From Paradigm Spring 2021, Issue 6.1 

PRODUCTOS DE WILMAS

Meet your new favorite local band, coming soon to a phone near you.

BY KARI HAMANAKA

“Oh! One other thing! Throne. How people call this a throne. ‘You can borrow my throne.’”

Andres, the drummer of Productos de Wilmas, said “throne” with dramatic emphasis. 

“You’re like his therapist,” guitarist Gera said to the lone non-band member present at P.D.W.’s practice as Andres quickly, but with exacting movements, placed the drum seat just right before telling bassist Kevin to take a seat. 

They’re trying to pull off a Crickets-inspired photo shoot (their idea) from just outside their Wilmington practice space. The results of this impromptu photo shoot are hilarious, topping a night of side-splitting guffaws, long drawn out “stooooopid” and “one other things” doled out from Andres, in-between practice and fielding questions about why punk got so serious, growing up in Wilmington and their love of music. 

P.D.W. has no Instagram. Their videos on YouTube were uploaded through a friend’s account – so they see the comments; they just can’t or don’t respond. And they’re a three piece, so if you’re waiting for them to do something cool beyond playing the music during their set, Andres would caution you not to. 

“We’re not sick performers and there’s three of us,” he said. “We don’t have a lead singer so it’s like, dude, don’t just stare at us waiting for something cool to happen. Just, like, hear the music and do whatever you want, dance around even.” 

Offered Gera, “We’re not Kiss with fireworks.” 

“I would just want [the audience] to know to stay after the first song,” Kevin said straight faced as everyone started laughing. “It gets better.” 

The trio began in late 2018 with a hardcore punk sound circa the 1980s, giving them a uniqueness among many of their local contemporaries and making them one of the most underrated bands regionally. 

P.D.W. has released three comps, including its “No Progress,” four-song demo with the tracks “Looking Beat,” “This Generation,” “18 Plus” and “D.T.P.” They’ve also appeared on Paradigm’s “Discourses” and “Bad Music For Stupid People” compilations as they now prepare for a new album this year that they hope to release on cassette. 

“EP coming soon,” Andres said. “EP coming soon.” 

“Coming soon to your local…,” Kevin began. 

“Your local phone – to your nearest YouTube,” Andres added. “I’m hoping it’s 10 songs.” 

“That’s an album, not an EP,” Gera said to laughter. 

Gera and Kevin – and even Andres – call Andres the Glenn Danzig of the group, writing all of P.D.W.’s song lyrics and acting as a band manager of sorts at times. 

“We’ll send topics and shit but that’s as far as we go. I’m not a fucking lyricist,” Gera said. “He’s like the fucking Eminem over here.” 

This elicited from Andres a resounding, “Stooooopid.” 

In all seriousness, the drummer/singer/lyricist said he’s not interested in singing about anything too stereotypically punk, such as, “Fuck the government. Fuck this. Fuck that,” Andres said. “It’s just stuff we relate to. Especially now, our new songs, the lyrics are just fun, everyday typical shit: working, hanging out with girlfriends, playing songs.” 

The three largely grew up together, with Gera and Andres going back to about kindergarten and Kevin, who is the same age as Andres’ younger brother, hanging out with them around the time Kevin was in the fifth grade. 

They were skating together and then playing soccer together before they got into music initially jamming together before P.D.W. for a couple years playing mostly local parties as a separate band. They’d go to backyard shows and see bands play, thinking to themselves they could do the same and maybe even better, hence the decision to start the band. 

Even if P.D.W. didn’t exist, they said they’d still be hanging out together.

“I feel like a lot of bands, it’s like their jobs almost [to practice],” Gera said. “They only see each other when they go to a gig or at practice and it’s like a clock-in, clock-out kind of thing. It’s regimented. We’re going to see each other regardless.” 

They say the rare times they get serious is when they’re trying to learn a new song – usually created a day before a show. 

In fact, it’s not uncommon to catch them stuffed in Kevin’s car with Gera’s mini amp and Andres writing lyrics, trying to come up with something new. 

Creative pursuits largely drive their interests outside of work and the band. It’s gaming for Gera and drawing for Kevin. 

“Music. Music. More music,” Andres said. 

“Music is a must have,” Kevin added. 

Audiophiles would be an accurate way of describing them. These are the die-hards who go to Amoeba’s grand reopening, attend record swaps, read zines, peruse record store aisles, go to New York to see Antidote and just feasting on a steady stream of sound. If they’re not sleeping, they’re listening to music or playing it or reading about it. And, that’s all music – not just punk – that they’re listening to. In fact, oldies were playing during this interview. 

