The Licata Brothers
The Licata Brothers are an inspirational rock duo from Arcadia that has been playing in the greater Los Angeles area for over ten years. Jimmy and Tony Licata, starting their music careers at ages 12 and 9 respectively, grew up on classic rock and roots music, performing in the San Gabriel Valley and gradually expanding their radius to the rest of LA and even around the world (Canada, Iceland, and Panama to name a few). Their most recent album, Kindle the Flame, is available on all streaming platforms and they are currently hard at work promoting the first two singles off their next album, set to release on June 18th of this year. Being half-Peruvian, they are known to sing popular songs in Spanish as well as in other languages (Mandarin, Persian, and Tagalog). The Licata Brothers strive to blend the music they grew up on with more contemporary styles of music while having an uplifting message that has a positive impact on society.
For fans who have never heard your music, can you pick three words to describe it?! If three words just aren't enough then tell us more!!
Inspirational, eclectic, and unifying.
What is your favorite part about being an artist? Is it songwriting, performing, recording, something else?) Tell us why.
Our favorite part of being artists is seeing the effect the music we play can have on our audience. Whether it’s the lyrics that touch them or the joyous atmosphere of our live shows, we find it very rewarding to see how music can help people find joy even in times of difficulty.
Can you tell us what being in the recording studio is like for you?
Due to the disciplined work ethic that we learned from our seven and a half years of doing Karate, a typical recording session for us is 8-10 hours long. We are fortunate to work with very experienced and humble sound engineers who support our vision and even help push us beyond what we thought we were capable of doing. We are very meticulous editors, down to the phrasing and tone of every word, and we patiently encourage each other when we have to record multiple takes of even just one phrase. After recording three EPs/albums, we have learned to always come to the studio prepared by demoing the songs at home beforehand—but even new ideas come to us in the studio that we end up implementing into the songs.
Okay, this a fun question. When you are not doing music, what else do you enjoy doing?
When we are not doing music, we are involved in community building activities sponsored by the Baháʼís in our local area. As members of the Bahá'í Faith, we believe that many of the issues we see today (prejudice, violence, etc.) stem from a lack of education and connection in our communities. We are involved in many activities that help strengthen communities by helping the children, youth, and adults within neighborhoods build the capacity to read the reality of their communities and become empowered to take action and address the social ills they see around them. This work is incredibly rewarding because we can see people who had felt hopeless and apathetic about life transform into active protagonists and agents of change who are revitalized with an unstoppable drive and desire to contribute to the well-being of people from all walks of life.
Who do you admire most in the music scene today and why?
We really admire The Interrupters. They are some of the best performers we have ever seen live and their songs are full of energy, well-written, catchy, and promote empowering social messages.
Can you tell us what song you've written that is the most emotional and describe the meaning behind it?
The song that has the most emotional meaning to us is “Since You Went Away”. The first verse reflects the isolation that we felt during the pandemic and there is a line in the second verse (“In the sky the swirlin’ smoke blocks the sun and makes me choke”) that was inspired by the Bobcat wildfire that was close enough to our house that we could clearly see it and smell it. We were one street away from the evacuation zone so we were very concerned that we may lose our house (we were thankfully never placed in the evacuation zone because the fire did not reach that far).
Are you working on any new material right now or what's in the works for the upcoming year?
We will be releasing our self-titled album on Friday, June 18th! We’ll be releasing a series of singles and videos this summer and given what COVID regulations are in place this summer, we also expect to finally play again in front of people! We’ll also release some live videos this fall and we hope to begin recording our next record then as well.
Tell us where fans can access your music.
Find all of our latest projects on our Linktree
Stream it on Spotify
#TheLicataBrothers #BEHINDTHESONG