MARIO & SARAH QUINTERO of SPOTLIGHTS: The Absurdity Of Labels
An interview by Bridget Herlihy.
William Shakespeare once wrote, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Pondering of the relevance of a name or label is applicable in countless contexts, including music genres and attempts to decipher which ‘box’ an artist or band ‘belongs’. This has become a common theme for Pittsburgh-based band Spotlights. For years critics and fans alike have come up with a plethora of labels in an attempt to capture in words the very essence of their sonic diversity and brilliance. Such attempts have included post-metal, shoegaze, sludge, prog-rock, and emotional-alt, prog-metal, and everything in between. Adjectives describing the band’s sound range from doom-laden, ethereal, sweeping distortion, monolithic atmospheres, metal catharsis to glittery ambience. Labels and comparisons aside, there is no doubt whatsoever that Spotlights are one of the most musically vital, visceral, spellbinding and exciting bands of the last decade.
In what is hands-down one of the most exciting tour announcements of 2024, Spotlights will be making their New Zealand debut in mid-November with a series of nine shows around the North Island. Starting in Auckland on Saturday 20th November at Whammy Bar, the trio – Mario Quintero (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Sarah Quintero (vocals, bass) and Chris Enriquez (drums) – will make their way around the countryside, playing dates in Whitianga, Hamilton, Mt Maunganui, Tauranga, Napier, Wellington, Palmerston North and New Plymouth, before finishing up with an all ages show at Big Fan back in Auckland.
With only a few weeks until this highly anticipated tour kicks off, I had the great pleasure of talking to Mario and Sarah Quintero about their imminent shows in NZ, creating alchemy on stage and in the studio, and the absurdity of labels.
While Spotlights are continuing to amass a constantly growing legion of fans around the world, they may not be a familiar name to some. From Pennsylvania on the East Coast of the US, Spotlights are a trio who have become renowned for their somewhat dark, yet beautifully ethereal, rock-based compositions. To date, the trio has released three albums: Seismic (2017), Love & Decay (2019) and Alchemy For The Dead (2023). They have also released several EPs, including Demonstration (2015), Tidals (2016), Hanging By Faith (2018), and We Are All Atomic (2020). Capturing the attention and very high praise from the likes of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr Bungle, Tomahawk) and Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, the band are signed to Patton’s record label Ipecac Records, who describe Spotlights as occupying “the space between a push-and-pull of jarring metal catharsis and sweeping distortion”.
With a growing number of well-known artists by-passing New Zealand when touring the Southern Hemisphere, it is an understatement to say that it is refreshing that a band of Spotlights’ calibre are playing a series of shows here. Guitarist and vocalist Mario is clear that he finds it annoying when bigger bands leave New Zealand out of their tour schedules, as it is those bands that can afford to tour here. In regards to their own NZ tour, he credits Austin of Your Enabler for making it happen. “Austin reached out to us and said ‘hey, I’d like to make you an offer and work something out so we can get together and get you down here’. At first we were like ‘New Zealand – we have always wanted to go so bad’. Sarah has actually been there before, but it’s kind of like a bucket-list thing for us to make it down there. So it just seemed too good to be true. But we looked into it and talked to him a little bit more, and he was willing to do all of the footwork and get us down there. He has been amazing; he did all of the booking and got all of the routing down and helped us with the Visas, everything that a real promoter should do, which is really…rare”, he laughs.
Bassist Sarah spent some time in NZ in 2001, but admits that it has been a long time since she has visited. “I met a family that had a farm outside of Tauranga, and so I stayed with them and there were other travellers. There was a girl from England and some people from Germany, so they had travellers all the time, so it was cool. I never thought that I would go back, so I’m very excited”. Mario is equally excited to finally be visiting, as “ever since we met she has been raving about it, so I have wanted to go the whole time!”.
Spotlights have been playing together for 11 years, although it has been 15 years since Sarah and Mario first came up with the concept for the band. Mario explains, “When Sarah and I first started the idea of Spotlights, it was 2009. But the band wasn’t really active until 2013, which was when we really started writing. So we have had ten solid years of being a band at this point. It doesn’t feel like it, especially since we really started touring, because that has been every year pretty much non-stop, and it goes fast”.
Lauded as “one of the hardest working bands out there”, Spotlights have spent much of the last two years touring and playing in support of their third LP ‘Alchemy For The Dead’; an album that has received an abundance of rave reviews since its release in 2023. Earlier this year the band toured the UK for the first time. The tour included a run of headline shows, followed by a couple of shows opening for Mr Bungle, before crossing over to Europe and doing another ten shows with them, an experience Sarah describes as “awesome”. Mario agrees, elaborating, “the UK was especially great; the headline shows we did were a lot of fun. And of course playing with Mr Bungle was amazing. Every time we do one of those support tours it really helps. We’ve been really lucky to do some amazing tours to get picked to some great support runs. It always helps grow the audience. For us, and especially for me, I love smaller headline shows more just because it gives us more of a picture of who is actually there for us, and it’s nice to have your own fans there – the connection is just different. As cool as it is to play to 5000 people, and play these great places with great bands, the shows like the ones that we are going to do there are my favourite in the long run”.
The band is still very much in the ‘Alchemy’ phase. When asked if there are any plans for the follow-up album, Mario is happy to take things slowly, and give Alchemy For The Dead the attention it deserves as the band worked so hard on it. “Even through we did tour quite a bit on it, I feel like we can work of it for the next year or so. So probably not until 2026. I have a bunch of ideas just recorded onto my phone and some demos started. It will slowly start to build and then I will all of a sudden have an album’s worth of ideas to start really developing”.
