BOSTON, MA — Photographed and reported by WMFO DJ Mia Rose from “Matter Of Fact…”

It’s always a pleasure to see the guys from Mustard Service. I saw and met them for the first time 4 years ago at the Gibson Showroom, a small venue in Miami, where the band is originally from. I had no clue what I was getting myself into, and I almost didn’t go to the event, but I am so glad that things worked out and was able to witness Mustard Service for the first time in all their glory.

Throughout the past 4 years, I have had the opportunity to catch them at more shows. In fact, right when the covid quarantine was lifted, Mustard Service was the first band I saw after almost a year of being in lockdown. It was a hot summer night at Space Park in Miami, and the band gave us a welcome back to normality by entertaining us with around an hour of their music.

I then saw them a couple more times before I left for college in Boston, thinking it was going to be a long time before I would get the opportunity to see them again.

Turns out, I was wrong. In October 2021, the band announced their East Coast tour, which was going to take place in the Spring of 2022, with one of the stops being Boston. I was lucky enough to catch them at the show when they played at the Middle East in Cambridge. The room capacity was about 150, and the show sold out. The venue lent itself to keeping the event very intimate and memorable.

Fast forward to a year later. The band once again announced that they were going to tour for both Fall of 2022 and Spring of 2023, with another stop in Boston. This time, they were set to play at the Sonia, which is a bigger space also located at the Middle East. The space holds about 200 more people, bumping up the capacity to around 350, but it wasn’t an issue for the band to keep the show as intimate and special as the last one.

There were two openers that took the stage before Mustard Service. First up was Johnny Dynamite and his band The Bloodsuckers. Johnny entranced us with his synth driven melodies and upbeat tempos that has us moving all throughout the performance, almost reminiscent of a contemporary version of The Pet Shop Boys.
Next up was the bands’ direct support, the 20-year-old Ryan Wright. Her ethereal voice brewed an interesting but charming chemistry between her sound and her angsty lyrics. She immediately captivated the audience with her personal yet universal messages.

It was finally time for Mustard Service to take the stage. Marco welcomed us and thanked us all for showing up. “It’s been a year a month and 15 days since you guys were here!” someone yelled from the audience. “And we are glad to be back,” said the band. Right when they were all settled in their respective spots, they did not hesitate to start their set. I will say this time and time again, but I will never get tired of hearing the band play those opening notes from their #1 hit single “Taking Up Space”. Every time they get on the stage, it’s always an unforgettable and memorable experience.

This time, I had the incredible opportunity of shooting press and interviewing the band for 91.5 WMFO Medford Radio. I was added to the guest list for the event for the press shoot. Marco, the lead singer, went to look for me outside right after their soundcheck at the venue, and he brought me in to the green room, where we conducted the interview. Check it out down below! I had such a great time talking to the guys, and like I tell them, it’s always a pleasure.

