Today, we’d like to introduce you to Paco Estrada. Paco was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Ezra Vancil.
Paco, thank you so much for joining us today. We’d love for you to bring our readers up to speed – can you introduce yourself and share your story?
I was born into music. My father was a preacher, my mother a teacher, and every room in the house had instruments, cassette recorders, stereos and speakers. Being a singer/songwriter was unavoidable and inevitable. I tried my hand at songwriting at 8 or 9, showcasing my first songs to my parents, but really dove in as a teenager with a band and our trusty four track tape recorder. I spent hours daily after school from age 13-18 whittling away at ideas, playing them live, recording them, getting feedback from friends, and making mix tapes and burned CDs to get my songs out there. I can fortunately say things are still very much the same now, as I live the life of a full time professional singer/songwriter.
Please talk to us about your music.
The signing of my rock band SouthFM to MCA/Geffen Records in 2003 was a catapult into an alternate universe that allowed me to quit my last day job and never look back. As the wave of my work with SouthFM(Drama Kids(2003), Swallowing The Pill(2005)) ended I released several solo albums as Paco Estrada(Closure:The Belton Tx Sessions(2007), The Definite & Indefinite…(2011), How I Spent My Summer Vacation(2013), & Bedtime Stories(2015)) and as Paco Estrada & One Love(The Anatomy Of Letting Go(2009). In 2018 my current band, Heart Of The City, debuted a Self Titled release along with an array of singles, a few EPs, and Christmas songs since then. Along the way I have written with a plethora of other artists who have released our cowrites but the most successful were released by the modern rock band Nothing More. As a contributor/cowriter on their last 4 albums, our album The Stories We Tell Ourselves(2017) received 3 Grammy Nominations. New SouthFM, Heart Of The City, & Paco Estrada albums are in the works and slated for release in 2024. All the mentioned albums are available on streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, & Amazon Music. Instagram: @pacoestradatv @heartofthecityband @southfmmusic @nothingmoremusic Current website www.heartofthecitymusic.com or www.linktr.ee/pacoestrada
Ezra Vancil has been a great friend to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Ezra and your experience with them.
In 2004 SouthFM began working on an album with producer David Castell(Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Deep Blue Something, Blue October) who had just finished an album with Ezra. Proud of what they had accomplished, Castell sat me down and played me the first few songs I had ever heard written by Ezra Vancil. Immediately captivated, I left the studio with a boot leg copy of the album on a burned CD titled “EZRA” in black sharpie.
The CD held so much knowledge, life lessons, nostalgia, brave emotional rawness, infectious melodies, incredible imagery and story telling that I dissected that album for years to come, studying it all like a college course in great songwriting, and I am certain you can still hear bits and pieces of it in songs I write today.
I put the songs on road trip mixes and CD mix tapes for friends, but I had no song titles, and with just the name “Ezra” I didn’t have much luck finding him on the internet in the mid 2000s.
10 years later, on a brisk Fall morning in 2013, while listening to him, I decided to type in “Ezra” and a few snippets of his lyrics into google search. I finally put a face to the voice of the inspiring songwriter I had come to love. He responded right away to a message I sent and was fortunately still playing shows. A month later I was the opening act for Ezra Vancil and sang back up for him on his set.
Ezra was everything I would expect a person to be who wrote such passionately profound songs. As I became his friend and glimpsed into his life I found myself submerged in a world of music video making, daily songwriting, nightly demoing, live shows, house concerts, social media content creating, podcast recording, video editing, and the best conversations brought on by connecting with the true heart and mind of a creative force and singer/songwriter. Ezra lives music. He doesn’t have time to talk any talk cause he is always busy walking the walk. Once an album is being released into the wild, he is already halfway done writing and recording the next. I have always admired his drive and work ethic, pouring his life into creating, into the art of storytelling, into moving others through music. Even as another 10 years have passed Ezra still writes songs that top his last ones, getting better and better, like some aging fine wine.
As I walk my own musical walk I look to Ezra for guidance, inspiration, and new ideas. Weather I am lending a hand for filming a video, lending a voice for a background vocal, or just dropping by to visit, my time with Ezra always leaves me with a sense of new purpose and urgency as a songwriter and creative force, challenged to do more with and for my gifts just like he does.
Website: www.linktr.ee/pacoestrada or www.heartofthecitymusic.com
Instagram: @pacoestradatv @heartofthecityband
Linkedin: /pacoestradatv
Twitter: @pacoestradatv @heartcityband
Facebook: /pacoestrada /pacoestradamusic /heartofthecitymusic /southfm
Youtube: /pacoestradatv /heartofthecitymusic
Image Credits:
Cory Albert Snelson Robert Chickering Jordan Buford
