Albie Monterrosa - Lead Vocals & Guitars

James Guerrero - Vocals, Percussion

Andy Letke - Vocals, Piano, Organ

Chris Guice - Vocals, Bass Guitar

Jimmy Farkas - Lead Guitar

Chris Stone - Drums

Dori Erickson - Voice

Deseree Spinks - Voice

a little history...

Although the mixing of Latin rhythms and rock music is not new, deSoL was founded on and continues to create its own unique take on these styles. Straddling two distinct worlds is challenging but, ultimately, satisfying according to Albie Monterrosa, lead singer and guitarist. He and percussionist James Guerrero grew up together in the New York City neighborhood of Hollis, Queens experiencing this challenge on a daily basis. Both men are first generation Latinos; Albie’s parents came to this country in the late ‘60s from El Salvador and James’ from Mexico. They were raised speaking Spanish at home and being exposed to the music, food and customs of their parent’s countries and then matured in the schools and on the streets of the epicenter of American culture, New York City. Soaking in the rock and disco of the late 70’s and seeing the birth of hip-hop first hand in the early 80’s with local guys like Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J making it big, gave Albie and James some hope that they could somehow do it too, but how?

Fast forward 15 years. Albie had moved to New Jersey and gotten involved with the local music scene around Asbury Park. In and out of several straight-ahead rock bands that went nowhere, Albie eventually decided to try his hand at being a solo singer-songwriter, organizing and running several open mic nights. There came a point in 1999 when he was ready to pack it in. Discouraged and disappointed with the scene, he decided to take a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands to reflect and decide what to do next. One night, while sitting on the beach strumming his guitar, he met a woman named Wanda who was a percussion player. She sat in for an impromptu jam session and while he played some of his pop/rock songs she accompanied with traditional Latin rhythms. He says it was like a door opened that night and directed him to take his songs and delve into his heritage and draw on the ancient rhythms of the African and Hispanic cultures that he came from, marrying the old with the new. As surprising as it seems, it had never occurred to him before. “As a kid growing up in New York City, it was important to establish your own identity, even though my parent’s music was playing constantly in the house, we tried to rebel against it and become more Americanized. It wasn’t until I got older and realized the importance of being true to my heritage that I began to accept all those old songs we’d hear over and over as belonging to me and not just my folks. When I started blending those ancient rhythms with my songs it was the most natural thing; finally, I discovered what I should be doing.”
As soon as he got back from his trip, he began making calls to his musician friends to find Latin percussion players. It wasn’t an easy task. One of the first calls was to reach out to his old friend James who he’d fallen out of touch with. Invited down to an open mic, James made his legendary debut snapping his fingers for every song. Even though he didn’t have an instrument, Albie was impressed by his stage presence and his commitment to the performance so he invited him to form a band then and there. Through word of mouth, they came across Armando Cabrera another local musician who was born in Cuba, raised in Puerto Rico and came to the US at age 18. He brought an extensive knowledge of traditional rhythms and, more importantly, an enormous drive to succeed at whatever he set his mind to. After a series of not-so memorable gigs as a trio (Prima’s Furniture Store grand opening) Albie charged Armando with rounding up a group of players to form a full band on the lines of Santana or Los Lobos, groups who had had success blending two cultures.

In his inimitable style, Armando combed the area placing ads, hanging posters, visiting every local music store, club and bar and asking for recommendations. The next to join was Ron Alessio. Ron, who was drumming in another local band that Albie knew from around the area, was interested in Albie’s plan to create a new style of group with an emphasis on rhythm and percussion.

One day while walking through the mall with his kids, Armando came upon The Organ Club of America and was entertained by a young man giving an organ workshop to a group of elderly citizens. He was so taken by his presentation that he approached him afterward and invited him to come and try out for the band. Andy Letke agreed and came to his audition with a bass guitar. It wasn’t until after the second jam session that they discovered he was really a piano player and had him switch roles leaving the bass position unfilled.

Then one night just before Christmas 2000, Albie, James and Armando attended a holiday party at a club in Red Bank, NJ. The band that night consisted entirely of the employees of the local web design firm hosting the party with one exception: Chris Guice who had been hired to play bass for the gig as there was no bass player in the company. It was an easy gig for extra money before the holiday and during the set break he met the three amigos who complemented his playing and they invited him to come audition for their Latin band. The blonde/blue eyed Chris declined, sighting no real knowledge of Latin music but they pressed him to give it a try and he agreed to come to an audition after the holidays.

The first rehearsal on January 3, 2001 had Albie, Armando, James, Andy, Chris and Ron jamming on Santana, Los Lobos and Buena Vista Social Club song as well as a few of Albie’s originals. The group seemed to gel and have fun so more rehearsals were scheduled. Armando discovered that an acquaintance of his from work was a guitar player and invited Rich Soto to come jam. The addition of one extra player on electric guitar seemed to push the chemistry of the band over the edge and one month after they first got together, deSoL was a seven piece group.