Mia: All right, hi guys!
Band: Hi. Hola. Hola, como estan? Hi!
Mia: If you could all introduce yourselves…
Touteaux: I’m Touteaux, I’m the bassist of Mustard Service.
Adam: My name’s Adam, I play drums.
Nuchi: I’m Nuchi, I play guitar.
Marco: I’m Marco, I don’t do anything.
Leo: I’m Leo, I play keys.
Mia: I’m here with Mustard Service. Thank you, guys, for taking the time out to do this little interview. It’s been four years since I saw you guys for the first time and genuinely changed my views on the music scene, like you guys were the reason that I started getting really deep into the music scene. So, yeah, you guys hold a really special place in my heart for music.
Marco: 305 Gang (shows his 305 tattoo).
Mia: I should get one!
Marco: My only regret is not getting it bigger. I wish it was a little bigger, my 305 tattoo.
Mia: Well, you guys have been touring, right? You guys went West Coast over the fall?
Marco: We did West Coast over the fall. We went all the way up to Seattle, the complete opposite side of the country for us. And now we’re hitting the Northeast.
Mia: That’s really wonderful. How have you guys enjoyed the tour so far?
Leo: Good. Yeah, it’s been great. That fall tour was fantastic. And now we still have three weeks to go? So, we’re good, we’re just getting started.
Mia: How’s the experience been for everybody?
Adam: Not gonna lie, East Coast tour is lots of fun and I’m not gonna compare but you know I like the East Coast tour a lot.
Marco: You like shorter driving times?
Adam: Shorter driving, no Texas, you know that’s very big. It’s a very big state, but it’s my favorite state in the country.
Mia: Texas is your favorite state?
Nuchi: This is from driving. We love our fans in Texas.
Adam: But it takes 20 hours to drive through it.
Mia: Wow, really? It also takes a while to get out of Florida too, no?
Band: Oh yeah.
Mia: Well, not as long as 20 hours. Anyways…
Touteaux: I think every city has its own thing, which is, that’s the cool part. I don’t know.
Leo: Yeah, I actually enjoy the longer drives, personally. I like the longer drives, especially because…
Marco: Because his bandmates fall asleep, and they don’t have to talk to him. (laughter)
Leo: That (laughter), and also, usually, I feel like up in the East Coast, it’s a lot more of intimate, thinner venues. This was not a great example because it’s pretty big, use up in the east are like more like compact and like more vertical a lot of time whereas like out in Texas you’ll just get a ginormous you know stage or something like that not always but they have big parking lots with parking lots and like with the green room is like you know twice the size of this like it’s you know
Marco: …Yeah in the East Coast a lot of the I really played at this place called the Kung Fu Necktie and all those old buildings it’s like you have to squeeze through corridors to get to different rooms. The bathrooms are this tiny. I just took a shower in New York, and I was like this, all scrunched up.
Leo: When you park outside, you don’t know if that’s even a parking spot. It’s just taking over half the street.
Mia: It’s kind of like here.
Leo: Yeah, kind of like here.
Adam: But luckily the Middle East has nice parking right outside. Yeah, I gotta go anywhere. No three block walks.
Marco: The venue, not the region of the world. Yes.
Nuchi: We’re at the Middle East. Yeah. The Sonia room.
Mia: Yes, we are in the Middle East and Boston in Cambridge. Just to make that clear. Alright, I’m just gonna ask you a couple of questions. OK, so how do you think living in Miami has shaped the sound of Mustard Service?
Nuchi: Oof, is that for me? I mean, definitely a lot. Like an incredible amount of Latin influence. I don’t know if you guys want to state your influence…
Leo: I was going to say the same, like Latin, l there’s everything from like almost like Brazilian like samba influence in our music and like bossa nova to even like down to just beats that might be you know something more Caribbean
Marco: Yeah, Pleasantries (song) has a calypso beat. And also R&B Miami is a very hip-hoppy kind of city so we’ve got some of our stuff isn’t like as surf rocky but I think we’re very versatile in the sense that we can we love surf rock we also love hip-hop we love Latin music we love reggaeton and I think the fact that Miami is so culturally diverse that means that we can kind of fuse all those things into what is our music
Mia: It definitely comes through and you guys’ sound, you’re just so unique
Marco: Thank you! I was also going to say we often worry like when we were in the studio for this last record, we were like can I cuss? We were like f**k! Like all this s**t sounds so different like are the fans gonna be receptive to the fact that it doesn’t sound like taking up space or like etc. but for the most part the fans have really liked everything.
Leo: Another thing to mention also is like the indie scene and like the band scene in Miami is not as like big as like most other cities so if we grew up in LA and we were starting a band in LA or in Seattle or in places where there’s a lot more of a band scene we might have been more like geared towards following a certain sound and like certain influences from the scene but in this case it’s just like we’re kind of doing whatever you know comes to mind and we don’t have any sort of expectations or limitations.
Mia: You guys kind of touched upon the second question that I had about how since all of you guys have some Latin heritage, how do you think that the Latin music scene has influenced you guys?
Marco: Yeah, we love reggaeton. Yeah.
Mia: Really?
Marco: We love salsa…
Leo: We have a song in Spanish…
Adam: Bachata…
Marco: Cumbia. Bachata. All of it. Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, ch…
Marco: We all come from different Hispanic backgrounds and listen to different music
Mia: Where is everyone from?

