By Lisa Morgan
THURDAY, OCTOBER 22ND @ Schmidy’s Tavern, Palm Desert – Snotfest
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23RD @ The Red Barn, Palm Desert, with Dirty X’s
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH @ Loaded, Hollywood
It had been a long day already, but energy had to mustered up to be there for the birthday event of friend and soul brother, Phil Lacombe, CV Weekly’s “Number Two”, second only to print diva and publisher, Tracy Dietlin herself. Some of the valley’s most thundering face-melters were rocking Plan B Live Entertainment & Cocktails hard and heavy in honor of the guy, and neither I nor over 200 people were going to miss saying happy birthday to him. I was familiar with all the bands playing that night, with the exception of one. It was the first performance of the band Se7en4 following a brief sabbatical. After that night, I would never forget them. That was 2 years ago.
Thunder god, Steven Hall, was on drums. An absolute work horse, Hall’s athletic style, energy and rhythmic perfection make him as much a front man as any I’ve seen. The same could be said of lead guitarist, “Pinche” Pete Burquez, a guitar player respected by the best of the best. He absolutely owns the stage by the sheer power of his playing revealing decades of discipline and passion toward his craft. On bass is Trevino Martin “DeBajo”. My heart skipped a little, to be honest. I’d seen him play with Hall before on another project and was impressed by his playing as well as his showmanship. Not a single one of these band members has ever had to “posture” or act like a rocker. It is who they are and what they love and they are the definition of authenticity. It would take one hell of a front man to find a place in front of these entities. Enter, Nico Flores, as athletic as they come, and while he can roar with the best of them, this front man can SING. I ain’t gonna lie, this stage was eye candy from a woman’s point of view (not a horrible thing in this industry). But bigger than that, their musicianship, their songs, their drive and their presence were all encompassing, and there wasn’t a person in the room who was not under their command.
Flash forward to today, the men of Se7en4 are still tenaciously at it, business men as much as musicians and performers. They are in the process of carving out their name in every notable venue from Coachella to LA. I had the lucky job of catching up with them and talking about how music has been treating them since I first saw them:
Steven Hall: “Se7en4 has been kicking ass in the LA and Sunset Blvd scenes for the past year. It all started with a kick ass album that was produced by Mikey Doling from (SNOT, Channel Zero). In February we sold out our very first show at the World Famous Whisky A GoGo, all on our own. That caught the attention of a few promoters and venue owners, and the rest has been a snowball effect. We’re a little older and wiser now…still like to have a good time, but family and REAL friends come first these days, unlike the old days where it was all about the party.”
“We play Loaded, a cool bar in Hollywood on November 20th for the second time. We were asked back due to the fact that we sold that place out as well. We have another show booked on April 21, 2016 at the Whisky A GoGo, directly supporting an undisclosed band that we are not allowed to talk about at the moment. I can say this – it will be another sold out show. Our next goal is to hop on a tour or two in 2016. That’s one thing this band has not had the opportunity to do just yet, and it’s coming!”
Nico Flores: “We went through some bass players – really amazing bass players. Phil and Tracy asked us to play their party. We love them and they’ve done so much for us and for everybody really, so when they asked us to play the show, we didn’t tell them we didn’t have a bass player. We just thought about how we could pull it off. So Steve got a hold of his bass player, Trevino Martin, from his other band, Rippsville City Hall, and he just fit. We took off strong, writing songs and coming out with our album, Let’s Get High and Fight. That album ended up winning, “Album of the Year” at the CV Music Awards. We’ve always valued the support here in the desert, but since, we’ve also gotten a really strong reception in LA. It’s created a bit of a resurgence in us. We’ve been writing a bunch of new songs and feel really good about the future. We’re taking things a bit more seriously these days. Not too serious though, because the ultimate goal is to have fun. But we’ve learned a lot from mistakes in the past. Before, all we could do was think about getting signed. Now, we’ve learned to do things for ourselves – copyright our music, get them out on iTunes, book our own shows, negotiate money and make money for ourselves instead of sitting around for some kind of magical thing to come along.”
“Pinche” Pete Burquez: “Just getting the band back together less one guitar player was new for us. But getting a new bass player gave us a new dynamic we were not aware of a couple of years ago. We seemed to have found something musically great and have stuck to it. Recording our album Let’s Get High and Fight is a big highlight for the band. We had Mikey Doling (Snot, Soulfly, Abloom, Invitro) produce it, and Sterling Winfield (Pantera, Hellyeah) mix it, and Brad Dujmovic engineer the album. It was released ironically on 7/4/2014, so Se7en4 has an official day of the year. Other than that, we’re doing as many shows as we can, and plan on a West Coast tour come 2016. Europe is something we’re looking into as well. Se7en4 is coming to you always, rockin’ and rollin’!”
Steven Hall is sponsored by Spaun Drums. See website for his bio. www.spaundrums.com
Se7en4-Facebook
Se7en4-Instagram
Se7en4-reverbnation
Se7en4-YouTube