In native cultures and religions seven is a sacred and mystical number. It represents the seven directions: North, South, East, West, Above, Below and Within. From the start, the group placed a heavy emphasis on this number and the unique chemistry of this many people in the group. Although there have been a few personnel changes over the years, the band remains committed to and relies upon this magical number for the bands power and success. It is also in keeping with the important aspects of family and community in the Hispanic culture and the group feels at ease among a large group.

deSoL performed their first show on Feb 17, 2001 at Kenny’s Castaways in NYC. Through Armando’s persistence at booking the band, the spring and summer began filling up with gigs. In addition to playing the local night clubs and restaurants, the group took anything and everything that was offered including birthday parties, a Polish wedding, a retirement party and a seemingly endless string of local outdoor gazebo concerts. Being contracted to provide several hours of music for these events pushed the band to learn a variety of covers as well as traditional Latin music and helped them to hone their skills improvising and extending the songs to fill the time. In the meantime, the group continued to work on Albie’s original material and began to compose more songs as a group to build their repertoire. By the end of the summer they had earned enough money to go into the studio and commit these songs to CD. With the help of local producer Steve Greenwell, who taught the group about the economy of arranging for seven instruments, the group began to solidify the vision of deSoL, creating their sound in the studio and producing what they thought would be demos for some future release.

The recording was completed in December 2001 and the band decided the songs were good enough to release as a CD. In January 2002, they formed a label, Sazon Records, in order to handle the business end of things and began selling Spanish Radio at their shows and in local music stores, eventually selling 6000 copies on their own. Shows continued through the year and eventually the CD made its way into the hands of Franke Previte, the Academy Award winning songwriter, who lived nearby. He came to see the band perform and expressed an interest in helping the band along by shopping the CD to some of his music industry contacts. What began as a friendly consulting agreement soon saw Franke begin to help book the band, getting their fees increased, garnering publicity, setting up advertising and organizing showcases for various labels in NYC and, finally, making the formal move to managing the band. He secured a booking agency for the group to get them on the road and hired a publicist to promote them to larger news and magazine outlets. This work came to fruition in 2004 when they accepted an offer to record for Nashville-based Curb Records who were impressed by deSoLs live performances and the music on Spanish Radio. The band went back into the studio to record 5 new songs for the first release among them the song “Karma,” originally an afterthought to the sessions. In late 2004 and into 2005, the band began touring extensively across the country opening for The Legendary Wailers, R.E.M., Widespread Panic, Los Lonely Boys and performing at many of the country’s premier music festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits and Langerado. The debut CD, deSoL, was released in 2005 and “Karma” was eventually chosen as the first single. In addition to the 200+ gigs that year, the band made stops at many radio and TV stations promoting the single and, by September of 2005, Karma had reached #5 at the AAA radio format.

The group continued to tour and promote the CD into 2006 and eventually released a live EP of music from a series of shows at Antone’s in Austin, Texas titled Live/Vivo. The extensive time on the road had taken its toll on some of the players and Soto and Armando decided to leave the group. Kevin Ansell, a founding member of Burlington, VT's Zero Gravity, and a one-time resident of the Virgin Islands himself, was recommended by a mutual friend. He seamlessly filled his role as he had experience playing with Jazz, Rock, Flamenco and Island groups.

The end of 2006 saw the band engaged to perform for the troops in the Middle East. They spent the month of October in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Djibouti, visiting military bases and performing for our enlisted men and women. The guys have described this trip as an honor and a life changing experience in their tour blog and shared some of their adventures in a series of videos on their deSoLTv channel on YouTube. They’re in the process of editing these and other videos from their trip into a feature length film for DVD release in the near future. Over the years, the band has developed a strong sense of the power of music to unite people and has taken every opportunity to share this philosophy with its audiences. They’ve recounted many insightful conversations with soldiers during the trip and were pleased to receive accolades from the diverse collection of men and women who were thankful for the support and grateful for the uplifting music.

On returning to the states in November of 2006, after the grueling travel abroad, the band all agreed it was time for a break from touring to decompress and reflect on their experiences. They rented a house in New Jersey and spent the next two months jamming and writing material for a new album. 

Recording on the album that would be entitled On My Way, began in December ‘06 and continued until April of this year. With the exception of a few one-off shows, the band concentrated on evolving their sound and distilling the past few years into a thoughtful collection of songs that both builds upon their exciting rhythms and explores classic pop songwriting.

The first single from the album, "Sing It All Night," an out-of-the-box airplay favorite at the Triple A radio format, gave strong indication that deSoL's unique blend of music and cultures has, in fact, struck a chord with a broad cross-section of people. The group spent the Summer and Fall of '07 once again on the road and after taking a short break for the holidays, got back out and continued traveling. Whilst on tour, Andy and C6 devised and completed their plan to produce, direct and edit the video for "On My Way" in February, March and April. May was spent visiting radio stations in support of the new single which rose to #10 on the charts. 

Summer of 2008: deSoL selected a treatment for the Heineken sponsored Sing It All Night video, traveled to L.A. for an excellent shoot with USC Grad students Brent McHenry (director), Phil Hodges (producer), and Nadia Munla (producer). This year also brought some new blood to the scene, veteran Asbury Park guitar player Jimmy Farkas (Borialis) joins the group as well as the long time dream of adding female backups to the sound: the deSoL Sisters (Dori & Des).

2009 and beyond: Sonically creative, deSoL is working on new material for a 2010 release. Visually creative, Dori (Choreographer/Co-Director) and Andy (Co-Director/Co-Producer) teamed up with young NYC director/producer, Stratton Bailey, to create a music video for the upbeat song Mona Lisa. Editing is slated to be finished by January - a Premier Party for the video and other videos is in the works.  Oh, yes, deSoL has been busy playing both public and private events for some notable charities/fund raisers. See them this Fall and Winter...be ready to dance, celebrate, and enjoying the beauty of life with your friends!