Well, Nuch and I, this is Touteaux speaking, we have a lot of Argentinean… well, our family is Argentinian…or Argentine…
Leo: …Where are you from? (kiddingly)
Touteaux: Well, our family is Argentinian… I just said Argentina like seven times. No, because some people say Argentina, some people say Argentine. I don’t even know what it is. But whatever.
Mia: I don’t know the right way to say it.
Touteaux: Me neither. And I’m literally, I’m not going to say it again…
Leo: My family is from Uruguay, which is like Argentina’s cousin next door.
Marco: My mother is Mexican, and my dad is Cuban, so I’m a bit of a mutt.
Nuchi: Oh, well yeah, Touteaux also answered. My family is from Argentina.
Adam: My dad’s Cuban, my mom’s from Philly, baby.
Mia: What has been your guys’ biggest musical influence?
Marco: Captain Beefheart, for sure, I really like Bach (laughter from band) All kidding aside Jobim for sure I think is Antonio Carlos Jobim to be precise a Brazilian bossa nova, I know bossa nova is supposed to be like intro to jazz and stuff, and it’s kind of true…
Leo: …Like if you play the guitar and you try to learn a Mustard Service song like and it’s kind of true.
Leo: If you play the guitar and you’ve tried to learn a Master Service song, it’s definitely reminiscent of bossa nova.
Mia: I can tell you that I’ve been one of those to try.
Marco: Hell yeah.
Mia: So, what does it mean to be a band from Miami and tour around the country? What experiences have you been able to share together, and how has that influenced the way that you think and the way that you make music.
Leo: We were just talking today about how many states we’ve been to. What was it? 39.
Mia: Wow, that’s crazy.
Marco: Yeah, we’re missing Alaska, Hawaii, (laughter) and the other 11.
Mia: Yeah, those are a little rougher to drive to.
Nuchi: No, we get really happy when we, for example, I think, we never thought when we started, we’d play in Omaha, Nebraska, for example.
Adam: Going to Des Moines, Iowa.
Nuchi: Right, on this tour. And you have kids coming out and singing our lyrics. Or their parents are even taking them to our shows, and they know our lyrics.
Adam: That’s the coolest thing ever. Shout out to all the parents that take their kids out to shows. It means a lot to us and to the kids. That’s awesome.
Nuchi: Or we’ve played in Phoenix and then you see two fans that are like, we flew in from Alaska. And we’re like, wow, you’re at a DIY venue in Phoenix to watch us. Like you had no idea you were gonna play at a DIY venue.
But we’re here and just, yeah. It’s, I also love, when we play Hijo de Papa, I love seeing non-Spanish speakers sing every line.
Mia: Oh, yeah, yeah, so good, yeah.
Marco: One last thing about the fact that we’re like a band from Miami, which I think is rare. Like I know there’s a Magic City hippies who are touring Jacuzzi boys toured for a long time, but I’ve noticed especially with our direct support Ryan Wright, I talked to her dad Todd…Yeah, he’s super cool by the way, they’re lovely we love them, but a lot of people are from outside of Miami are like you know everybody knows a producer who they’re tight with or like everyone knows a lot about gear, and us not having had that kind of like older brother or older cousin or friend who was like, oh yeah, look at these pedals, look at this gear… We kind of just had to wing it, and we’re still winging it. So I think that for me, at least personally, is like the biggest difference I see of being from a band who’s on the peninsula, like the penis of Florida, on the tip, the urethra I call it, as opposed to being like from Austin, or Nashville, or LA, or somewhere where you’re surrounded by music and people who are into the same kind of music that we’re playing.
Mia: You guys have been together for how long already?
Adam: We are coming up to seven years now
Nuchi: Zest pop officially came out in 2017 and we put it on Soundcloud in 2016…
Mia: How’d you all meet? I don’t know this story…
Nuchi: Oh, damn. I’m going to start it. Touteaux and I are childhood friends. Our moms met on an airplane before we were born, so we’re good friends. And then I met Marco in high school. And then Marco met…
Marco: …I met Leo through an ex-girlfriend of mine. She’s not here anymore, but he is.
Leo: …Not dead…
Marco: Just kidding, Valentina. And then we met Adam through well, actually, through Leo.
Adam: Yeah. Leo and I have known each other since 6th grade. We went to Nautilus Middle School together, let’s go Sharks. And we went to Miami Beach senior high together and, go High Tides. And then I met these guys when we were in college.
Mia: You all went to what, FIU? Or hahaha…Not everybody went to FIU…
Adam: Marco did not go to FIU, but us four went to FIU.
