LOS BITCHOS’s lead guitarist Serra Petale was drumming with London indie-rockers Kid Wave when her eureka moment arrived. Playing a compilation album called The Roots Of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru, she came across the sashaying instrumental A Patricia by Los Destellos – a 1960s combo credited with introducing the electric guitar to Peruvian indigenous musics. The discovery sparked a life-changing realisation.
“I was like, ‘Ah, right, of course you can do an instrumental band – why can’t you?’” Petale recalls today. She’d been playing guitar privately at home, but “lyricism never came to me”, and A Patricia showed her how she could express her tequila-bumping personality without the necessity for words.
Petale, who grew up in Western Australia, shared her find with her friend Josefine Jonsson, who’d moved to…
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MOJO (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2022