Gato Loco Live

An interview with Stefan Zeniuk of Gato Loco and a live set from the band, playing from their latest album The Enchanted Messa. The album is inspired by the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, Gato Loco reinterprets Giuseppe Verdi’s 1874 mass for the dead, the Messa da Requiem.

Formed in 2006 by NYC native Stefan Zeniuk, the group takes its cues from scratchy pre-war Cuban records and vintage betty boop cartoons, while freely incorporating a modern schizoid mentality. Incorporating equal parts latin, rock, and jazz, Gato Loco is not genre music. They have developed the surprising connection between early mambo and salsa of the 50s & 60s, early punk of the 70s, and post-modern avant-garde jazz of the 80s, with a group comprised of musicians, individually having played and/or recorded with Vampire Weekend, The Violent Femmes, Dillinger Escape Plan, Wheatus, Duncan Sheik, Bright Light Bright Light, Zakir Hussain, Lauren Hill, Zola Jesus, T.S. Monk, Brazilian Girls, Slavic Soul Party, and more.

The current touring group consists of Stefan Zeniuk (tenor and bass saxes), Tim Vaughn (trombone), Joe Exley (tuba), Lilly Maase (guitars), Ari Folman-Cohen (bass), Kevin Garcia (drums), and Rich Stein (percussion).

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