Mia: Nice. Well, where do you see mustard service. In five, ten years from now?
Marco: It’s either homeless or at MSG. There’s no in between.
Adam: (laughter) Yeah, pretty much.
Mia: What do you think is the power of music?
Band: (collectively) Damn.
Mia: This one’s a thinker for sure, but it’s pretty solid, I would say.
Marco: Well, I have this is still weird for me, but we get kids who will come up and say our music has, like, saved them, and I don’t know what to say because I’m no, I feel like it’s a lot of responsibility, and I’m sometimes doing no better than those kids. But I think if something can help you out of a rut, I think that’s special. And I’ve certainly had music that has done that for me, and I’m happy that our music can do that for somebody else. I think that’s powerful.
Adam: I mean, music evokes emotion, really, and if you can feel something through music, that’s powerful.
Mia: And lastly, it was a pretty quick interview, I didn’t want to take up too much your time. If I were to open up your Spotify, apple music, whatever streaming service you use, what would I find? You kind of went over this earlier, too, but, like, what would I find if I was to do that right now?
Marco: Nuchi’s is the funniest. I think you should look at this.
Adam: Oh, our own personal Spotify?
Mia: Oh, yeah, your personal one.
Nuchi: Yeah, mine is all cumbia from Argentina, and Pantera.
Marco: Yeah. Nuchi will go one week. Well, he’ll listen to exclusively tangoes another week. Will he’ll listen to exclusively cumbia another week where it’s like classical music, like just Bach. I’m more of a sad boy. I listen to Elliot Smith. And Andy Shauf. God, I love Andy Shauf.
Nuchi: Shout out to all my listeners out there who listen to one song for a whole week.
Mia: That’s me.
Marco: Yeah, that’s me too. Right now, my song is I Love You by JW Francis. Amazing, it’s great.
Adam: I’ve Got Charlie Garcia, Oasis, Ween, Christopher Cross, Bad Bunny, Mom Jeans, Theo Katzman, to Perry Grip even… Why not? We got it all here.
Touteaux: I’ve been binging some ABBA, not gonna lie, oh, yeah. Super chill, super feel good um. And Bersuit. Always that’s. Always in there. Bersuit Vergarabat. They’re from Argentina.
Leo: From where?
Touteaux: FROM ARGENTINA! (laughter)
Adam: Bersuit is also a massive influence on Mustard service, not gonna lie. Yeah,
Marco: Bersuit is one of the bands that me, Touteaux and Nuchi, back when we were like 14 or 15 were just, it was almost like there was no other bands that existed. It was just beresweer.
Leo: If you listen to them, they’ll say, our music, I don’t think we have much in common, but
It’s the vibe. Well, there is maybe something, but you have to dig for it. And it’s just the fact that they would release whatever they wanted. Yeah. Like any from a rock song to like a punk song, to a cumbia, and we kind of do the same.
Mia: What about, what about you, Leo?
Leo: Oh, well, my Spotify is like, completely like ruined because I, uh, I teach for a living, so I’ll have like some songs that I like, like random, like a lot of jazz mainly. Um, so I’ll just be like obscure, you know, like really like deep cut jazz and then just randomly, like, Olivia Rodrigo just stuck in there randomly. Or like, um, what’s another random one?
Marco: Uh, marry me Juliet… Yeah… (laughter)
Leo: You know, TikTok songs and s**t. It’s just all over my, uh, my like randomly scattered throughout my like songs. Yeah. And I’m really bad at it, like I think it was last time they did like a Spotify wrapped. I like my most listened to song was I think like, Grenade by Bruno Mars or something, because I just have to keep listening to it to show a kid, like to teach them. And it was just like, now I just, my Spotify’s kind of, I need to, I need to maybe do the switch to something else so I can refresh, but it’s all right.
Mia: That’s good though. Yeah. Any, any closing remarks?
Marco: Where is this going out to?
Mia: WMFO Radio in Medford…
Marco: What’s your university?
Mia: …Tufts University.
Band: Oh, wow! We’re going to Tufts.
Adam: Should we drop some release dates?
Marco: Yeah, let’s do that. Yeah.
Adam: We got a new song coming out April 28th.
Marco: Can we say about the album yet?
Adam: I think so. I’m gonna go ahead and say it. There’s an album coming out August 15th…
Marco: Well, August sometime.
Mia: August-ish, you could say…
Adam: August-ish. There’s a full 13 song, full length LP being released by Mustard.
Also, listen to her music. Or we’re gonna be under your bed when you go to sleep.
Mia: Thank you guys so much!
Band: Thank you Mia!
Leo: This is going to Tufts, you said? Yes. Shout out Alex Jaramillo if anyone knows him from Tufts.
Mia: Anyways, thank you guys, it’s always a pleasure. Excited to see you guys perform!

Band: Lets party!