Mexico City: Back In Black.

Mexico City launch Big Black Car at The Healer on Saturday.

“Mexico City are four young men with some beat up guitars, a broke down drum kit, a penchant for alcohol and an unquenchable thirst,” states local quartet’s bio. Sounds like a damn fine way to place them in Brisbane’s sprawling rock n roll scene, where over the last year they’ve shared stages with the likes of You Am I and the Dirtbombs. This weekend’s release of their Big Black Car EP finds them the rightful centre of attention.

“With the EP, we were after a nice live sound, which we got, I think,” guitarist Simon explains. “It sounds exactly like it was – the four of us playing live in someone’s living room. We all like albums that have that real junky sound, whether it’s On The Beach or White Light/White Heat. I guess that’s the sorta thing we were aiming for.”

Mexico City was once the most polluted place on Earth, not to mention a hot bed of drug related gangster activity and political instability. Do you think all the dirt and corruption is adding to the flavour of the band?

“Yeah it’s a pretty iconic name that evokes all those sorta images. We actually took the name from the Albert Camus novel, The Fall. The name of the seedy dockside bar where the book is centred is called Mexico City. It seemed like a fitting name. But yeah, Mexico City is a pretty interesting place, I was there recently for a wedding actually. The pollution is still pretty bad, and the city is just buildings, slums and then countryside. There are no idyllic outer suburbs around there! We were there only for a short while but it was pretty full on. People get right up in your face and my Spanish is, well, terrible, but I’d love to go back and spend some more time there.”

What’s coming up for the band?

“Firstly the EP is coming out on Rusty’s (You Am I) independent label, Illustrious Artists. Rusty has been talking it up and apparently a few people are already asking for it so that’s a good sign. Then it looks like we might be touring Sydney and Melbourne with the Mess Hall sometime in March. After that maybe some more local shows and then I think we wanna do some more recording. We’ve got a heap of new songs and it’d be good to do something interesting with them fairly soon.