Heidi VanLith
Special to The Chief
Rock en Espanol, Latin funk, monstrous horns, and Cuban beats are the southern sound fusions created by Vancouver-based Santa Lucia, a seven-piece salsa-funk band performing at the Howe Sound Brew Pub, Saturday night (March 11).
Since the release of their first CD six solid years of intensive songwriting and a few changes in membership, Santa Lucia is setting off on several mini-tours and visiting Squamish for their first time.
"We're like a traditional Latin band in the sense that we have Latin percussion like congas, bongos, timbales, and cowbells," said guitarist and singer German Castillo adding that the band also features a standard drummer, bass player, trombone, and sax.
"We try to infuse a little West Coast style by adding different bass-lines than Latin traditional and combine other styles that originated in the seventies like boogaloo."
Their songs have been compared to Santana, War, and Chakachas to name a few and although Castillo admits that their genre is difficult to pigeon-hole, he assures that "people just get into it" and that wallflowers will be driven to get up out of their seats and dance.
Born in Nicaragua, Castillo moved to Winnipeg with his family where he began touring the country with Winnipeg's biggest cumbia band Sanzibar, but always envisioned a band with a different and explosive flavour.
Castillo then moved to Vancouver and joined Latin-style acts Vallarta and El Combo.
Still not satisfied with the sound, he forged Santa Lucia with long-time friend and saxophone player Byron Russell and percussionist Mario Zetina, an opportunity to create music that Castillo said is certainly a new sound for Canada but popular in the United States.
Tickets for the Squamish show are $10 each and can be purchased at the Howe Sound Inn. For more information about the band visit