Alchemy For The Dead is a multi-faceted album, with each listen revealing more and more layers, both sonically and lyrically. Mario believes that these layers were created consciously; “With that album, production-wise, there was a lot of little ear-candy, to where you listen to the album really deeply there is always something new popping out”.
The same can also be said for the band’s live performances, which offer another perspective and engrossing experience of Spotlights. When asked what audiences can expect to see at their New Zealand shows Mario is quick off the mark: “Sarah’s bass!”. Sarah muses “if the sound engineer will listen to me it’s very bass-focused live, because I think the way I approach bass and play for Spotlights I kind of hold everything together. I’m the blanket of sound while everything else is existing”. Mario elaborates “we try and bring the sounds across so that if you know the record you can obviously hear all of the little things that you might want to hear, but we don’t necessarily just try and copy everything that we do on the album. So there are a lot of little differences, and some songs have different parts that we kind of extend or change or whatever. The way we really make our albums, we don’t actually learn the songs and play them together until after the record is finished. We just record, and that kind of allows for the liver versions to be different just because we start finding different things out. Whereas most bands do the opposite; they learn the songs and work all of that out, and then go into record. It give us a fresh start on the songs as a live version”.
Interestingly, the band takes their own distinctive approach to recording; even more so with Alchemy For The Dead, which was recorded in the studio at Chris and Sarah’s home in Pittsburgh. In essence, this process is in and of itself a form of alchemy: an almost magical process of creation and transformation. When in the studio, the band make a conscious effort to step away from formulaic, pre-determined compositions for songs, and instead take individualised approaches to the tracks, conjuring an element of spontaneity and surprise. It is a process that is both creatively challenging yet creatively stimulating on a different level.
Mario explains “we work almost separately sometimes, especially on this last record, because we were doing a lot of different production stuff with the drums the way we were recording them. And we recorded it here in our house, which was nice, so we weren’t rushing for studio time”. Sarah continues that Mario demos everything first, and then she and Chris learn the basic structure of the song. “For me it is nice to get out of the way so that when I do sit down to record we can focus on tones and textures and put the song together”.
Mario explains that for other bands that he has played in “we all kind of get in a room and then you learn the songs, you work them out, you might change this part or change that part, do this or do that. Just that process lends itself to you developing everything in a different way, and then when you feel like it’s done, then you go into the studio and capture that. For us, we have the song structure, and the basic parts are done, but we just start putting it together and it becomes more of a production process; there is this space to do whatever we want with the actual sound of things, and with the tones. And then afterwards, we have to figure out how to do it; like ‘how do we make this as interesting live as it is on record’? We run some backing tracks, but without relying on anything else”.
Authenticity and integrity are at the core of Spotlights and their work. Mario, who also works as a producer, tends to only work with bands that he is interested in, in that their music resonates with him in some way. “I used to take any work that I could because sometimes you have got to pay the bills, and every once in a while I will have to do it. But ideally, I try and find bands that I can connect with, because I see it as a creative process still; the mixing process can be super creative. It’s not about putting my mark on their music, but it is about taking that and making it the best that that band can be. So, if I don’t feel a connection to the music it is tough for me to care and put the effort in”.
A key part of their authenticity is Spotlights’ refusal to label themselves or consider themselves part of any musical sub-genre. Sarah explains, “we are a rock band; we play rock n roll of sorts and its heavy and it’s melodic, and stuff”. Mario agrees. “I think Sarah and I specifically when we started the band the point of it was to make music that we liked to hear. Not ‘oooh, lets be a post metal band’ or whatever, or trying to copy or fall into a specific genre. And because of that, I think, is why our music can go wherever we want it to be. I’m not afraid to just completely take a left turn and do something different for the next record. As long as we like it, that’s all that matters. And hopefully since we like it other people will follow and like it as well. We always crack up at the different genres that people come up with”.
Sarah laughs that “metal is such a trendy thing right now, so you keep hearing all the sub-genres pop up. When we were kids metal was satanic and evil, and there were no types, you were just METAL!“.
Despite their best efforts, the band haven’t been able to book any shows in the South Island (due to the cost of crossing Cook Straight), Australia or Japan for on this tour. Mario explains, “we really tried, just to make the trip worth it, but it was tough. For Japan we couldn’t find a promoter, and for Australia I spoke with a promoter but it didn’t pan out. We are still somewhat unknown to a lot of people, so unless you have been a fan and you know about it, it might not seem like a viable option. If this tour goes well, next year we will find someone good in Australia and we will do the whole thing again”. All fingers and toes are firmly crossed.
In the meantime, it is evident that Spotlights are very excited for their forthcoming New Zealand shows. In fact, Sarah – theoretically at least – would quite happily relocate here. “I would love it. I would love that. I think as travelling goes, New Zealand is probably the most comfortable I have ever been, anywhere. And I was by myself. It was incredible”. Adding to her excitement is that she is a big fan of Peter Jackson, especially his earlier horror work. “I think it’s Braindead over there, but it was released as Dead Alive in the States. I saw that in the 80s and it blew my mind; it’s one of my favourite zombie movies. And then I found Bad Taste and Meet The Feebles, and all that really wacky stuff. It’s so good! And of course Lord Of The Rings is amazing. We might just stay there”.
Spotlights will be performing ten shows in New Zealand this November/December. Tickets to all shows are available via Under The Radar, make sure to get along to at least one of these gigs – you’ll be stoked you did!
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