It’s a finer point that’s relevant when one looks at the cancel attempt online against the band by some last year, a short-lived moment started because someone saw Skrewdriver’s 1977 album hanging from their practice space walls. They like the music on the first album; clearly, they’re not pushing the band’s later messaging. 

“I wasn’t surprised, but I was like damn,” Andres said of the backlash. “It’s funny to me. They came here, they jammed, they were in my room kicking it. My parents brought them food and then they go on the internet like ‘Fuck these fools.’ It’s, like, you know me; we’re not racists. In a way, too, we’re not trying to hide it but we’re not like, ‘Oh, look.’” 

“Yeah, because at that point it’s just trying to go for shock value and that’s not what we’re trying to do,” Gera added. 

“Just internet drama. It was many reasons, but that’s one of the reasons we deleted our band Instagram,” Andres said. “Nowadays, the thing is you have to have an Instagram to get shows.” 

They played that social media game at least initially when the band first formed to jumpstart the interest, but at this point they said most people are reaching out to them on their own to play and P.D.W.’s typically playing nearly every weekend. 

“All we really care about is playing shows. Just playing shows,” Andres said. 

The careful crafting of posts, plotting engagement and counting likes some bands partake in, in an attempt to beat – or play along – with the Instagram algorithm is unappealing to the three.  

“That makes it more like a job then,” Gera said.

Andres put it more bluntly: “I think it’s fucking annoying. I wish we could have just started playing shows like how we do now [when the band first started], but I know the first step is you have to start an Instagram. Then record something. I had hit up people saying ‘I have this band’ and they’d be like ‘Oh, well, let me hear your music.’” 

Kevin pointed out P.D.W. lucked out with its first show, at a Compton venue in late 2018. They showed up, asked to play and, as luck had it that night, a band dropped and the show organizer added them to the final spot on the lineup.  

“For a long time, this fool [Kevin] would swear that first show we sounded so good and there was nothing like that first show,” Andres said. 

“I think it was the stage,” Kevin said. 

Since then, they’ve worked their way into backyards and venues, persistent in just wanting to be added to a lineup, and it’s won them some nice accolades along the way: they said someone once likened them to a Mexican version of the Zero Boys – Cero Boys, they were told. More recently, Mark Zamudio, columnist for this zine and singer of O.C. punk band The Fag Hags, complimented them – a high point for P.D.W.

“That’s an achievement,” Kevin said. 

“We like The Fag Hags a lot,” Andres said. “Those fools, after that Pedro [summer 2019] show, I was telling everyone they were my new favorite local band.”  

They’re contrarians in some ways, bucking the social media craze, listening to and liking what they want to and it’s clearly winning them a steady stream of fans. The pendulum on what defines contrarian has a way of swinging back and forth over time. 

Andres said he always has grand plans of dispensing positive messages to the audience, but then ultimately ends up getting caught up in playing. Although, there seems to be no shortage of words of wisdom typically flowing out of him.  

“Oh! Here’s another thing,” he started. “I’m not saying to write this down, but I just want to throw it out there, in a way, I don’t expect a lot of people to like us because I feel like we don’t make songs that we think people will like. We make songs that we think sound cool to us. Say we give you a list of bands, our influences, if you don’t like those bands, you’re probably not going to like us. And that’s cool. There’s two sides to everything. Like when people say, ‘Oh, punk, it’s not about money’ and then you have bands like the Sex Pistols who went big. It contradicts itself, but what are you going to do? That’s how it is. There’s two sides to everything. So, in a way, I’m kind of glad we’re not all that popular. I don’t think I want to be all popular. If it happens, cool, but I feel like a lot of people do shit that they think is going to get them big. And, another thing....”

He begins talking about promoters and the need to have at least 1,000 followers or more in order to get on the bill of shows, going on to mention the band No Ma’am and how they’re just regular guys who like to jam. Same mentality, he said, before looping back around to reiterate the music they’re into is not what the majority of people like as if to say maybe the best kept secrets are regular dudes who are never on social media and like what they like.   

Gera phrases it another way, more succinctly. “If I can summarize this in one phrase: Quality over quantity. Just because you sell a bunch of records and have tons of fans, doesn’t mean you’re good. And, that’s why Green Day exists.” 

▶ Next Show: April 24, Compton

▶ Reach the band here on Instagram @_420rpm