound very similar to us.” In 2024 they returned to their neighborhood studio. “The premise was to have fun again. We came from a recording dynamic where you didn’t have a minute to have a headache or a cold,” recalls Degano. The result received two nominations for the Latin Grammy Awards.
Asked about the generation of compatriot rappers who have become popular in the world, the singer responds with conviction: “This entire crop of Argentine urban artists who have burst onto the global stage is 100% nutritious, they open doors to alternative bands.” “Obviously, we are not going to build a stadium like Duki does here, but I do think that it once again put the Argentine groups in its sights,” he points out.
A day ago they were friends sharing a few beers and chatting about the Real Madrid footballer Franco Mastantuono and how heavy the suitcase was with vinyl records and promotional t-shirts that they dragged throughout the tour. But in the La Riviera room (Madrid), they are stars. They smoke on stage. Degano moves histrionic and smiling, with the sweet voice that characterizes him. They play elegant, eighties pop-rock, sometimes funk and other times electronic. Some ballad. National rock for them “is musical DNA.” Regarding the titans García, Spinetta, Cerati, Páez, Calamaro, Colombo says: “It is something that we learned from a very young age, they are our first idols, you cannot avoid it.” Then Babasónico and Miranda arrived to show them that you can always add something new.
“We came with a new album called Vandals, well written this time,” Degano laughed when performing before 1,700 people at the concert in Madrid. When they made their first presentation of the story they still did not have a name. Someone from the audience approached to ask the singer’s sister what their names were, she answered: “Los Chicos” and that man then sent an email to hire “Banda Los Chinos” for an event. The work never materialized, but it left the root of the group’s name, which mutated into Bandalos Chinos, without an accent on the “a” because it was an invented word.
They choose not to talk about politics on stage. “We always connect with music from a non-contestational place and from providing a balm or a respite between so much crisis and so much quilombo,” argues Degano. They did not vote in the recent legislative elections, where Javier Milei’s party had an overwhelming victory. Colombo comments: “It saddens us; the management of a country is being looked at in a very cold, somewhat heartless manner.” “A rock president who does not support culture is contradictory,” the singer complains and adds: “Obviously everything in life is political, but we try to get those who know to speak and we try to get closer to our audience to listen to what they have to say.”
This was their fourth visit to Spain, where they have been traveling since 2022. They have yet to collaborate with a local artist. With Leiva or Dorian they have a good vibe; others, like Rusowsky, Alizzz, Rosalía or Locoplaya, are just amateurs. A new album awaits you in the future. After 15 years of travel, they are reaping the affection of America and beginning to plant in Europe. They say: “We live it in a very natural way, that of constantly dancing between being an established band and being a new band, as is the case in Spain, where we are still developing. We are going to keep coming until we make our place.”